Discussion assignment

* CHAPTER 15 *

"WHAT IS FREEDOM?": RECONSTRUCTION

1865-1877

FOCUS OUESTIONS What visions offreedom did the former slaves and slaveholders pursue in the postwar South?

• What were the sources, goals, and competing visions for Reconstruction?

What were the social and political effects of Radical Reconstruction in the South?

• What were the main factors, in both the North and South.for the overthrow of Reconstruction?

n the evening of January r z. r865, less than amonth after Union forces captured Savannah, Georgia, twenty leaders of the city's black com- munity gathered for a discussion with General William T. Sherman

and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Mostly Baptist and Methodist minis- ters, the group included several men who within a few years would assume prominent positions during the era of Reconstruction that followed the Civil War. Ulysses S. Houston, pastor of the city's Third African Baptist Church, and James Porter, an Episcopal religious leader who had operated a secret

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CHRONOLOGY • 1665 Special Field Order 15

Freedmen's Bureau established

Lincoln assassinated; Andrew Johnson becomes president

1065- Presidential Reconstruction 1867 Black Codes

1866 Civil Rights 8ill

Ku Klux Klan established

11367 Reconstruction Act of 1867

Tenure of Office Act

1- Radical Reconstruction of 1867

Impeachment and trial of President Johnson

Fourteenth Amendment ratified

lB69 Inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant

Women's rights organiza- tion splits into two groups

1870 Hiram Revels, first black U.S. senator

Fifteenth Amendment ratified

1670- Enforcement Acts 1871

1872 Liberal Republicans established

1873 Colfax Massacre

Slaughterhouse Cases

National economic depression begins

lfl76 United States v. Cruikshank

III 77 Bargain of 1877

school for black children before the war, in a few years would win election to the Georgia legislature. James D. Lynch, who had been born free in Baltimore and educated in New Hampshire, went on to serve as secretary of state ofMississippi.

The conversation revealed that the black leaders brought out of slavery a clear defini- tion of freedom. Asked what he understood by slavery,Garrison Frazier, a Baptist minister chosen as the group's spokesman, responded that it meant one person's "receiving by irre- sistible power the work of another man, and not by his consent." Freedom he defined as "placing us where we could reap the fruit of our own labor, and take care of ourselves."The way to accomplish this was "to have land, and turn it and till it by our own labor."Frazier in- sisted that blacks possessed "sufficient intelli- gence" to maintain themselves in freedom and enjoy the equal protection of the laws.

Sherman's meeting with the black leaders foreshadowed some of the radical changes that would take place during the era known as Reconstruction (meaning, literally, the re- building of the shattered nation). In the years following the Civil War, former slaves and their white allies, North and South, would seek to redefine the meaning and boundar- ies of American freedom and citizenship. Previously an entitlement of whites, these would be expanded to include black Amer- icans. The laws and Constitution would be rewritten to guarantee African-Americans, for the first time in the nation's history, rec- ognition as citizens and equality before the law. Black men would be granted the right to vote, ushering in a period of interracial democracy throughout the South. Black schools, churches, and other institutions would flourish, laying the foundation for the

664 • C:HAPTF.R 15 "WIIIII III 1"'f1t1dnlli?" HI-,';OIIALIIIClIOIl

morh-ru Atllt.tll Arne: lean community. Many of the advances of Reconstruc- lion would prove temporary, swept away during a campaign of violence in the South and the North's retreat from the ideal of equality. But Reconstruction laid the foundation for future struggles to extend freedom to all Americans.

All this, however, lay in the future in January r865. Four days after the meet- ing, Sherman responded to the black delegation by issuing Special Field Order ''). This set aside the Sea Islands and a large area along the South Carolina and (;eorgia coasts for the settlement of black families on forty-acre plots of land. Ill' also offered them broken-down mules that the army could no longer use. In Sherman's order lay the origins of the phrase "forty acres and a mule," which would reverberate across the South in the next few years. ByJune, some 40,000 freed slaves had been settled on "Sherman land." Among the emancipated slaves, Sberman's order raised bopes that the end of slavery would be accompa- nied by the economic independence that they, like other Americans, believed essential to genuine freedom.

THE MEANING OF FREEDOM With the end of the Civil War, declared an Illinois congressman in r865, the United States was a "new nation," for the first time "wholly free." The destruc- tion of slavery, however, made the definition of freedom the central question on the nation's agenda. "What is freedom?" asked Congressman James A. Garfield in 1865. "Is it the bare privilege of not being chained? If this is all, Ihen freedom is a bitter mockery, a cruel delusion." Did freedom mean simply the absence of slavery, or did it imply other rights for the former slaves, and It so, which ones: equal civil rights, the vote, ownership of property? During Reconstruction, freedom became a terrain of conflict, its substance open to til fferent, often contradictory interpretations. Out of the conflict over the meaning of freedom arose new kinds of relations between black and white southerners, and a new definition of the rights of all Americans.

Blacks and the Meaning of Freedom African-Americans' understanding of freedom was shaped by their experiences ,IS slaves and their observation of the free society around them. Tobegin with, Ireedorn meant escaping the numerous injustices of slavery-punishment by the 1.ISh,the separation of families, denial of access to education, the sexual exploita- 111m of black women by their owners-and sharing in the rights and opportu- uiues of Americ.: 11 rit izens. "If I cannot do like a white man," Henry Adams, an cm.uu ip.lll'" ,.1.1\'(' ill 1.llIli,;i,1I1a.told his former master in 1865."J am not free."

'1"'1': MI,:ANING 1)1·' I,'IU>:IWOM &66

Blocks relished the opportunity to demonstrate their liberation from the regulations, signi fican t and trivial, associated with slavery. They openly held mass meetings and religious services free of white supervision, and they acquired dogs, guns, and liquor, all barred to them under slavery. No longer required to obtain a pass from their owners to travel, former slaves through- out the South left the plantations in search of better jobs, family members, or simply a taste of personal liberty. Many moved to southern towns and cities, where, it seemed, "freedom was free-er."

Families in Freedom With slavery dead, institutions that had existed before the war, like the black family, free blacks' churches and schools, and the secret slave church, were strengthened, expanded, and freed from white supervision. The family was central to the postemancipation black community. Former slaves made remarkable efforts to locate loved ones from whom they had been separated under slavery. One northern reporter in r865 encountered a freedman who had walked more than 600 miles from Georgia to North Carolina, searching for the wife and children from whom he had been sold away before the war. Meanwhile, widows of black soldiers successfully claimed survivors' pen- sions, forcing the federal government to acknowledge the validity of prewar relationships that slavery had attempted to deny.

But while Reconstruction witnessed the stabilization of family life, freedom subtly altered relationships within the family. Emancipation increased the power of black men and brought to many black families the nineteenth-century notion that men and women should inhabit separate "spheres." Immediately after the Civil War, planters complained that freed- women had "withdrawn" from field labor and work as house servants. Many black women preferred to devote more time to their families than had been possible under slavery, and men considered it a badge of honor to see their wives remain at home. Eventually, the dire poverty of the black community woirld compel a far higher proportion of black women than white women to go to work for wages.

Church and School At the same time, blacks abandoned white-controlled religious institutions to create churches of their own. On the eve of the Civil War, 42,000 black Methodists worshiped in biracial South Carolina churches; by the end of ({l'construction, only 600 remained. The rise of the independent black church, wit h Ml'llwtiisls and Baptisls commanding the largest followings, redrew the

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Marriage of a Colored Soldier at Vicksburg, a sketch of a wedding ceremony by Alfred R. Wuud soon after the end of the Civil War.

religious map of the South. As the major institution independent of white control, the church played a central role in the black community. A place of worship, it also housed schools, social events, and political gatherings. Black nunisters came to playa major role in politics. Some 250 held public office during Reconstruction.

Another striking example of the freedpeople's quest for individual and «immunity improvement was their desire for education. Education, declared a Mississippi freedman, was "the next best thing to liberty." The thirst for learn- ing sprang from many sources-a desire to read the Bible, the need to prepare 101 the economic marketplace, and the opportunity, which arose in 1867, to t.ike part in politics. Blacks of all ages flocked to the schools established by northern missionary societies, the Freedmen's Bureau, and groups of ex-slaves. Northern journalist Sidney Andrews, who toured the South in r865, was impressed by how much education also took place outside ofthe classroom: "I had occasion very frequently to notice that porters in stores and laboring 1I1('n in warehouses, and cart drivers on the streets, had spelling books with them, and were studying them during the time they were not occupied with I hei r work." Reronst ruction also witnessed the creation of the nation's first black lOlIl'!!,l's, int lulling Fisk University in Tennessee, Hampton Institute in Viq~i(II.I, .uul l lnw.ud Univ('lsily in t 11(' nation's capital.

Political Freedom In a society that had made pot itical participation a core element offreedom, the right to vote inevitably became central to the former slaves' desire for empowerment and equality. As Frederick Douglass put it soon after the South's surrender in I865, "Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot. n In a "monarchial government," Douglass explained, no "special" disgrace applied to those denied the right to vote. But in a democracy, "where universal suffrage is the rule," excluding any group meant branding them with "the stigma of inferiority." As soon as the Civil War ended, and in some parts of the South even earlier, free blacks and emancipated slaves claimed a place in the public sphere. They came together in conventions, parades, and petition drives to demand the right to vote and, on occasion, to orga- nize their own "freedom ballots." Anything less than full citizenship, black spokesmen insisted, would betray the nation's democratic promise and the war's meaning.

Land, Labor, and Freedom Former slaves' ideas of freedom, like those of rural people throughout the world, were directly related to landownership. Only land, wrote Merrimon Howard, a freedman from Mississippi, would enable "the poor class to enjoy the sweet boon of freedom." On the land they would develop independent communities free of white control. Many former slaves insisted that through their unpaid labor, they had acquired a right to the land. "The property which they hold," declared an Alabama black convention, "was nearly all earned by the sweat of our brows." In some parts of the South, blacks in I865 seized property, insisting that it belonged to them. On one Tennessee plantation, former slaves claimed to be "joint heirs" to the estate and, the owner com- plained, took up residence "in the rooms of my house."

In its individual elements and much of its language, former slaves' defini- tion of freedom resembled that of white Americans-self-ownership, family stability, religious liberty, political participation, and economic autonomy. But these elements combined to form a vision very much their own. For whites, freedom, no matter how defined, was a given, a birthright to be defended. For African-Americans, it was an open-ended process, a transformation of every aspect of their lives and of the society and culture that had sustained slavery in the first place. Although the freedpeople failed to achieve full freedom as they understood it, their definition did much to shape national debate during the turbulent era of Reconstruction.

li68 • G II A "'n:H

MAsters without Slaves Most white southerners reacted to military defeat and emancipation with dismay, not only because of the widespread devastation but also because they must now submit to northern demands. "The demoralization is complete," w role aGeorgia girl. 'We are whipped, there isno doubt about it."The appalling loss of life, a disaster without parallel in the American experience, affected all classes of southerners. Nearly 260,000 men died for the Confederacy-more than one-fifth of the South's adult male white population. The wholesale destruction of work animals, farm buildings, and machinery ensured that economic revival would be slow and painful. In 1870, the value of property in the South, not counting that represented by slaves, was 30 percent lower than before the war.

Iwo maps of the Barrow plantation illustrate the effects of emancipation on rural life in the :;()lIth. In 1860, slaves lived In communal quarters near the owner's house. Twenty-one years Ii IIur, former slaves workmq as sharecroppers lived scattered across the plantation and had Ihalt own church nnd scltool

Planter families [,lu'd profound changes in the war's aftermath. Many lost not only their slaves but also their life savings, which they had patriotically invested in now-worthless Confederate bonds. Some, whose slaves departed the plantation, for the first time found themselves compelled to do physical labor. General Braxton Bragg returned to his "once prosperous" Alabama home to find "all, all was lost, except my debts." Bragg and his wife, a woman "raised in afflu- ence," lived for a time in a slave cabin.

Southern planters sought to implement an understanding of freedom quite different from that of the former slaves. As they struggled to accept the reality of emancipation, most planters defined black freedom in the narrowest manner. As journalist Sidney Andrews discovered late in 1865, "The whites seem wholly unable to comprehend that freedom for the negro means the same thing as free- dom for them. They readily enough admit that the government has made him free, but appear to believe that they have the right to exercise the same old con- trol." To southern leaders, freedom still meant hierarchy and mastery; it was a privilege not a right, a carefully defined legal status rather than an open-ended entitlement. Certainly, it implied neither economic autonomy nor civil and political equality. A Kentucky newspaper summed up the stance of much of the white South: the former slave was "free,but free only to labor."

The Free Labor Vision Along with former slaves and former masters, the victorious Republican North tried to implement its own vision of freedom. Central to its definition was the antebellum principle of free labor, now further strengthened as a defi- nition of the good society by the Union's triumph. In the free labor vision of a reconstructed South, emancipated blacks, enjoying the same opportunities for advancement as northern workers, would labor more productively than they had as slaves. At the same time, northern capital and migrants would energize the economy. The South would eventually come to resemble the "free society" of the North, complete with public schools, small towns, and independent farmers. Unified on the basis of free labor, proclaimed Carl Schurz, a refugee from the failed German revolution of 1848 who rose to become a leader of the Republican Party, America would become "a republic, greater, more populous, freer, more prosperous, and more powerful" than any in history

With planters seeking to establish a labor system as close to slavery as possi ble, and former slaves demanding economic autonomy and access to land, a long period of conflict over the organization and control of labor followed Oil plantations throughout the South. It fell to the Freedmen's Bureau, an .1gl'llly established by Congress in March 1865, to attempt to establish a work- illg rn'e I,lhlll syslem.

Thp Freedmen's Bureau Under the direction of O. O. Howard, a graduate of Bowdoin College in Maine and a veteran of the Civil War, the Bureau took on responsibilities that can only be described as daunting. The Bureau was an experiment in government social policy that seems to belong more comfortably to the New Deal of the 19305 or the Great Society ofthe r960s (see Chapters 21 and lS. respectively) than to nineteenth-century America. Bureau agents were supposed to establish schools, provide aid to the poor and aged, settle dis- putes between whites and blacks and among the freedpeople, and secure for former slaves and white Unionists equal treatment before the courts. "It is not ... in your power to fulfill one-tenth of the expectations of those who framed the Bureau," General William T. Sherman wrote to Howard. "I fear you have Hercules' task."

The Bureau lasted from 1865 to 1870. Even at its peak, there were fewer than 1,000 agents in the entire South. Nonetheless, the Bureau's achieve- ments in some areas, notably education and health care, were striking. While the Bureau did not establish schools itself, it coordinated and helped

Winslow Homer's 1876 painting The Cotton Pickers, one of a series of studies of rural life in Vlrllinla, portrays two black women as dignified figures, without a trace of the stereotyping o common 111 the eli"s roprosentatlons of former slaves. The expressions on their faces are lIl1tJl(JlJOlIS,1')0I1111P'I CIlllvnyll1\1 dlsnppolntment that eleven years after the end of slavery IhllY "", 'llill "I worh 111till' !h,ld!.

(:11 1\ I"I'I<:H

to finanee the acti vitil'Sof northern societies committed to black education. By ) 869. nearly 3,000 schools, serving more than 150,000 pupils in the South, reported to the Bureau. Bureau agents also assumed control of hos- pitals established by the army during the war, and expanded the system into new communities. They provided medical care to both black and white southerners. In economic relations, however, the Bureau's activities proved far more problematic.

The Failure of Land Reform The idea of free labor, wrote one Bureau agent, was "the noblest principle on earth." All that was required to harmonize race relations in the South was fair wages, good working conditions, and the opportunity to improve the labor- er's situation in life. But blacks wanted land of their own, not jobs on planta- tions. One provision of the law establishing the Bureau gave it the authority to divide abandoned and confiscated land into forty-acre plots for rental and eventual sale to the former slaves.

In the summer of 1865, however, President Andrew Johnson, who had suc- ceeded Lincoln, ordered nearly all land in federal hands returned to its former owners. A series of confrontations followed, notably in South Carolina and Georgia, where the army forcibly evicted blacks who had settled on "Sherman land." When o. O. Howard, head of the Freedmen's Bureau, traveled to the Sea Islands to inform blacks of the new policy, he was greeted with disbelief and protest. A committee of former slaves drew up petitions to Howard and President Johnson. "Wewant Homesteads," they declared, "we were promised Homesteads by the government." Land, the freedmen insisted, was essential to the meaning of freedom. Without it, they declared, "we have not bettered our condition" from the days of slavery-"you will see, this is not the condition of really free men."

Because no land distribution took place, the vast majority of rural freedpeopJe remained poor and without property during Reconstruction. They had no alternative but to work on white-owned plantations, often for their former owners. Far from being able to rise in the social scale through hard work, black men were largely confined to farm work, unskilled labor, and service jobs, and black women to positions in private homes as cooks and maids. Their wages remained too low to allow for any accumulation. By the turn of the century, a significant number of southern African- Americans had managed to acquire small parcels of land. But the failure of land reform produced a deep sense of betrayal that survived among the former slaves and their descendants long after the end of Reconstruction.

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'No sh ," M.HY Callncy, an elderly CKslave, recalled in the 1930S, "we were IIII1 given ,1 thing but freedom."

Toward a New South Uut of the conflict on the plantations, new systems of labor emerged in the ditlercnt regions of the South. The task system, under which workers were usslgned daily tasks, completion of which ended their responsibilities for that !lilY, survived in the rice kingdom of South Carolina and Georgia. Closely super- vised wage labor predominated on the sugar plantations of southern Louisiana. SII1It ecropping came to dominate the Cotton Belt and much of the TobaccoBelt (If Virginiaand North Carolina.

Sharecropping initially arose as a compromise between blacks' desire for I"ud and planters' demand for labor discipline. The system allowed each black l.unily to rent a part of a plantation, with the crop divided between worker and owner at the end of the year. Sharecropping guaranteed the planters a stable I,'<;identlabor force. Former slaves preferred it to gang labor because it offered

£ly 1880, sharecroppmq had become the dominant form of agricultural labor in large parts of the ouui, '1110 systern tnvolved both wnue And black farmers.

I hl:111 thl' prospect 01 WIll k illg wi thout day-to-day white supervision. But as the years went on. sharecropping became more and more oppressive. Share- croppers' economic opportunities were severely limited by a world market in which the price offarm products suffered a prolonged decline.

The White Farmer The plight of the small farmer was not confined to blacks in the postwar South. Wartime devastation set in motion a train of events that permanently altered the independent way of life of white yeomen, leading to what they considered a loss of freedom. Before the war, most small farmers had concentrated on rais- ing food for their families and grew little cotton. With much of their property destroyed, many yeomen saw their economic condition worsened by succes- sive crop failures after the war. To obtain supplies from merchants, farmers were forced to take up the growing of cotton and pledge a part of the crop as col- lateral (property the creditor can seize if a debt is not paid). This system became known as the crop lien. Since interest rates were extremely high and the price of cotton fell steadily, many farmers found themselves still in debt after market- ing their portion of the crop at year's end. They had no choice but to continue to plant cotton to obtain new loans. By the mid-I870S, white farmers, who cultivated only 10 percent of the South's cotton crop in 1860, were growing 40 percent, and many who had owned their land had fallen into dependency as sharecroppers, who now rented land owned by others.

Both black and white farrriers found themselves caught in the sharecropping and crop-lien systems. A far higher percentage of black than white farmers in the South rented land rather than owned it. But every census from 1880 to 1940 counted more white than black sharecroppers. The workings of sharecropping and the crop-lien system are illustrated by the case of Matt Brown, a Mississippi farmer who borrowed money each year from a local merchant. He began 1892 with a debt of $226 held over from the previous year. By 1893, although he pro- duced cotton worth $I7l, Brown's debt had increased to $402, because he had borrowed $33 for food, $29 for clothing, $173 for supplies, and $112 for other items. Brown never succeeded in getting out of debt. He died in 1905; the last entry under his name in the merchant's account book is a coffin.

The Urban South l':ven as the rural South stagnated economically, southern cities experienced remarkable growth after the Civil War. As railroads penetrated the inte- rior, they enabled merchants in market centers like Atlanta to trade directly with the North, bypassing coastal cities thai had traditionally monopolized

574 " GIIApn~H

sout IIl'l n commerce. A new urban middle class of merchants, railroad promot- 1:1..., and bankers reaped the benefits of the spread of cotton production in the post war South.

Thus, Reconstruction brought about profound changes in the lives of southerners. black and white, rich and poor. In place of the prewar world of master, slave, and self-sufficient yeoman, the postwar South was peopled by new social classes-landowning employers, black and white sharecroppers, cotton-producing white farmers, wage-earning black laborers, and urban entre- preneurs. Each of these groups turned to Reconstruction politics in an attempt to shape to its own advantage the aftermath of emancipation.

Aftermath of Slavery The United States, of course, was not the only society to confront the transi- lion from slavery to freedom. Indeed, many parallels exist between the debates during Reconstruction and struggles that followed slavery in other parts of the Western Hemisphere over the same issues of land, control of labor, and polit- ic al power. In every case, former planters (or, in Haiti, where the planter class had been destroyed, the government itself) tried to encourage or require for- Iller slaves to go back to work on plantations to grow the same crops as under slavery. Planters elsewhere held the same stereotypical views of black laborers IS were voiced by their counterparts in the United States-former slaves were supposedly lazy, were lacking in ambition, and thought that freedom meant an dhsence of labor.

For their part, former slaves throughout the hemisphere tried to carve out .1<'; much independence as possible, both in their daily lives and in their labor. l'hey attempted to reconstruct family life by withdrawing women and children from field labor (in the West Indies, women turned to marketing their fam- ilies' crops to earn income). Wherever possible, former slaves acquired land of their own and devoted more time 10 growing food for their families than to growing crops for the international market, In many places, the planta- lions either fell to pieces, as in Haiti, or continued operating with a new l.ibor force composed of indentured '.t·rv,lIlls from India .mel China, as in Chinese laborers at work on a Louisiana l.tlll.lit-.l, Tr inid.ul, .I1111Illililill CUi.1I1.1. plantation during Reconstruction. Soul hurn pl.lIllt·I·, ill I Ill.' 1lllill'd Sl.llt·...

'1'111': MI':ANINO 01>' FHglW(JM 576

From PETITION OF COMMITTEE IN BEHALF OF THE FREEDMEN TO ANDREW JOHNSON (1865)

In the summer of 1865, President Andrew Johnson ordered land that had been distributed to freed slaves in South Carolina and Georgia returned to its former own- ers. A committee of freedmen drafted a petition asking for the right to obtain land. Johnson did not, however. change his policy.

We the freedmen of Edisto Island, South Carolina, have learned from you through Major GeneralO. O.Howard ... with deep sorrow and painful hearts of the possibility of [the] government restoring these lands to the former owners. We are well aware of the many perplexing and trying questions that burden your mind, and therefore pray to god (the preserver of all, and who has through our late and beloved President [Lincoln's] proc- lamation and the war made us a free people) that he may guide you in making your decisions and give you that wisdom that cometh from above to settle these great and important questions for the best interests of the country and the colored race.

Here is where secession was born and nurtured. Here is where we have toiled nearly all our lives as slaves and treated like dumb driven cattle. This is our home, we have made these lands what they were, we are the only true and loyal people that were found in possession of these lands. We have been always ready to strike for liberty and humanity, yea to fight if need be to preserve this glorious Union. Shall not we who are freedmen and have always been true to this Union have the same rights as are enjoyed by others? ... Are not our rights as a free people and good citizens of these United States to be consid- ered before those who were fourid in rebellion against this good and just government? ...

[Are]we who have been abused and oppressed for many long years not to be allowed the privilege of purchasing land but be subject to the will of these large land owners? God forbid. Land monopoly is injurious to the advancement of the course of freedom, and if government does not make some provision by which we as freedmen can obtain a homestead, we have not bettered our condition ....

We look to you ... for protection and equal rights with the privilege of purchasing a homestead-a homestead right here in the heart of South Carolina.

From A SHARECROPPING CONTRACT (1866)

Few former slaves were able to acquire land in the post-Civil War South. Most ended up as sharecroppers, working on white-owned land for a share of the crop at the end of the growing season. This contract, typical of thousands of others, originated in Tennessee. The laborers signed with an X,as they were illiterate.

Thomas J. Rossagrees to employ the Freedmen to plant and raise a crop on his Rosstown Plantation .... On the following Rules, Regulations and Remunerations.

"Wlifll Iii 1>'11)"do"'III'I" IIfll!OIlI'lJ.IIIC;lioli

The said Ross agrees to furnish the land to cultivate, and a sufficient number of mules & horses and feed them to make and house said crop and all necessary farm- Ing utensils to carry on the same and to give unto said Freedmen whose names appear below one half of all the cotton, corn and wheat that is raised on said place for the year 11166 after all the necessary expenses are deducted out that accrues on said crop. Outside of the Freedmen's labor in harvesting, carrying to market and selling the same the said Freedmen ... covenant and agrees to and with said Thomas J.Ross that for and in con- ideration of one half of the crop before mentioned that they will plant, cultivate, and

raise under the management control and Superintendence of said Ross, in good faith, " cotton, corn and oat crop under his management for the year 1866.And we the said freedmen agrees to furnish ourselves & families in provisions, clothing, medicine and medical bills and all, and every kind of other expenses that we may incur on said plan- tation for the year 1866 free of charge to said Ross.Should the said Ross furnish us any 01 the above supplies or any other kind of expenses, during said year, [we]are to settle lind pay himout of the net proceeds of our part of the crop the retail price of the coun ty .rl time of sale or any price we may agree upon-The said Rossshall keep a regular book account, against each and everyone or the head of every family to be adjusted and set- tlt'd at the end of the year.

We furthermore bind ourselves to and with said Rossthat we will do good work and l.ihor ten hours a day on an average,winter and summer .... We further agree that we will loseall lost time, or pay at the rate of one dollar per day, rainy days excepted. In sickness .ind women lying in childbed are to lose the time and account for it to the other hands out of his or her part of the crop....

Wefurthermore bind ourselves that we will obey the orders of said Rossin all things 111 carrying out and managing said crop for said year and be docked for disobedience. All is responsible for all farming uten- Ih that is on hand or may be placed in c.ue of said Freedmen for the year 1866 til said Ross and are also responsible to lid Ross if we carelessly, maliciously

111.,1 treat any of his stock for said year to ,I id Rossfor damages to be assessed out III our wages.

Samuel (X) Johnson, Thomas (X) I~llhard,Tinny (X)Fitch, Tessie(X) Sim- IIIOI1S, Sophe (X) Pruden, Henry (X) I'ruden, Frances (X) Pruden, Elijah (X) .mith

QUESTIONS

1. Why do the black petitioners believe that owning land is essential to the enjoyment of freedom?

2. In what ways does the contract limit the freedom of the laborers?

3. What do these documents suggest about competing definitions of black freedom in the aftermath of slavery?

brought in oJ. rl'W Chi Ill",l' l.rhurers in an attempt to replace freedmen, but since the federal government opposed such efforts, the Chinese remained only a tiny proportion of the southern workforce.

But if struggles over land and labor united its postemancipation experi- ence with that of other societies, in one respect the United States was unique. Only in the United States were former slaves, within two years of the end of slavery, granted the right to vote and, thus, given a major share of politi- cal power. Few anticipated this development when the Civil War ended. It came about as the result of one of the greatest political crises of American history-the battle between President Andrew Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction. The struggle resulted in profound changes in the nature of citizenship, the structure of constitutional authority, and the meaning of American freedom.

THE MAKING OF RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION Andrew Johnson To Lincoln's successor, Andrew [ohnson, fell the task of overseeing the res- toration of the Union. Born in poverty in North Carolina, as a youth John- son worked as a tailor's apprentice. After moving to Tennessee, he achieved success through politics. Beginning as an alderman (a town official), he rose to serve in the state legislature, Congress, and for two terms as governor of Tennessee. Johnson identified himself as the champion of his state's "honest yeomen" and a foe of large planters, whom he described as a "bloated, cor- rupted aristocracy." A strong defender of the Union, he became the only sen- ator from a seceding state to remain at his post in Washington, D.C., when the Civil War began. When northern forces occupied Tennessee, Abraham Lincoln named him military governor. In r864, Republicans nominated him to run for vice president as a symbol of the party's hope of extending its organization into the South.

In personality and outlook, Johnson proved unsuited for the responsibili- ties he shouldered after Lincoln's death. A lonely, stubborn man, he was intoler- ant of criticism and unable to compromise. He lacked Lincoln's political skills and keen sense of public opinion. A fervent believer in states' rights, Johnson insisted that since secession was illegal, the southern states had never actually left the Union or surrendered the right to govern their own affairs. Moreover, while Johnson had supported emancipation once Lincoln made it a goal of the war effort, he held deeply racist views. African-Americans, Johnson believed, had no role to play in Reconstruction.

. 578 "III CIIAPTER 15 "Whol ls 10'1 ('0<1')1111"; Rcr-o ns t r uct ro n

Thn Failure of Presidential Reeonatruction " IiIIle over a month mer Lee's surrender at Appomattox, and with Congress (1111 of session until December, Johnson in May 1865 outlined his plan for reun iti ng the nation. He issued a series of proclamations that began the period 01 Presidential Reconstruction (1865-1867). Johnson offered a pardon (which rc-tored political and property rights, except for slaves) to nearly all white mutherners who took an oath of allegiance to the Union. He excluded Con- It'tll'rate leaders and wealthy planters whose prewar property had been valued it more than $20,000. This exemption suggested at first that Johnson planned .i more punitive Reconstruction than Lincoln had intended. Most of those c .crnpted, however. soon received individual pardons from the president. [uhnson also appointed provisional governors and ordered them to call state conventions, elected by whites alone, that would establish loyal governments ill the South. Apart from the requirement that they abolish slavery, repudi- Ill' secession, and refuse to pay the Confederate debt-all unavoidable conse- Cpll'nces of southern defeat-he granted the new governments a free hand in 111 ruaging local affairs.

At first, most northerners believed Johnson'S policy deserved a chance to urcced. The conduct of the southern governments elected under his program, however, turned most of the Republican North against the president. By and I,llge, white voters returned prominent Confederates and members of the old lite to power. Reports of violence directed against former slaves and northern

vi ,i tors in the South further alarmed Republicans.

579

rhe Black Codes 1I1It what aroused the most opposition to [ohnson's Reconstruction policy wen' the Black Codes, laws passed by the new southern governments that ,1lle IIIpLedto regulate the lives of the former slaves. These laws granted blacks (crt,lin rights, such as legalized marriage, ownership of property, and limited tiCcess to the courts. But they denied them the rights to testify against whites, to serve on juries or in state militias, or to vote. And in response to planters' Ikll1ands that the freedpeople be required to work on the plantations, the IIIt1lk Codes declared that those who failed to sign yearly labor contracts 0111u be arrested and hired out to white landowners. Some states limited the

(lClllJl,llions open to blacks and barred them from acquiring land, and others pi ovidcd that judges could assign black children to work for theirformer OWTI- IE \\ ithout the consent of the parents. "We are not permitted to own the land

WIIl;ll'OI110 hllild.1 schoolhouse or a church," complained a black convention in MbHitlsiplli "WIrI'II' h; ill,.lln·) Will'n' is freedom?"

Clearly, the til'" Ih (If sl.ivcry did not automatically mean the birth of free- dom. BuLthe Black Codes so completely violated free labor principles that they called forth a vigorous response from the Republican North. Wars-especially civil wars-often generate hostility and bitterness. But few groups of rebels in history have been treated more leniently than the defeated Confederates. A handful of southern leaders were arrested but most were quickly released. Only one was executed-Henry Wirz, the commander of Andersonville prison, where thousands of Union prisoners of war had died. Most of the Union army was swiftly demobilized. What motivated the North's turn against Johnson's policies was not a desire to "punish" the white South, but the inability of the South's political leaders to accept the reality of emancipation. "We must see to it," announced Republican senator William Stewart of Nevada, "that the man made free by the Constitution of the United States is a freeman indeed."

The Radical Republicans

When Congress assembled in December r865, Johnson announced that with loyal governments functioning in all the southern states, the nation had been reunited. In response, Radical Republicans, who had grown increasingly disen- chanted with Johnson during the summer and fall, called for the dissolution of these governments and the establishment of new ones with "rebels" excluded from power and black men guaranteed the right to vote. Radicals tended to represent constituencies in New England and the "burned-over" districts of the rural North that had been home to religious revivalism, abolitionism, and other reform movements. Although they differed on many issues, Radicals shared the conviction that Union victory created a golden opportunity to institutionalize the principle of equal rights for all, regardless of race.

The Radicals fully embraced the expanded powers of the federal govern- ment born during the Civil War. Traditions of federalism and states' rights, they insisted, must not obstruct a sweeping national effort to protect the rights of all Americans. The most prominent Radicals in Congress were Charles Sumner, a senator from Massachusetts, and Thaddeus Stevens, a lawyer and iron manu- facturer who represented Pennsylvania in the House of Representatives. Before the Civil War, both had been outspoken foes of slavery and defenders of black rights. "The same national authority," declared Sumner, "that destroyed slavery must see that this other pretension [racial inequality] is not permitted to sur- vive."

Thaddeus Stevens's most cherished aim was to confiscate the land of dis- loyal planters and divide it among former slaves and northern migrants to the South. "The whole fabric of southern society," he declared, "must be changed. WithouL this, this Government can never be, as it has never been, ,I II ue

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H'llllhllr" Iltll his plan 10make "SIll,111 Illdl'pl'Il(il'nt landhclders" of the for- 1111'1 SI,lVC'S proved too radical even for many of his Radical colleagues. Con- ;r(!so;, to be sure, had already offered frcl' land to settlers in the West in the I lomcstead Act of 1862. But this land 110111been in the possession of the fed- r.rl government, not private individ-

ll.l b (although originally, of course, It had belonged to Indians). Most ougressmen believed too deeply in lIi« sanctity of property rights to be wi lhng to take land from one group oj owners and distribute it to others. rcvens's proposal failed to pass.

l'he Origins of Civil Rights Thaddeus Stevens, leader of the Radical

Wi Ih the South unrepresented, Republi- Republicans in the House of Representatives IIIISenjoyed an overwhelming majority during Reconstruction.

III Congress, But the party was internally --------------- hvided. Most Republicans were mod- r.ues, not Radicals. Moderates believed that Johnson's plan was flawed, but Ihey desired to work with the president to modify it. They feared that neither northern nor southern whites would accept black suffrage. Moderates and Rad- ii .il , joined in refusing to seat the southerners recently elected to Congress, bUI moderates broke with the Radicals by leaving the Johnson governments in pl.n ('.

Early in 1866, Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois proposed two bills, reflect- Ilig Ihe moderates' belief that Johnson's policy required modification. The first C,'.ll'llcled the life of the Freedmen's Bureau, which had originally been estab- 11'.Ill'u for only one year. The second, the Civil Rights Bill oh866, was described by one congressman as "one of the most important bills ever presented to the l touse for its action." It defined all persons born in the United States as citizens IIHI .pelled out rights they were to enjoy without regard to race. Equality before 111(' law was central to the measure-no longer could states enact laws like the III,wkCodes discriminating between white and black citizens. So were free labor values. According 10 the law, no slate could deprive any citizen of the right to I\I,J!,(~COllI Iacls, lni IIg 1,IW:>uiIS,or enjoy equal protection of one's person and JlI 111'1'11 y. Tlw$«',!"dd 'I'r umhull, wcro tlu- "Iund.irncntal rights belonging to every

581

man as a free man." The bill made no mention of the right to vote for blacks. In constitutional terms, the Civil Rights Bill represented the first attempt to give concrete meaning to the Thirteenth Amendment, which had abolished slavery, to define in law the essence of freedom.

To the surprise of Congress, [ohnson vetoed both bills. Both, he said, would centralize power in the national government and deprive the states of the authority to regulate their own affairs. Moreover, he argued, blacks did not deserve the rights of citizenship. By acting to secure their rights, Congress was discriminating "against the white race." The vetoes made a breach between the president and nearly the entire Republican Party inevitable. Congress failed by a single vote to muster the two-thirds majority necessary to override the veto of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill (although later in 1866, it did extend the Bureau's life to 1870). But in April 1866, the Civil Rights Bill became the first major law inAmerican history to be passed over a presidential veto.

The Fourteenth Amendment Congress now proceeded to adopt its own plan of Reconstruction. In Tune, it approved and sent to the states for ratification the Fourteenth Amendment, which placed in the Constitution the principle of birthright citizenship, except for Native Americans subject to tribal authority, and empowered the federal gov- ernment to protect the rights of all Americans. The amendment prohibited the states from abridging the "privileges or immunities" of citizens or denying any person of the "equal protection of the laws." This broad language opened the door for future Congresses and the federal courts to breathe meaning into the guaran- tee oflegal equality.

In a compromise between the radical and moderate positions on black suffrage, the amendment did not grant blacks the right to vote. But it did provide that if a state denied the vote to any group of men, that state's representation in Congress would be reduced. (This provision did not apply when states barred women from voting.) The abolition of slavery threatened to increase southern political power, since now all blacks, not merely three-fifths as in the case of slaves, would be counted in determining a state's representation in Congress. The Four- teenth Amendment offered the leaders of the white South a choice--allow black men to vote and keep their state's full representation in the House ofRepresentatives, or limit the vote to whites and sacrifice part of their political power.

The Fourteenth Amendment produced an intense division between the parties. Not a single Democrat in Congress voted in its favor, and only 4 of r75 Republicans were opposed. Radicals, to be sure, expressed their disappointment that the amendment did not guarantee black suffrage. (It was far from perfect, Stevens told the House, but he intended to vote for it, "because I live among own and not among angels.") Nonetheless, by writing into the Constit IIIilln Ihe

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11111ICIpit, til.l I ('qu,,1 ity before the 1,1W I q.~11Idlcss of race is a fundamental right ul .ill American citizens, the amendment made the most important change in t h.lt document since the adoption of the Bill of Rights.

The Reconstruction Act 1 he Fourteenth Amendment became the central issue of the political campaign of 1866. Johnson embarked on a speaking tour of the North, called by journal- ists the "swing around the circle," to urge voters to elect members of Congress

/l1II':onstruction, an elaborate allegory of national reconciliation, equality, and progress, th, :Inned by Horatio Bateman and printed in 1867. The overall message is that r"',:ullstructlon, grounded in liberty and equality, will restore good will between the sections 1m! ruces. The structure at the center symbolizes the federal government; it is being rebuilt 11 Illuck and white men carry new pillars, representing the states, to support it. The old hO'loS of some of the columns, called "Foundations of Slavery," are being replaced by new no:> representing Liberty, Justice, and Education. Under the dome, former rivals shake

h1lll(l9, Including Generals Grant and Lee, and Republican editor Horace Greeley and iiOll>on Dnvis. Scenes surrounding it include a schoolyard, men and women voting, and

111(1i.1I10 lind wllites slttinq together. At the top are the heads of great figures of American "1:;IOIY,n:, woll <ISothOl lustoncal characters including Joan of Arc, John Milton, and Jesus Cluj!>I, 'I lit! na"l .. 1111111) ,;011"'1 L.IIIIOS E1streamer reading: "All men are born free and equal."

'1' Ill<: M /I,K IN (i 0 I" H/lil I(~A" H1':C(JNWI'IIUC'j'ro N 683

committed to his own Reconstruction program. Denouncing his critics, the president made wild accusations that the Radicals were plotting to assassinate him. His behavior further undermined public support for his policies, as did riots that broke out in Memphis and New Orleans, in which white policemen and citizens killed dozens of blacks.

In the northern congressional elections that fall, Republicans opposed to Johnson's policies won a sweeping victory. Nonetheless, at the president's urging, every southern state but Tennessee refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. The intransigence of Johnson and the bulk of the white South pushed moderate Republicans toward the Radicals. In March 1867, over johnson's veto, Congress adopted the Reconstruction Act, which temporar- ily divided the South into five military districts and called for the creation of new state governments, with black men given the right to vote. Thus began the period of Radical Reconstruction, which lasted until r8n. But the con- flict between President Johnson and Congress did not end with the passage of the Reconstruction Act.

Impeachment and the Election of Grant In March 1867, Congress adopted the Tenure of Office Act, barring the president from removing certain officeholders, including cabinet members, without the consent of the Senate. Johnson considered this an unconstitu- tional restriction on his authority. In February 1868, he dismissed Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, an ally of the Radicals. The House of Representa- tives responded by approving articles of impeachment-that is, it presented charges against Johnson to the Senate, which had to decide whether to remove him from office.

That spring, for the first time in American history, a president was placed on trial before the Senate for "high crimes and misdemeanors." By this point, virtually all Republicans considered Johnson a failure as president. But some moderates disliked Benjamin F.Wade, a Radical who, as temporary president of the Senate, would become president if Johnson were removed. Others feared that conviction would damage the constitutional separation of powers between Congress and the executive. johnson's lawyers assured moderate Republicans that, if acquitted, he would stop interfering with Reconstruction policy. The final tally was 35-I9 to convict Johnson, one vote short of the two-thirds necessary to remove him. Seven Republicans joined the Democrats in voting to acquit the president.

A few days after the vote, Republicans nominated Ulysses S. Grant, the Union's most prominent military hero, as their candidate for president.

684 ,., CIIAPn:R 11i "Wllll1

(;"lnt's Democratic opponent was lIoratio Seymour, the former governor of NewYork.Reconstruction became the central issue of the bitterly fought 1868 (a mpaign. Republicans identified their opponents with secession and treason, .1 lactic known as "waving the bloody shirt." Democrats denounced Recon- <truction as unconstitutional and condemned black suffrage as a violation of America's political traditions. They appealed openly to racism. Seymour's running mate, Francis P.Blair [r., charged Republicans with placing the South under the rule of "a semi-barbarous race" who longed to "subject the white women to their unbridled lust."

Tbp.Fifteenth Amendment Grant won the election of r868, although by a margin=-joo.ooo of 6million \ otes cast-that many Republicans found uncomfortably slim. The result II'd Congress to adopt the era's third and final amendment to the Consti- tution. In February r869, it approved the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibited the federal and state governments from denying any citizen the right to vote because of race. Bitterly opposed by the Democratic Party, it was ratified in 1870.

Although the Fifteenth Amendment left the door open to suffrage n-strictions not explicitly based on race-literacy tests, property qualifica- lions, and poll taxes-and did not extend the right to vote to women, it marked the culmination of four decades of abolitionist agitation. As late ,b 1868, even after Congress had enfranchised black men in the South, ouly eight northern states allowed African-American men to vote. With Ihe Fifteenth Amendment, the American Anti-Slavery Society disbanded, its work, its members believed, now complete. "Nothing in all history," r xclaimed veteran abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, equaled "this won- derful, quiet, sudden transformation of four millions of human beings [rorn ... the auction-block to the ballot-box."

The Second Founding lhc laws and amendments of Reconstruction reflected the intersection of two products of the Civil War era-a newly empowered national state and the 111('01 of a national citizenry enjoying equality before the law.What Republican le;rtil'r Carl Schurz called the "great Constitutional revolution" of Reconstruc- t ion transformed the Icdcral system and with it, the language of freedom so 1l'lllr,ll to Anu-rir.u: polltic,1Iculture.

The laws and amendments of Reconstruction repudiated the pre-Civil War idea that citizenship was an entitlement of whites alone. The principle of equality before the law, moreover, did not apply only to the South. The Recon- struction amendments voided many northern laws discriminating on the basis of race. As one congressman noted, the amendments expanded the liberty of whites as well as blacks, including "the millions of people of foreign birth who will flock to our shores."

The new amendments also transformed the relationship between the federal government and the states. The Bill of Rights had linked civil lib- erties to the autonomy of the states. Its language-"Congress shall make no law"-reflected the belief that concentrated national power posed the greatest threat to freedom. The authors of the Reconstruction amendments assumed that rights required national power to enforce them. Rather than a threat to liberty, the federal government, in Charles Sumner's words, had become "the custodian of freedom."

The Reconstruction amendments transformed the Constitution from a document primarily concerned with federal-state relations and the rights of property into a vehicle through which members of vulnerable minorities could stake a claim to freedom and seek protection against misconduct by all levels of government. In the twentieth century, many of the Supreme Court's most important decisions expanding the rights of American citizens were based on the Fourteenth Amendment, including the I954 Brown ruling that outlawed school segregation and the decision in 2015 preventing states from discriminating against gay Americans in the right to marry.

Together with far-reaching congressional legislation meant to secure to for- mer slaves access to the courts, ballot box, and public accommodations, and to protect them against violence, the Reconstruction amendments transferred much of the authority to define citizens' rights from the states to the nation. They were crucial in creating the world's first biracial democracy, in which people only a few years removed from slavery exercised significant political power. Introduc- ing into the Constitution for the first time the words "equal protection of the law" and "the right to vote" (along with "male," to the outrage of the era's advocates of women's rights), the amendments both reflected and reinforced a new era of indi- vidual rights consciousness among Americans of all races and backgrounds. They forged a new constitutional relationship between individual Americans and the national government and created a new definition of citizenship.

Today, the legal doctrine of birthright citizenship sets the United States apart. Most countries, including everyone in Europe, limit automatic access to Citizenship via ethnicity, culture, or religion. Birthright citizenship remains an eloquent statement about the nature of American society and a repudiation of a long history of equating citizenship with whiteness.

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So profound were these changes that the amendments are frequently "l't'll not simply as an alteration of an existing structure but as a second lounding, which created a fundamentally new document with a new defini- 110llof both the status of blacks and the rights of all Americans.

Boundaries of Freedom Ikconstruction redrew the boundaries of American freedom. Lines of exclu- xirm that limited the privileges of citizenship to white men had long been u-ntral to the practice of American democracy. Only in an unparalleled cri- '.1', could they have been replaced, even temporarily, by the vision of a repub- lic of equals embracing black Americans as well as white. That the United ".Iilles was a "white man's government" had been a widespread belief before IIll' Civil War. It is not difficult to understand why Andrew Johnson, in one 01 his veto messages, claimed that federal protection of blacks' civil rights viola Led"all our experience as a people."

Another illustration of the new spirit of racial inclusiveness was the IImlingame Treaty, negotiated by Anson Burlingame, an antislavery con- gl!~ssman from Massachusetts before being named American envoy to China. Other treaties with China had been one-sided, securing trading and political advantages for European powers. The Burlingame Treaty reaf- (i I IIIcd China's national sovereignty, and provided reciprocal protection for rehgious freedom and against discrimination for citizens of each country elll igrating or visiting the other. When Burlingame died, Mark Twain wrote ,II ulogy that praised him for "outgrow[ing] the narrow citizenship of a state [to] become a citizen of the world."

Reconstruction Republicans' belief in universal rights had its limits. In h" remarkable "Composite Nation" speech of r869, Frederick Douglass con- dl'lIlned prejudice against immigrants from China. America's destiny, he dl,t1nred. was to transcend race by serving as an asylum for people from all '1Ill1ers of the globe. A year later, Charles Sumner moved to strike the word "w h i Ie" from naturalization requirements. Senators from the western states oluccted. At their insistence, the naturalization law was amended to make Mrieilns eligible to obtain citizenship when immigrating from abroad. But A']i;Jns remained ineligible. The racial boundaries of nationality had been I(,d rnwn, but not eliminated. The juxtaposition of the amended natural- 1/,011iOI1law and the Fourteenth Amendment created a significant division III I lu- Asian Amr-r ir.m community. Well into the twentieth century, Asian 111I1I11~r.1I1tscould 1101IH'('oll1t: citizens, bUL their U.S.-born children auto- lIi,ll ie.a1ly dit!.

fl8'!

From FREDERICK DOUGLASS, "THE COMPOSITE NATION" (1869)

In a remarkable speech delivered inBoston, Frederick Douglass condemned anti- Asian discrimination and called for giving Chinese immigrants all the rights of other Americans, including the right to vote. Douglass's vision of a country made up of people of all races and national origins-and enjoying equal rights-was too radical for the time, and remains controversial today.

We are a country of all extremes, ends and opposites; the most conspicuous example of composite nationality in the world. Our people defy all the ethnolog- ical and logical classifications. In races we range all the way from black to white, with intermediate shades which ... no man can name a number. ... Our land is capable of supporting one fifth of all the globe. Here, labor is abundant and here labor is better remunerated than anywhere else. All moral, social and geographical causes conspire to bring to us the peoples of all other over-populated countries.

Europe and Africa are already here, and the Indian was here before either .... Heretofore the policy of our government has been governed by race pride, rather than by wisdom .... Before the relations of [blacks and Indians] are satisfactorily settled, and in spite of all opposition, a new race is making its appearance within our borders, and claiming attention [the Chinese] .... Do you ask, if I favor such immigration. I answer I would. Would you have them naturalized, and have them invested with all the rights of American citizenship? I would. Would you allow them to hold office? I would. ...

There are such things in the world as human rights. They rest upon no conventional foundation, but are external, universal, and indestructible. Among these, is the right of locomotion; the right of migration; the right which belongs to no

. . QUESTIONSparticular race, but belongs alike to all.... We shall mold them all ... into Americans; 1. What is Douglass's answer to the Indian and Celt, Negro and Saxon, Latin and Teuton, Mongolian and Caucasian, Jew and Gentile, all shall here bow to the same law, speak the same language, support the same government, enjoy the same liberty.

question, "Who is an American?"

2. Why does he believe that being able to move freely from one country to another should be considered a universal human right?

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The Rlqhts oC Women "The contest with the South that destroyed slavery," wrote the Philadelphia lawyer Sidney George Fisher in his diary, "has caused an immense increase 1n the popular passion for liberty and equality." But advocates of women's rights encountered the limits of the Reconstruction commitment to equality. Women activists saw Reconstruction as the moment to claim their own ernan- cipation. No less than blacks, proclaimed Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women had .irrived at a "transition period, from slavery to freedom." The rewriting of the Constitution, declared suffrage leader Olympia Brown, offered the opportu- nit y to sever the blessings of freedom from sex as well as race and to "bury the black man and the woman in the citizen."

The destruction of slavery led feminists to search for ways to make the promise of free labor real for women. Every issue of the new women's rights Journal, The Agitator, edited by Mary Livermore, who had led fund-raising efforts for aid to Union soldiers during the war, carried stories complaining of limited job opportunities and unequal pay for females who entered the labor market. Other feminists debated how to achieve "liberty for married women." Iiemands for liberalizing divorce laws (which generally required evidence of adultery, desertion, or extreme abuse to terminate a marriage) and for recog- nizing "woman's control over her own body" (including protection against domestic violence and access to what later generations would call birth «ontrol) moved to the center of many feminists' concerns. "Our rotten mar- riage institution," one Ohio woman wrote, "is the main obstacle in the way of woman's freedom."

Feminists and Radicals fn one place, women's political rights did expand during Reconstruction- not, however, in a bastion of radicalism such as Massachusetts, but in the Wyoming territory. This had less to do with the era's egalitarian impulse fhan with the desire to attract female immigrants to an area where men out- numbered women five to one. In 1869, Wyoming's diminutive legislature (it consisted offewer than twenty men) extended the right to vote to women, and the bill was then signed by the governor, a federal appointee. Wyoming -ntered the Union in 1890, becoming the first state since New Jersey in the Idle eighteenth century to allow women to vote.

In general, however, talk of woman suffrage and redesigning marriage found few sympathetic male listeners. Even Radical Republicans insisted t h.u Rcconstrurt ion W,lS the "Negro's hour" (the hour, that is, of the black 1'11.1 lc). TIH' FOil It t'I~1l t II Amendrnent for the first time introduced the word "m.rh:" 111111 111l' <:11111,1t111Iioll, ill its ria use penalizing a state for denying

any group of men the right to vote. The Fifteenth Amendment outlawed discrimination in voting based on race but not gender. These measures produced a bitter split both between feminists and Radical Republicans, and within feminist circles.

Some leaders, like Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, opposed the Fif- teenth Amendment because it did nothing to enfranchise women. They denounced their former abolitionist allies and moved to sever the wom- en's rights movement from its earlier moorings in the antislavery tradi- tion. On occasion, they appealed to racial and ethnic prejudices, arguing

that native-born white women deserved the vote more than non-whites and immigrants. "Patrick and Sambo and Hans and Yung Tung, who do not know the difference between a monarchy and a republic," declared Stanton, had no right to be "making laws for [feminist leader] Lucretia Mott." But other abolitionist-feminists, like Abby Kelley and Lucy Stone, insisted that despite their limitations, the Reconstruction amendments represented steps in the direction of truly universal suffrage and should be supported. The result was a split in the movement and the creation in r869 of two hostile women's rights organizations-the National Woman Suffrage Association, led by Stanton, and the American Woman Suffrage Association, with Lucy Stone as president. They would not reunite until r890.

Thus, even as it rejected the racial definition of freedom that had emerged in the first half of the nineteenth century, Reconstruction left the gender boundary largely intact. When women tried to use the rewritten legal code and Constitution to claim equal rights, they found the courts unreceptive. Myra Bradwell invoked the idea of free labor in challenging an Illinois rule limiting the practice of law to men, but the Supreme Court in r873 rebuffed her claim. Free labor principles, the justices declared, did not apply to women, since "the law of the Creator" had assigned them to "the domestic sphere."

Despite their limitations, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 marked a radical departure in American his- lory. "We have cut loose from the whole dead past," wrote Timothy Howe, ,1 Republican senator from Wisconsin, "and have cast our anchor out a

A Delegation of Advocates of Woman Suffrage Addressing the House Judiciary Committee, an engraving from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, February 4, 1871. The group includes Elizabeth Cady Stanton, seated just to the right of the speaker, and Susan B. Anthony, at the table on the extreme right.

hundred years" into the future. The Reconstruction Act ofr867 inaugurated A merica's first real experiment in interracial democracy.

RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SOUTH liThe Tocsin of Freedom" A rnong the former slaves, the passage of the Reconstruction Act inspired an outburst of political organization. At mass political meetings-community g,ltherings attended by men, women, and children-African-Americans staked 1hci r claim to equal citizenship. Blacks,declared an Alabama meeting, deserved "exactly the same rights, privileges and immunities as are enjoyed by white men.We ask for nothing more and will be content with nothing less."

These gatherings inspired direct action to remedy long-standing griev- ances, Hundreds took part in sit-ins that integrated horse-drawn public .treetcars in cities across the South. Plantation workers organized strikes for higher wages. Speakers, male and female, fanned out across the South. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a black veteran of the abolitionist movement, ( mbarked on a two-year tour, lecturing on "Literacy, Land, and Liberation." l.rmes D. Lynch, a member of the group that met with General Sherman in IH6S,became known, in the words of a white contemporary, as "a great orator, Iluid and graceful," who "stirred the emotions" of his listeners "as no other 1I1,1n could do."

Determined to exercise their new rights as citizens, thousands joined Ihl' Union League, an organization closely linked to the Republican Party, uid the vast majority of eligible African-Americans registered to vote. lames K. Green, a former slave in Hale County, Alabama, and a League organizer, went on to serve eight years in the Alabama legislature. In the ,H8os,Green looked back on his political career. Before the war, he declared, "I was entirely ignorant; I knew nothing more than to obey my master; and t lu-rewere thousands of us in the same attitude .... But the tocsin [warning "1'111 of freedom sounded and knocked at the door and we walked out like rlCl' men and shouldered the responsibilities."

Ry 1870, all the former Confederate states had been readmitted to the l tnion, and in a region where the Republican Party had not existed before the W,II. nearly all were under Republican control. Their new state constitutions, dr.illed in 1868 and 1869 hy the first public bodies in American history with ubst.intial black rcpn-sentarion, marked a considerable improvement over

I ]loSl: they rcpl.ucd, '1'111: rnnstitutions established the region's first state- [uiuh-d systl'llltl uf 111'1' public l:dllc.ltion ,11II I ('rl'.ltl'c] new penitentiaries,

Throughout Reconstruction, black vot- ers provided the bulk of the Republican Party's support. But African-Americans did not control Reconstruction politics, as their opponents frequently charged. The highest offices remained almost entirely in white hands, and only in South Carolina, where blacks made up 60 percent of the population, did they form a majority of the legislature. Nonetheless, the fact that some 2,000 African-Americans occupied public offices during Reconstruction repre- sented a fundamental shift of power in the South and a radical departure in American government.

African-Americans were represented at every level of government. Four- teen were elected to the national House of Representatives. Two blacks served in the U.S.Senate during Reconstruction, both representing Mississippi. Hiram Revels,who had been born free in North Carolina, was educated in Illinois, and served as a chaplain in the wartime Union army, in r870 became the first black senator in American history. The second, Blanche K. Bruce, a former slave, was elected in 1875. The next African-American elected to the Senate was Edward W Brooke of Massachusetts, who served 1967-1978.

Pinckney B. S. Pinchback of Louisiana, the Georgia-born son of a white pi,)nter and a free black woman, served briefly during the winter of i 87 2 [873 ,IS America's first black governor. More than a century would P,ISS IlI'fore , ')()III',I.I~Wildt'l (If Vir~illi,I, I'I('lled ill ,()X<J, hl'(..rme the SI'I'1I11I1 SHllll'lOu

From the Plantation to the Senate, an 1883 lithograph celebrating African-American progress during Reconstruction. Among lhll black leaders pictured at the top are I,,..,:onstruction congressmen Benjamin S. Turner, Ic,·,IahT. Walls, and Joseph H. Rainey; Hiram Hovels of MiSSissippi, the first African-American ;"Ilotor; religious leader Richard Allen; and

abolitionists Frederick Douglass and William WAils Brown. At the center emancipated slaves work In the cotton fields, and below children .utend school and a black family stands outside lts home.

orphan asylums, and homes for the insane. They guaranteed equality of civil and political rights and abolished practices of the antebellum era such as whipping as a punishment for crime, property qualifications for officehold- ing, and imprisonment for debt. A few states initially barred former Confed- erates from voting, but this policy was quickly abandoned by the new state governments.

The Black Officeholder

blacks sal ill state legislatures during Reconstruction, and scores held local IIfhccs ranging from justice of the peace to sheriff, tax assessor, and policeman. Tht, presence of black officeholders and their white allies made a real difference III southern life, ensuring that blacks accused of crimes would be tried before J IIdes of their peers and enforcing fairness in such aspects of local government 1, road repair, tax assessment, and poor relief.

In South Carolina and Louisiana, homes of the South's wealthiest and h(!~leducated free black communities, most prominent Reconstruction officeholders had never experienced slavery. In addition, a number of black Ikconstruction officials, like Pennsylvania-born [onathan [, Wright, who erved on the South Carolina Supreme Court, had come from the North after Ihe Civil War. The majority, however, were former slaves who had established Iheir leadership in the black community by serving in the Union army, work- iJIgas ministers, teachers, or skilled craftsmen, or engaging in Union League organizing. Among the most celebrated black officeholders was Robert Smalls, who had worked as a slave on the Charleston docks before the Civil War and who won national fame in 1862 by secretly guiding the Planter, a Confederate vessel, out of the harbor and delivering it to Union forces. Smalls became a powerful political leader on the South Carolina Sea Islands and was elected to live terms in Congress.

Carpetbaggers and Scalawags

lhe new southern governments also brought to power new groups of whites, Mrny Reconstruction officials were northerners who for one reason or another made their homes in the South after the war. Their opponents dubbed thorn carpetbaggers, implying that they had packed all their belongings in a .uitcase and left their homes in order to reap the spoils of office in the South. ',ome carpetbaggers were undoubtedly corrupt adventurers. The large major- iIy, however, were former Union soldiers who decided to remain in the South when the war ended, before there was any prospect of going into politics. C Ithers were investors in land and railroads who saw in the postwar South an Iipportunity to combine personal economic advancement with a role in help- Ing to substitute, as one wrote, «the civilization of freedom for that of slavery." Ic.ichers, Freedmen's Bureau officers, and others who came to the region gen- uinely hoping to assist the former slaves represented another large group of cH petbaggers.

Most white Republicans had been born in the South. Former Confeder- ,)1('" reserved then ~H',III'sl scorn for these scalawags, whom they considered u.utors to ttwit" l'a,:I' and ,egion. Some southern born Republicans were men l"i' ~1.lll1n: ,11111We',111 h, like I,HIlI'" L.Alrr» n, the owner of one of Mississippi's Lit gt..;I I'l.m 1.11 in" ~ M,d I j, l' r; til t ,":; "I <;11{"1'1l hill ,111 goY!' r JlOI.

Most scalawags, however, were non-slaveholding white farmers from the southern upcountry. Many had been wartime Unionists, and they now cooperated with the Republicans in order to prevent "rebels" from return- ing to power. Others hoped Reconstruction governments would help them recover from wartime economic losses by suspending the collection of debts and enacting laws protecting small property holders from losing their homes to creditors. In states like North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, Republicans initially commanded a significant minority of the white vote. Even in the Lower South, the small white Republican vote was important, because the population remained almost evenly divided between blacks (almost all of whom voted for the party of Lincoln) and whites (overwhelm- ingly Democratic).

Southern Republicans in Power In view of the daunting challenges they faced, the remarkable thing is not that Reconstruction governments in some respects failed, but how much they did accomplish. Perhaps their greatest achievement lay in establishing the South's first state-supported public schools. The new educational systems served both black and white children, although generally in schools segregated by race. Only in New Orleans were the public schools integrated during Reconstruc- tion, and only in South Carolina did the state university admit black students (elsewhere, separate colleges were established). By the 1870S, in a region whose prewar leaders had made it illegal for slaves to learn and had done little to provide education for poorer whites, more than half the children, black and white, were attending public schools. The new governments also pioneered civil rights legislation. Their laws made it illegal for railroads, hotels, and other institutions to discriminate on the basis of race. Enforcement varied consider- ably from locality to locality, but Reconstruction established for the first time at the state level a standard of equal citizenship and a recognition of blacks' right to a share of public services.

Republican governments also took steps to strengthen the position of rural laborers and promote the South's economic recovery. They passed laws to ensure that agricultural laborers and sharecroppers had the first claim on harvested crops, rather than merchants to whom the landowner owed money. South Carolina created a state Land Commission, which by 1876 had settled 14,000 black families and a few poor whites on their own farms.

The Quest for Prosperity Rather than land distribution, however, the Reconstruction governments pinned their hopes for southern economic growth and opportunity for African-Americans and poor whites alike on regional economic dt'vl'loplIH'1l1

lillill nail construction, they believed, was the key to transforming the South i!I[n ;1 society of booming factories, bustling towns, and diversified agricul- Illlt~, "A free and living republic," declared a Tennessee Republican, would

1'1 iI1g II P in the track of the railroad," Every state during Reconstruction hclpl:d to finance railroad construction, and through tax reductions and 0111(:1 incentives tried to attract northern manufacturers to invest in the fl'(tiull, The program had mixed results. Economic development in general remained weak. With abundant opportunities existing in the West, few nOli hern investors ventured to the Reconstruction South.

'I o their su pporters, the governments of Radical Reconstruction presented a i 0111 plex pattern of disappointment and accomplishment. A revitalized south- cru economy failed to materialize, and most African-Americans remained ku.k('d in poverty, On the other hand, biracial democratic government, a thing 1111 It. nown in American history, for the first time functioned effectively in many ",III, or the South, Public facilities were rebuilt and expanded, school systems '"OI,lhlished, and legal codes purged of racism, The conservative elite that had ilnuunatcd southern government from colonial times to 1867 found itself ('Xc ludcd from political power, while poor whites, newcomers from the North, m.l Iormer slaves cast ballots, sat on juries, and enacted and administered laws. WI' have gone through one of the most remarkable changes in our relations III L'Mh other," declared a white South Carolina lawyer in 1871, "that has been known, perhaps, in the history of the world." It is a measure of how far change hold progressed that the reaction against Reconstruction proved so extreme.

fHE OVERTHROW OF RECONSTRUCTION ltoconstructfon's Opponents '1111' South's traditional leaders-planters, merchants, and Democratic I'0llilcians-bitterly opposed the new governments. They denounced them l'i corrupt, inefficient, and examples of "black supremacy." "Intelligence, vutue, and patriotism" in public life, declared a protest by prominent southern IJI'IllI11 ra ts, had given way to "ignorance, stupidity, and vice." Corruption did i'K151 during Reconstruction, but it was confined to no race, region, or party. The '·,1 pid growth of state budgets and the benefits to be gained from public aid led III ',f)Illt: states to a scramble for influence that produced bribery, insider deal- 11\1:,.lI1d ,) get-rich quick atmosphere. Southern frauds, however, were dwarfed hy those prart iccd in these years by the Whiskey Ring, which involved high ollll;i,tI., III tlu: (;r,llll,trl III inist ration. and by New York's Tweed Ring, controlled hy IIII' Il"lllouals, will 1'.;1:111I'1i-. 1.111 i1110 I hi' u-ns of mi llions of dollars. (These IIC'eli", "~M'c11l1 Ihl' IIl'xl I h,II'II'I) 'I'hr: Ii!.illg I.IXI''lIlI'I'ckd In Il,1y for schools

and other new publicfacilities and to assist railroad devc lopmcnt were another cause of opposition to Reconstruction. Many poor whites who had initially supported the Republican Party turned against it when it became clear that their economic situation was not improving.

The most basic reason for opposition to Reconstruction, however, was that most white southerners could not accept the idea of former slaves voting, holding office, and enjoying equality before the law. In order to restore white Supremacy in southern public life and to ensure planters a disciplined, reliable labor force, they believed, Reconstruction must be overthrown. Opponents launched a campaign of violence in an effort to end Republican rule. Their actions posed a fundamental challenge both for Reconstruction governments in the South and for policymakers in Washington. D.C.

leAReign of Terror" The Civil War ended in 1865, but violence remained widespread in large parts of the postwar South. In the early years of Reconstruction, violence was mostly local and unorganized. Blacks were assaulted and murdered for refusing to give way to whites on city sidewalks, using "insolent" language, challenging end-of-year contract settlements, and attempting to buy land. The violence that greeted the advent of Republican governments after 1867, however, was far more pervasive and more directly motivated by politics. In wide areas of the South, secret societies sprang up with the aim of preventing blacks from voting and destroying the organization of the Republican Party by assassinating local leaders and public officials.

The most notorious such organization was the Ku Klux Klan, which in effect served as a military arm of the Democratic Party in the South. The Klan was a terrorist organization. Led by planters, merchants, and Democratic politicians, men who liked to style themselves the South's "respectable citizens," the Klan committed some of the most brutal criminal acts in American history. In many counties, it launched what one victim called a "reign of terror" against Republican leaders, black and white.

The Klan's victims included white Republicans, among them wartime UniOnists and local officeholders, teachers, and party organizers. William Luke, an Irish-born teacher in a black school, was lynched in 1870. But African- Americans-local political leaders, those who managed to acquire land, and others who in one way or another defied the norms of white supremacy- bore the brunt of the violence. In York County, South Carolina, where nearly the entire white male population joined the Klan (and women participated by sewing the robes and hoods Klansmen wore as disguises), the organization com- mitted eleven murders and hundreds of whippings.

On occasion, violence escalated from assaults on individuals to nt.ISS terrur- ism and ('VI'II Illc ,11 insurrections, In Meridian, Mississippi, in lilli, se IIlle' lid uy 696 '" CII

111.1\ II iWf;e (~ 1I111rdercd in cold blood, ,dong wi th a white Republican judge. The 1111111111(";1 act of violence during Reconstruction took place in Colfax, Louisiana,

IHl~, when- armed whites assaulted the town with a small cannon. Scores I,IflllC:l slaves were murdered, including fifty members of a black militia unit

III I Iltey had surrendered, Ilrt.lhle 10 suppress the Klan, the new southern governments appealed W,Ir,hinglon [or help. In 1870 and 1871, Congress adopted three Enforce-

mrlll Arts, outlawing terrorist societies and allowing the president to use the lillY ,lg,linsl them. These laws continued the expansion of national author- tv ellirillg Reconstruction. They defined crimes that aimed to deprive citizens Ibt'lf civil and political rights as federal offenses rather than violations of

1,111 law. In 187I, President Grant dispatched federal marshals, backed up by II 1 111]1'1111 some areas, to arrest hundreds of accused Klansmen. Many Klan lead- 1'1 Iit'd IIll' South. After a series of well-publicized trials, the Klan went out of I'.I('II! I' In t872, for the first time since before the Civil War, peace reigned in

1111',1 I" t he former Confederacy. Liberal Republicans

pllt' till' Grant administration's effective response to Klan terrorism, the urt h'. commitment to Reconstruction waned during the 1870S.Many Radicals, n. ludmg Thaddeus Stevens, who died in 1868, had passed from the scene. WII hill the Republican Party, their place was taken by politicians less commit- Il'd II) Ihi' ideal of equal rights for blacks. Northerners increasingly felt that the tillIIt <hould be able to solve its own problems without constant interference Inun W.lshington. The federal government had freed the slaves, made them cit- 11I'II'i, c1IlJ given them the right to vote. Now, blacks should rely on their own

nurrrs, not demand further assistance. III IH72, an influential group of Republicans, alienated by corruption

II" III Ihe Grant administration and believing that the growth of federal I",wel during and after the war needed to be curtailed, formed their own party. lhcy included Republican founders like Lyman Trumbull and prominent IHclrs .md journalists such as E. L. Godkin of The Nation. Calling themselves

I Ihel.II Republicans, they nominated Horace Greeley, editor of the New York I'd/lillie, for president.

1111' I ibcrals' alienation from the Grant administration initially had little In do WI1 h Reccnstruction. They claimed that corrupt politicians had come to powel' ill IItt, North by manipulating the voles of immigrants and working- IiH'Il, whih- IlII'1I of l,tlI'I11 .1l1d education like themselves had been pushed aside. 11('IIICII:rali<: criti: ISIll ... IIf HC~(,ollstrllcliol1,however, found a receptive audience mUllg Ihe I.iller.lls, As ill Ihe Nort h, they hl'( .nne WI1VIIlCl'd, Ihe "best men" of

Ihl' SUIlIh h,ullwC'1l ('xcllldl'lI IrOll1 power while "iglllll;llll" V()II'r~ controlled p"II1ic:IJ, plCJdll(l111l [fllIlIpIlClltlllC!1115j!ClVe'IIlIlIl'"I, l'flWt'1 iu tlu: ~tHllh shnuld

be returned to the region's "natural leaders."During Ihe c.unpalgn oh8p, Gn'l' ley repeatedly called on Americans to "clasp hands across the bloody chasm" by putting the CivilWar and Reconstruction behind them.

Greeley had spent most of his career, first as a Whig and then as a Repuh lican, denouncing the Democratic Party. But with the Republican split pre senting an opportunity to repair their political fortunes, Democratic leaders endorsed Greeley as their candidate. Many rank-and-file Democrats, unable to bring themselves to vote for Greeley, stayed at home on election day. As a result, Greeley suffered a devastating defeat by Grant, whose margin of more than 700,000 popular votes was the largest in a nineteenth-century presidential contest. But Greeley's campaign placed on the northern agenda the one issue on which the Liberal reformers and the Democrats could agree-=a new policy toward the South.

The North's Retreat The Liberal attack on Reconstruction, which continued after 18]2, contrib uted to a resurgence of racism in the North. Journalist fames s. Pike, a leading Greeley supporter, in 1874 published The Prostrate State, an influential account of a visit to South Carolina. The book depicted a state engulfed by political corruption and under the control of "amass of black barbarism." The South's problems, Pike insisted, arose from "Negro government." The solution was to restore leading whites to political power. Newspapers that had long supported Reconstruction now began' to condemn black participation in southern gov- ernment. Engravings depicting the former slaves as heroic Civil War veter- ans, upstanding citizens, or victims of violence were increasingly replaced by caricatures presenting them as little more than unbridled animals. Resurgent racism offered blacks' alleged incapacity as a convenient explanation for the "failure" of Reconstruction.

Other factors also weakened northern support for Reconstruction. In 1873, the country plunged into a severe economic depression. Distracted by eco- nomic problems, Republicans were in no mood to devote further attention to the South. The depression dealt the South a severe blow and further weakened the prospect that Republicans could revitalize the region's economy. Democrats made substantial gains throughout the nation in the elections of 1874. For the first time since the Civil War, their party took control of the House of Repre- sentatives. Before the new Congress met, the old one enacted a final piece of Reconstruction legislation, the Civil Rights Act of 1:875.This outlawed racial discrimination in places of public accommodation like hotels and theaters. But it was clear that the northern public was retreating from Reconstruction.

The Supreme Court whittled away at the guarantees of black rights Con- gress had adopted. In the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), white butchers excluded from a state-sponsored monopoly in Louisiana went to court. d,lilllllil', 111,)1

KANSAS

II rlgill III pursue a livelihood, a privilege of American citizenship guaran- lilly IIII' Fourteenth Amendment, had been violated. The justices rejected 1111.11111, luling that the amendment had not altered traditional federalism. 1.,1 01 III(' lights of citizens, it declared, remained under state control. Three 1', 1.11(", III United States v. Cruikshank, the Court gutted the Enforcement Acts Ihillwing out the convictions of some of those responsible for the Colfax

hlPoldi73·

till 'l'rlumph of the Redeemers IIlId I870S, Reconstruction was clearly on the defensive. Democrats had

tly Iegained control of states with substantial white voting majorities "II ,1'; 'Ienncssce, North Carolina, and Texas.The victorious Democrats called

1I1I'ln',I'lvi:SRedeemers. since they claimed to have "redeemed" the white 11111flom ('01ruption, misgovernment, and northern and black control. In thfl!a! states where Reconstruction governments survived, violence again

tpted, 'I'hls Iime, the Cr<1111 administration showed no desire to intervene. In III hl',l In Ihi!Klan's.ictivitiI'S conducted at night by disguised men-the vio- IIll'lll IH/I, alld IH7(l look pl.u l' in broad d.lylighl, .IS if 10 underscore Democrats' IIlVkli1]11 I h,11Ihey h,lllll(lllllllg 10I"M [nun W,I';hill~',lon,111Mississippi,in 1875, hill' lilli' dllhs ,hillc!din pllhlk lIn!iul"'lIly ;1';'..11111"" .uu] murdered Rcpubli- III'., Wllt'lI f:(IV('III(11 Adellll_'lt AnW'I,,I M,lilleh011l Illd,," gl~lH:ral,fl,llllil.1l1y

appealed to the Iedcra Igoven: ment for assistance, President Grant responded that tile northern public was "tired out" by southern problems. On election day, armed Democrats destroyed ballot boxes and drove former slaves from the polis. The result was a Democratic landslide and the end of Reconstruction in Mississippi, "A revolution has taken place," wrote Ames, "and a race are disfranchised-they are to be returned to ... an era of second slavery."

Similar events took place in South Carolina in 1876. Democrats nominated for governor former Confederate general Wade Hampton. Hampton promised to respect the rights of all citizens of the state, but his supporters, inspired by Demo- cratic tactics in Mississippi, launched a wave of intimidation. Democrats intended to carry the election, one planter told a black official, "if we have to wade in blood knee-deep."

The Disputed Election and Bargain of 1877 Events in South Carolina directly affected the outcome of the presidential campaign of r876. To succeed Grant, the Republicans nominated Governor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. Democrats chose as his opponent New York's governor, Samuel J. Tilden. By this time, only South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana remained under Republican control in the South. The election turned out to be so close that whoever captured these states-which both parties claimed to have carried-would become the next president.

Unable to resolve the impasse onits own, Congress in January r8n appointed a fifteen-member Electoral Commission, composed of senators, representatives, and Supreme Court justices. Republicans enjoyed an 8-7 majority on the com- mission, and to no one's surprise, the members decided by that margin that Ha yes had carried the disputed southern states and had been elected president. Even as

the commission deliberated, however, behind-the-scenes negotiations took place between leaders of the two parti es. Hayes's representatives agreed to recog- nize Democratic control of the entire South and to avoid further intervention in local affairs. They also pledged that Hayes would place a southerner in the cabinet position of postmaster general and that he would work for federal aid to the Texas and Pacific railroad, a trans- continental line projected to follow a southern route. For their part, Demo- crats promised not to dispute Hayes's right to office and to respect tlu- civil JIlJ polilit.11 rights of blacks.

Elector.' Vote Populi' Vote Party C•• did.te (Sho,,) (Sh.re) ~.pubh,.. H.yt> .85 (50"1.) 4.0]6.298 (48"1.)

_ I).mo",' Tilden .84 (10"') 4.]00.590 (5'%) (i'dilb41 ~ (flOp"l 0 (f}~) 9].891j (1%) 1)I\pu,.,d (i\\II"od II' II'V~ by "I..(IU,.I (ornminlnn)

600 -- C;UAl'n:R 1Ii "WIIIII GIlAI''i'.I':1I III~VIEW • 601

Thus was concluded the Bargain of .(877. Not all of its parts were fulfilled. liut l layes became president, and he did appoint David M. Key of Tennessee as postmaster general. Hayes quickly ordered federal troops to stop guarding the tate houses in Louisiana and South Carolina, allowing Democratic claimants

10 become governor. (Contrary to legend, Hayes did not remove the last sol- d u-rs from the South-he simply ordered them to return to their barracks.) But Ihe Texas and Pacific never did get its land grant. Of far more significance, the IIlurnphant southern Democrats failed to live up to their pledge to recognize blacks as equal citizens.

Thp End of Reconstruction At-..1 historical process-the nation's adjustment to the destruction of slavery- Ikconstruction continued well after r8n _Blacks continued to vote and, in some rates, hold office into the I890S. But as a distinct era of national history- when Republicans controlled much of the South, blacks exercised significant political power, and the federal government accepted the responsibility for protecting the fundamental rights of all American citizens-Reconstruction I1,Hl come to an end, Despite its limitations, Reconstruction was a remarkable rilllpter in the story of American freedom. Nearly a century would pass before the nation again tried to bring equal rights to the descendants of slaves, The civil rights era of the r950S and I960s would sometimes be called the Second I{'~(onstruction.

Even while it lasted, however, Reconstruction revealed some of the tensions inherent in nineteenth-century discussions of freedom. The policy of grant- IIII' black men the vote while denying them the benefits of land ownership til ngthened the idea that the free citizen could be a poor, dependent laborer. Ill'construction placed on the national agenda a problem that would dominate political discussion for the next half-century-how, in a modern society, to drunc the economic essence of freedom.

CHAPTER REVIEW

VIEW QUESTIONS

III ,86r;,former Carfederate general Robert Richardson remarked that "the emancipated ~/rllll'S OWII 110111;1111,becausenothing but freedom has beengiven to them." Explain iuhctlu» thi» would h·III",t(/lrtl/c' (I~srs~ml'nl o/Rl'(OnSlrUclion twelve years later.

'lht: Ill""I""'S 111"11,'11"'111 !/'III int« Iflil> gf',11II1i' notional o: qenizntion: in pari because the /O"i/li'I'lIlhA 1111'111/1111"11 di,l 'ltlll,i",~it"'II/(,IIII,,~ (.'111,', l: I/,Itlill whV IIII' If~llIl/rou"s split.

3. In what sense did the Reconstruction amendments mark a secondfoundinq of the United States?

4. What is birthright citizenship and why is it important?

5. How did black families, churches, schools, and other institutions contribute to the development of African-American culture and political activism in this period?

6. Why did ownership of land and control of labor become major points of contention between former slaves and whiles in the South?

7. By what methods did southern whites seek to limit African-American civil rights and liberties? How did thefederal government respond?

8. How did thefailure of land reform and continued poverty lead to new forms of servitude for both blacks and whites?

9. What caused the confrontation between President Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction policies?

10. What national issues and attitudes combined to bring an end toReconstruction by rB77?

11. By r877, how did the condition offormer slaves in the United States compare with that of freedpeople around the globe?

KEY TERMS the Freedmen's Bureau (p. 570)

sharecropping (p. 573)

crop lien (p. 574)

Black Codes (p. 579)

Civil Rights Bill of 1866 (p. 581)

Fourteenth Amendment (p. 582)

Reconstruction Act (p. 584)

Tenure of Office Act (p. 584)

impeachment (p. 584)

Fifteenth Amendment (p. 585)

carpetbaggers (p. 593)

scalawags (p. 593)

Ku Klux Klan (p. 596)

Enforcement Acts (p. 597)

Civil Rights Act of 1875 (p.598)

Redeemers (p. 599)

Bargain of 1877 (p. 601)

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