On April 11, 1865, two days after the Confederate surrender, Abraham Lincoln spoke to a crowd outside the White House. This speech was his first since the end of the war, and many assumed it would be a victory speech. Instead, Lincoln laid out the long and difficult road that lay ahead during Reconstruction. Much of the South lay in ruins, and it would have to be rebuilt. Many difficult decisions would need to be made about reconstruction of the former Confederate states. Lincoln emphasized his view that the former Confederate states should be treated, legally, as though they had never left, but also suggested that it might be necessary and expedient to grant the vote to black men, under certain limited conditions. Even this tentative suggestion enraged many Southerners, including John Wilkes Booth. Three days later, Booth fired the final bullet of the Civil War, killing Lincoln in his box seat at Ford’s Theatre. (Click on the thumbnail Open PhotoViewer: Lincoln’s Last Days.)
I. Political Challenges
Reconstruction
Lincoln’s relations with members of his own party had not been strong in recent years, as many of the Radical Republicans feared he would be too generous to the southern aristocracy in his efforts to resume normal relations. The radicals rejected Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan, which would have allowed Confederate states to rejoin the Union and be seated in Congress once ten percent of its citizens took an oath of loyalty. The counterproposal passed by Congress, the Wade-Davis Bill, called for a fifty percent minimum of loyal citizens, and further specified that no one could run for national office unless he publicly declared he had never supported the Confederacy—something that precluded most of the former leaders from returning to Washington. Lincoln refused to sign it, resulting in a brief schism and essential dissolution of the Republican Party in 1864. Two separate presidential campaigns were launched, and although the other “Republican” candidate would eventually drop out and endorse Lincoln, the incumbent actually won re-election in 1864 on the ticket of the National Union Party. His running mate was Andrew Johnson, a former senator from Tennessee who was a staunch opponent of southern secession and the only senator to retain his seat in Congress after the war began (Foner 2002).
Lincoln’s assassination, and Johnson’s elevation to the presidency, added an extra element of uncertainty to an already tumultuous time. Northerners were divided over the rights that would be granted to the former slaves and the punishment that should be meted out to the “traitors” who had tried to destroy the Union. Southern leaders were concerned about whether they would be imprisoned or lose their property.
Initially, it seemed that the Radical Republicans had a friend in Johnson. In his first speech as president, he argued that traitors must be punished—a harsher stance than Lincoln had taken. He had long opposed and resented the wealthy class of plantation owners who had led the South and he had spent his time in Congress lobbying for the rights of the poor white citizens of his state. Charles Sumner, a prominent Radical Republican, stated that Johnson “was the sincere friend of the Negro, and ready to act for him decisively” (qtd. in Means 2006, 176). Others, including black leader Frederick Douglass, were less convinced. (Click on the thumbnail Multimedia: Douglass & Johnson | Multimedia transcript.)
In less than two months, the Radical Republicans, including Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, an abolitionist Senator from Pennsylvania, understood that Johnson’s view of Reconstruction differed dramatically from their own. In late May of 1865, Johnson put forward his idea of “Presidential Reconstruction”—a much more lenient policy than Congress generally supported, including blanket pardons for most of the former Confederate soldiers. True to his roots as a poor white southerner, however, Johnson was initially less lenient with the plantation aristocracy, requiring that those individuals contact him personally to ask forgiveness. Throughout the summer and fall, when Congress was not in session, the capitol was filled with southern elites begging a presidential pardon. Johnson granted most of those requests—as many as 20,000 by some estimates—returning their property, with the exception of slaves. This might seem at odds with Johnson’s professed goal of a South where the average man ruled—but it was more important to him that the rulers of the South remained white.
The new southern legislatures also began passing Black Codes to restrict the rights of former slaves. Although the level of freedom for blacks was greater than under slavery, blacks were far from free under the provisions of these codes, the first of which was passed by Mississippi in 1865. Specifics varied from state to state, but all included a provision that denied the right to vote or serve on a jury. While they could own some types of property and could marry, they generally could not enter into contracts, or own or lease land, and had severe restrictions on the right to carry a firearm. The most telling provisions were those that concerned labor. Annual work contracts were required and violations of these contracts would result in penalties, ranging from fines to service on a chain gang. Contracts, which were between individual workers and the plantation owner, made it difficult for blacks to negotiate and they were essentially a way of guaranteeing a virtual continuation of the social and economic structure that had existed prior to the War.
During 1866 and 1867, Congress was constantly at odds with President Johnson over the issue of Reconstruction. Every act that Congress would pass would be vetoed by Johnson, although they were more easily able to override those vetoes after the 1866 election, which strengthened the power of the Radical Republicans in Congress. Concerned that laws protecting former slaves could be easily overturned, the legislative branch passed the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, hoping to provide constitutional protection that would not be subject to the whims of the executive branch, future legislatures, or state governments. (See amendment text at left.) Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment was made a condition for Confederate states to re-enter the union, but most refused. Congress responded by passing the Military Reconstruction Act, which divided the South into five military districts. (Tennessee was not included, as it had voted to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.) For much of the next decade, these districts were occupied by federal troops who were charged with protecting the rights of all citizens, including blacks.
The fact that gender was not included in these provisions enraged women’s rights advocates, who had already been angered by the fact that the Fourteenth Amendment had for the first time placed the word “male” in the Constitution. (Click on the thumbnail Multimedia: Votes for All? | Multimedia transcript.) Some women, and most men, argued that the chances of passing an amendment that included both race and sex were slim, at best. The result was a schism in the women’s rights movement that would last until 1890—with the ironic twist that the Fifteenth Amendment would be opposed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and others who had worked for decades within the abolitionist movement. These women and others who had hoped that women and black men would “go into the kingdom together,” would not live to see women finally win the vote, seventy years later (Stanton and Anthony 1887, 214).
The 1875 Civil Rights Act was the last Reconstruction effort by Congress, and put into place many of the provisions that would later be seen in the act by the same name, passed 90 years later. Although the 1875 act did not include equal access to education, it prohibited discrimination in a wide array of public services, transportation, restaurants, theaters, and so forth. The act suffered, however, from the lack of effective enforcement measures, and was essentially dead until revived by Congress in 1965.
The Grant Presidency
The 1868 election was a landslide for the Republicans, with Grant securing 214 of the 294 electoral votes. He would be re-elected in 1872 by an even larger margin. Grant’s presidency was, however, a troubled one. The very qualities that made him a good military leader were, ironically, liabilities as a politician. He allowed Congress free reign in developing policy, even on issues where his own views differed, because he had a strong dislike for political negotiation.
The Grant administration was plagued with corruption and financial crises. The first economic accomplishment was the signing of the Public Credit Act, which was passed just after Grant took office in 1869. The act pledged payment in gold to holders of government bonds. Grant was not knowledgeable about finance, however, and his economic and monetary policies were inconsistent. When the panic of 1873 hit during his second term, Grant’s indecisiveness made it difficult for the country to recover, and a serious depression engulfed the economy for the next five years. Millions were unemployed. The issues of paper money and workers’ rights emerged as key concerns for voters, and the gulf between the interests of average workers, on farms or in factories, and those of the large corporations continued to grow.
With the national economy weakened, Reconstruction became a less pressing concern, and some argued that it was diverting too much money to the South through reconstruction projects and the costs of military occupation. The 1876 election, between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and the Democratic nominee, Samuel Tilden, was extremely close, and was won by Hayes only as the result of a bargain, known as the Compromise of 1877. In exchange for the presidency, Republicans agreed to end Reconstruction and remove the remaining federal troops from the southern states. (Click on the thumbnail Multimedia: 1876 Election | Multimedia transcript.) Southern states promised to protect the rights of blacks, but there was little reason to believe that they would follow through on the promise. The Republicans were the official winners of the election, and Hayes entered the White House. The real winner, however, was the Democratic Party—in losing the election, they achieved their key goal of ending Reconstruction.
II. A New Economy for a New South
Forty Acres and a Mule
As the North gained more and more southern territory during the Civil War, the lands were put under control of the U.S. Army. In some cases, the land was distributed to former slaves—both as a way of punishing and breaking the economic power of the South and as a way of compensating the slaves for the labor that they had invested in the land.
One frequently cited example is that of the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina. At the very end of 1864, the Georgia port city of Savannah fell, and in early January 1865, Lincoln sent Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to the city to help General Sherman organize a meeting of the city’s black ministers. They wanted to discuss the future of African-Americans in the South. They made it clear that land was the primary need, because without that, the freed slaves would have no way of supporting themselves. They didn’t ask to be given land outright, but simply to be granted use of it to cultivate, so that they could eventually purchase the land with their profits (Harding 1981 164-5).
The result of the meeting was Special Field Order #15, which allocated 400,000 acres of abandoned land, mostly former rice plantations along the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, to African-Americans for cultivation and settlement. Sherman declared that each family would be allocated forty acres of land, and added that there were many Army mules left over after the war that could be claimed by anyone who wanted them. The news that the government was offering “forty acres and a mule” to all freed slaves was repeated far and wide, and forty thousand former slaves headed toward the Georgia and South Carolina coasts, eager to get their share of the American dream. Tunis Campbell of New Jersey, a black former abolitionist leader, was appointed by Secretary of War Stanton to supervise the Sea Island settlements (Harding 1981, 267).
Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, was not in favor of this plan, however. In fall of 1865 he revoked Special Field Order #15 and made it clear that he would settle for nothing less than a return of the land to its former owners, with provisions that the former slaves sign contracts to work the land if they chose to remain. Johnson also cut funding to the Freedmen’s Bureau, established by Lincoln during the war, which aimed to educate former slaves and assist them with the transition to independence. (Click on the thumbnail Multimedia: Freedmen’s Bureau | Multimedia transcript.) Most of the former slaves, including Tunis Campbell, opted to leave the islands (Harding 1981, 271).
With funding cut, the services decreased and the Bureau closed down entirely in 1872. The clear message to the former slaves was that access to land—the one thing they had noted as most desperately needed—was not going to be granted, and if they wanted an education, there would be little assistance from the government in obtaining it. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments granted legal rights that were protected to some extent until the Compromise of 1877. Economic rights were even harder to come by, however, as politicians above and below the Mason-Dixon Line battled to determine the shape of the “New South” that they hoped would arise from the ashes of the war.
Economic Diversity
As the Civil War ended, and the nation began the difficult task of rebuilding the United States, one thing was very apparent. King Cotton, which had long been acknowledged as the ruler of the South, would have to make way for a new and more diverse economic system. Political leaders in both the North and the South felt that overreliance on a single crop had been a weakness, and southern leaders believed that this weakness was a key reason for their defeat in the war. All agreed that a “New South” was in order, but there were significant differences of opinion on the shape that this would take.
In the years just after the war ended, cotton production remained central to the southern economy and there was little change in economic relations between the white landowners and former slaves. Given the lack of opportunities for freedmen, many were forced to become sharecroppers and farm the land as tenants. The provisions in the various Black Codes that were established in many southern states after the war made it impossible for former slaves to negotiate fair contracts, and some critics noted that the Civil War seemed to have changed very little for those who were now supposed to be free from bondage. The situation was improved briefly by the presence of federal troops, but returned to the old pattern as the last troops left the South in the late 1870s.
Southern Industry
It was clear, however, the region would not be able to grow and prosper without serious economic restructuring. Industrialization and diversification were key elements in most visions of the New South. The editor of the Atlanta Constitution, Henry W. Grady, was a strong believer in the potential of the New South as an agricultural power if it could expand its base to include a wider variety of crops. Agriculture would remain an important component of the economy, but other crops were sought to supplement cotton production, including tobacco, rice, and sugar cane, which all grew well in the South. (Click on the thumbnail Multimedia: Rebuilding the South | Multimedia transcript.)
Grady and other backers of the New South knew, however, that they could not focus solely on agriculture, but would have to follow the example of the North and industrialize. Iron and coal production were also important for the region, with mining cities like Birmingham, Alabama growing rapidly. By the end of the century, the South led the world in coal production (Hillstrom and Hillstrom 2005). The expanding railroad system fueled the need for more iron and coal, and also made it much easier for the South to be competitive in exporting those products to the North and West. The lumber industry also thrived in the South, and the region was the source of over one-half of all lumber products in the country by the end of the century (Davidson 1996).
Given the continued preeminence of cotton in the southern economy, it was inevitable that one of the first industries to gain a solid foothold in the region was textiles. Cotton mills expanded quickly throughout the South, growing at a more rapid pace than those in New England or the Midwest. By 1900, there were over 400 cotton mills in the South (Cashman 1993). Like cotton, tobacco had traditionally been grown in the South, but transported elsewhere for processing. In the late 1800s, however, tobacco processing became a major growth industry in the South.
Regional leaders initially tried to fund these factories with southern capital, but Northern investors assumed control of most industries by the 1890s. Most of the jobs in these new factories were set aside for white workers, although blacks were occasionally able to land an unskilled position. Some factory owners justified this by saying that whites had been unfairly pushed out of agricultural work before the Civil War, but others didn’t bother to justify it at all. The knowledge, however, that there were plenty of black laborers waiting to take these factory positions was very useful in preventing workers from organizing for better wages and working conditions.
III. Race Relations in the New South
Carpetbaggers, Scalawags, and Redeemers
By the turn of the century, the economy of the South resembled that of the North more than it did the agricultural economy of the pre-war South. In this sense, Reconstruction could be seen as a success by observers in the North. The social structure, however, was virtually untouched. When they spoke with their peers outside the region, leaders like Henry Grady were eager to put the past behind them and claim that Negroes were partners in the New South, but there was little evidence to support their assertions.
For the brief period when the southern states were occupied, blacks saw a glimmer of hope. They were granted property rights, the right to marry, and the right to be educated. For the first time, public schools were established in the South and by 1877, over half a million former slaves of all ages were enrolled in classes (Heilbroner, Singer, and Singer 1999, 141). The schools were segregated, however, and despite efforts by Reconstruction officials to ensure equal funding, the white schools were generally better equipped. Private funds were solicited from black churches throughout the country and missionaries from the North were recruited as teachers.
Political gains were also fleeting. During the occupation and for a short time afterward, African-Americans were also able to gain political office at all levels of government, with over 1,500 black men elected to state and local office throughout the South (Foner 1993). (Click on the thumbnail Multimedia: Reconstruction Representatives | Multimedia transcript.) In addition, two black senators and twenty black congressmen were elected to federal office. A few of these politicians were able to hold onto their positions after Reconstruction ended, but by the turn of the century, all had been replaced by whites.
The justification, widely held in both the South and the North, was that the black leaders were simply too incompetent and corrupt to participate in government. In 1868, the Georgia legislature voted to expel all Negro members. Rep. Henry MacNeil Turner eloquently protested his removal, but his speech was in vain, and other legislatures throughout the South took similar measures in the years to come.
Most offices during Reconstruction were held by white politicians from the North, however, whom southern Democrats dismissed as “carpetbaggers,” who packed everything up in a suitcase to rush southward and make money in the wake of the war. The few white Republicans from the South who held office were called “scalawags,” and they were even less respected, given that many were believed to have allied with the North during the War. Southern Democrats didn’t consider either group capable of leading the South and allegations of corruption were frequent. Some of the allegations were true, as the chaos in the South did allow opportunists the chance to make a quick fortune, but the charges were amplified as part of an ultimately successful propaganda war against the Reconstruction governments.
By 1876, the governments that had been established by Radical Republicans remained in power in only two southern states. Elsewhere, Democrats had regained power and most of them were the same men who had held office prior to the war—generally ex-plantation owners, who wanted as little change as possible in the social structure of the South. Their goal was to restore the pre-war South. They might be forced to accept that blacks could no longer be enslaved, but they were unwilling to embrace anything close to equality. Instead, they worked to take back political and economic power from the Republican coalition of carpetbaggers, scalawags, and freed slaves. These politicians were frequently known as the “Redeemers,” for their pledge to redeem the “Lost Cause” of white civilization, and they were largely responsible for the surge in racial violence in the late 1800s. (Click on the thumbnail Multimedia: Racial Violence | Multimedia transcript.)
The Rise of Jim Crow Laws
The underlying issue in southern politics in this era was whether class interests or race interests would prevail for poor whites. Elites were a fairly small group, and they could not hope to maintain political power over blacks unless they were allied with working-class whites who formed the majority of the population. Many of the economic policies pursued by the Redeemers were equally harmful to the interests of poorer white families, who also were forced to sharecrop or work for low wages. By emphasizing white civilization and the “Lost Cause,” however, southern elites were able to focus attention on race and use the political power they gained to fully disenfranchise the former slaves.
An excellent example of this was seen in Mississippi, which held a constitutional convention in 1890. The officially stated purpose of the convention was to disenfranchise ignorant and illiterate voters, but State Representative James Vardaman, who would later become governor of the state, was brash enough to state the reality that everyone knew: “Mississippi’s constitutional convention was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the nigger1 from politics; not the ignorant, but the nigger” (Tafari and Wormser 2002). A clause was added that allowed individuals to vote, even if illiterate, if they could explain a passage of the constitution when it was read to them. This left the judgment entirely in the hands of politically appointed, white registrars.
This “Mississippi Plan,” as it became known throughout the South, was challenged, but eventually upheld by the Supreme Court in its 1897 Williams v. Mississippi decision. Other southern states employed property requirements or literacy tests to restrict black voting, but this had the side effect of limiting the right for poor whites, as well. In 1898, Louisiana devised the “grandfather clause,” which would allow an individual to vote only if his grandfather had been eligible to vote in 1867. As blacks were not yet enfranchised, this was seen as an excellent solution and was quickly adopted by other southern states.
Segregation laws—commonly known as “Jim Crow” laws—were also adopted by all southern states by 1890. These laws required “separate but equal” accommodations for the races in all public services, from schools and hospitals to transportation, restaurants, and theaters. Even the cemeteries were separate. The legality of this was first tested in a landmark case known as Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Homer Plessy, a man who was one-eighth black, was convicted of refusing an order to leave an all-white train car. Plessy appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, but the high court upheld his conviction. Justice John Marshall Harlan of Kentucky dissented in the ruling, arguing that this would only increase aggression toward African-Americans. Lynching surged in the late 1890s and the vast majority of victims were black.
Black leaders struggled against the new restrictions, but there was some disagreement on the best way to obtain full economic and political rights. Booker T. Washington advised African-Americans to focus on long-term economic progress, rather than fighting against segregation. W. E. B. Du Bois sharply disagreed, urging “ceaseless agitation” against the unfair laws, especially by those who had the economic means and educational background to lead. Despite their differences, both were in agreement that Reconstruction and the promise of a New South had done little to increase the well-being of African-Americans. The task of continuing the struggle would be taken up by their children and grandchildren in the decades to come.
1This word is used as part of a direct quote from State Representative James Vardaman. UMUC realizes that this is a highly offensive word, but it is used in historical context in order to illustrate the deep-seated, racist beliefs of the times.
References
Cashman, Sean Dennis. 1993. America in the Gilded Age: From the death of Lincoln to the rise of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: NYU Press.
Davidson, James West. 1996. Nation of nations: A concise narrative of the American republic. New York: McGraw Hill.
Foner, Eric. 1993. Freedom’s lawmakers: A directory of black officeholders during Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press.
________. 2002. Reconstruction: America’s unfinished revolution, 1863–1877. New York: HarperCollins.
Harding, Vincent G. 1981. There is a river: The black struggle for freedom in America. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
Heilbroner, Robert, Alan Singer, and Aaron Singer. 1999. The economic transformation of America: 1600 to the present. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Hillstrom, Kevin, and Laurie Collier Hillstrom. 2005. The Industrial Revolution in America. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio.
Means, Howard. 2006. The avenger takes his place: Andrew Johnson and the 45 days that changed the nation. Boston: Harcourt.
PBS Online. 1999. “People & events: The panic of 1873.” American Experience: Ulysses S. Grant. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/grant/peopleevents/e_panic.html (accessed February 10, 2009).
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, and Susan B. Anthony. 1887. History of woman suffrage, volume 2: 1861–1876. New York: Fowler & Wells.
Tafari, Tsahai, and Richard Wormser. 2002. “Williams v. Mississippi (1898).” The rise and fall of Jim Crow: Jim Crow stories. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_williams.html (accessed February 10, 2009).
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