Reconstruction era


The Reconstruction era, often simply called Reconstruction, was a period in United States history that followed the American Civil War and was dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of the abolition of slavery and federal control over, and reintegration of, the former Confederate States into the United States. Three amendments were added to the United States Constitution to grant citizenship and equal civil rights to the newly freed slaves. To circumvent these, former Confederate states imposed poll taxes and literacy tests and sought to intimidate and control African Americans and discourage or prevent them from voting.
Throughout the war, the Union was confronted with the issue of how to administer captured areas and handle slaves escaping to Union lines. The United States Army played a vital role in establishing a free labor economy in the South, protecting freedmen's rights, and creating educational and religious institutions. Despite its reluctance to interfere with slavery, Congress passed the Confiscation Acts to seize Confederates' slaves, providing a precedent for President Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Congress established a Freedmen's Bureau to provide much-needed food and shelter to the newly freed slaves. As it became clear the Union would win, Congress debated the process for readmission of seceded states. Radical and moderate Republicans disagreed over the nature of secession, conditions for readmission, and desirability of social reforms. Lincoln favored the "ten percent plan" and vetoed the Wade–Davis Bill, which proposed strict conditions for readmission. Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, just as fighting was drawing to a close. He was replaced by Andrew Johnson, who vetoed Radical Republican bills, pardoned Confederate leaders, and allowed Southern states to enact draconian Black Codes that restricted the rights of freedmen. His actions outraged many Northerners and stoked fears the Southern elite would regain power. Radical Republicans swept to power in the 1866 midterm elections, gaining majorities in both houses of Congress.
In 1867–68, the Radical Republicans enacted the Reconstruction Acts over Johnson's vetoes, setting the terms by which former Confederate states could be readmitted to the Union. Constitutional conventions held throughout the South gave Black men the right to vote. New state governments were established by a coalition of freedmen, supportive white Southerners, and Northern transplants. They were opposed by "Redeemers", who sought to restore white supremacy and reestablish Democratic Party control of Southern governments and society. Violent groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, White League, and Red Shirts, engaged in paramilitary insurgency and terrorism to disrupt Reconstruction governments and terrorize Republicans. Congressional anger at Johnson's vetoes of Radical Republican legislation led to his impeachment by the House of Representatives, but he was not convicted by the Senate and therefore was not removed from office.
Under Johnson's successor, President Ulysses S. Grant, Radical Republicans enacted additional legislation to enforce civil rights, such as the Ku Klux Klan Act and Civil Rights Act of 1875. However, resistance to Reconstruction by Southern whites and its high cost contributed to its losing support in the North. The 1876 presidential election was marked by Black voter suppression in the South, and the result was close and contested. An Electoral Commission resulted in the Compromise of 1877, which awarded the election to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes on the understanding that federal troops would cease to play an active role in regional politics. Hayes accordingly removed the last federal troops from the South, which historians generally mark as the end of Reconstruction. Efforts to enforce federal civil rights in the South ended in 1890 with the failure of the Lodge Bill.
Historians disagree about the legacy of Reconstruction. Criticism focuses on the failure to prevent violence, corruption, starvation and disease. Some consider the Union's policy toward freed slaves as inadequate and toward former slaveholders as too lenient. However, Reconstruction is credited with restoring the federal Union, limiting reprisals against the South, and establishing a legal framework for racial equality via constitutional rights to national birthright citizenship, due process, equal protection of the laws, and male suffrage regardless of race.

Dating

The Reconstruction era had historically been dated from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until 1877, though other periodization schemes have been proposed more recently. In the 20th century, most scholars began their review in 1865, with the end of formal hostilities between the North and South. However, in his landmark 1988 monograph Reconstruction, Eric Foner proposed 1863, starting with the Emancipation Proclamation, Port Royal Experiment, and earnest debate of Reconstruction policies during the war. By 2017, among scholars it was widely understood that Reconstruction started in either "1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation or 1865 with the end of the war".
The Reconstruction Era National Historical Park proposed 1861 as a starting date, interpreting Reconstruction as beginning "as soon as the Union captured territory in the Confederacy". According to Downs and Masur, "Reconstruction began when the first US soldiers arrived in slaveholding territory, and enslaved people escaped..." Soon afterwards, early discourse and experimentation began regarding Reconstruction policies. The policies provided opportunities to enslaved Gullah populations in the Sea Islands who became free overnight on November 7, 1861, after the Battle of Port Royal when slaveholders fled. After the battle, reconstruction policies were implemented under the Port Royal Experiment which were education, landownership, and labor reform. This transition to a free society was called "Rehearsal for Reconstruction".
The conventional end of Reconstruction is 1877, with the reduction of the role of federal troops in regional politics. Later dates have been suggested. Fritzhugh Brundage proposed that Reconstruction ended in 1890, when Republicans failed to pass the Lodge Bill to secure voting rights for Black Americans in the South. Heather Cox Richardson argued that for a periodization from 1865 until 1920, when the election of President Warren G. Harding marked the end of a national sentiment in favor of using government to promote equality. Manisha Sinha periodized Reconstruction from 1860—when Lincoln won office as a president opposed to slavery—until 1920, when America ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution affirming the right of women to vote, which Sinha called "the last Reconstruction amendment" because it drew upon a Reconstruction belief that government could protect civil and political rights.

Background

In the American Civil War, eleven Southern states, all of which permitted slavery, seceded from the United States following the election of Lincoln to the presidency and formed the Confederate States of America. Though Lincoln initially declared secession "legally void" and declined to negotiate with Confederate delegates to Washington, following the Confederate assault on the Union garrison at Fort Sumter, Lincoln declared that "an extraordinary occasion" existed in the South and raised an army to quell "combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings." Over the next four years, 237 named battles were fought between the Union and Confederate armies, resulting in the dissolution of the Confederate States in 1865. During the war, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that "all persons held as slaves" within the Confederate territory "are, and henceforward shall be free."

Abolition of slavery and social reform

The Civil War had immense social implications for the United States. Emancipation had altered the legal status of 3.5 million persons, threatened the end of the plantation economy of the South, and provoked questions regarding the legal and social inequality of the races in the United States. The end of the war was accompanied by a large migration of newly freed people to the cities, where they were relegated to the lowest paying jobs, such as unskilled and service labor. Men worked as rail workers, rolling and lumber mills workers, and hotel workers. Black women were largely confined to domestic work employed as cooks, maids, and child nurses, or in hotels and laundries. The large population of slave artisans during the prewar period did not translate into a large number of free artisans during Reconstruction. The dislocations had a severe negative impact on the Black population, with a large amount of sickness and death.
During the war, Lincoln experimented with land reform by giving land to African-Americans in South Carolina. Having lost their enormous investment in slaves, plantation owners had minimal capital to pay freedmen workers to bring in crops. As a result, a system of sharecropping was developed, in which landowners broke up large plantations and rented small lots to the freedmen and their families. Thus, the main structure of the Southern economy changed from an elite minority of landed gentry slaveholders into a tenant farming agriculture system.
Historian David W. Blight identified three visions of the social implications of Reconstruction:
  • the reconciliationist vision, which focused on coping with the death and devastation the war had brought;
  • the white supremacist vision, which demanded strict segregation of the races and the preservation of political and cultural domination of Blacks by Whites, opposed any right to vote by Blacks, and accepted intimidation and violence; and
  • the emancipationist vision, which emphasized full freedom, citizenship, male suffrage, and constitutional equality for African Americans.