The Failure of the Reconstruction
from
Nicholas Kinloch, Modern History Review
Volume 16, April 2005
The Reconstruction era was one of the most significant and
controversial periods in American history. In 1865, the South had been
utterly defeated and the slaves had been freed. There seemed nothing
to stop the North from imposing whatever changes it wished. So why
did it take another century for African Americans to obtain real civil
rights?
From the very beginning there had been disagreement about the
treatment of the postwar South. Abraham Lincoln had made his
position clear in his second inaugural address of March 1864, when he
spoke of “malice toward none” and “charity for all”. This view was not
popular in all sections of the Republican Party. When Lincoln was
assassinated in April 1865, many were pleased by the firmer tone
taken initially by his successor, Andrew Johnson. “Treason”, declared
the new president soon after taking office, “must be made odious, and
traitors punished.” But this attitude did not last long. Within months,
Republicans realised that Johnson had no intention of punishing the
South.
Southerners, unsurprisingly, did everything they could to restore
the relationship between whites and blacks that had existed before
1861. Almost at once, Southern states passed legislation – the Black
Codes – that seriously restricted black civil rights. In Mississippi, for
example, the Codes introduced early in 1866 decisively limited the
personal freedom of black Mississippians, as the extracts below make
clear.
It shall be unlawful for any officer or employee on any
railroad in this state to allow any freedman, Negro, or
mulatto, to ride in any first class passenger cars, set
apart, or used by, and for white persons.
All freedmen, free Negroes and mulattoes in this state,
over the age of 18 years, found on the second Monday in
January 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment
or business, or found unlawfully assembling together,
either in the day or night time, shall be fined fifty dollars.
Southern blacks attempting to exercise their new rights had more
than mere legal obstacles. From the very beginning, they faced both
intimidation and physical violence. This could come in the form of antiblack riots, but more often it was carefully targeted at politically active
blacks and their white sympathisers by terrorist organisations such as
the Ku Klux Klan or the Knights of the White Camellia.
To some Northerners, it was unacceptable that there should be
such a rapid attempt to undo the liberation of the black population.
They expected the new president to take immediate action. Instead,
Johnson was determined to maintain white supremacy in the South. In
1866, he attempted to veto the Supplementary Freedmen’s Bureau
Act, which would have extended the powers of the Freedmen’s Bureau.
More important, he attempted to veto the Civil Rights Act, which
sought to place all citizens on an equal footing. Although the act was
passed over Johnson’s veto, it was clear that it would never be
enforced without a Constitutional amendment. The Fourteenth
Amendment declared that no state could limit the rights of citizens
without legal authority and that, if a state denied voting rights to male
citizens, its representation in Congress would be reduced. The
subsequent congressional elections were largely fought on this issue.
Republicans won a landslide, allowing Congress to take the initiative in
Reconstruction for the first time. No former rebel state could now be
admitted to the Union without first ratifying the 14th Amendment.
This was achieved through a number of Reconstruction Acts, all of
which Johnson attempted to veto.
Why had Johnson rejected all efforts to improve the status of
African Americans? In fact his background made it very unlikely that he
would do anything for them. He was a Southerner, from Tennessee.
Although he had been firmly committed to the Union at the outbreak
of war, he had been a slave-owner. He regarded African Americans as
essentially inferior. In 1865, he assured Southerners that, “White men
alone must manage the South.” In his 1867 annual message to
Congress, Johnson stated that, “Blacks possess less capacity for
government than any other race of people” and denied that any form
of independent government had ever been successful in their hands.
As well as holding these racist attitudes, which were common to both
South and North, Johnson was committed to states’ rights. He did not
believe that the federal government had the right to impose any
policies, especially concerning suffrage, on the Southern states.
Johnson, like Lincoln, also believed that Reconstruction was a matter
for the executive branch of the government to decide, rather than
Congress.
These policies, both on civil rights and on presidential power, were
a direct challenge to the growing power of a small group within the
Republican Party, known as the Radicals. Increasingly, they dominated
Congress after the election of the 39th Congress, which met in
December 1865. The most prominent were Thaddeus Stevens of
Pennsylvania, George W. Julian of Indiana, Charles Sumner and
Benjamin Wade, both from Massachusetts. The Radicals grew
increasingly unhappy as Johnson’s policies diverged from their own. As
early as July 1865, Stevens had complained that Southern rebels had
not been punished. They had instead, he complained, “been sent on
tl1eir way rejoicing”.
Stevens and Sumner in particular were committed to black civil
rights as a matter of simple justice. Entitlement to civil rights,
however, might not necessarily mean having the vote. It was quite
possible to argue, as many did, that freedmen should enjoy equal
protection with whites under the law, without being granted suffrage.
This was certainly the view of more moderate Republicans. But the
Radicals, in Johnson’s phrase, were “wild for Negro suffrage.” In
January 1867 Thaddeus Stevens asked, “Have not loyal blacks quite as
good a right to choose rulers and make laws as rebel whites?” Radicals
realised that, unless blacks had some say in choosing who governed
them, they would inevitably be ruled by their former masters.
Of course there would also be a political advantage to black
suffrage. Radicals assumed that most former slaves would be likely to
support the Republican Party. And enabling black people to enter the
political process would help to achieve the other main Radical goal: the
destruction of the former plantation aristocracy of the South. Radicals
believed that it was this class which had organised both secession and
civil war.
In the end, however, the Radicals were unsuccessful. There were a
number of reasons for this. One was that the planter aristocracy
proved to be far more resilient than they had assumed. Figures for
Alabama, which reflect the South as a whole, suggest that a relatively
small number of planters had been totally ruined by the war. But the
majority, while not so well off as they had been in 1860, were still
much better off than they had been 10 years earlier.
The Radicals were not really able to challenge segregation or other
forms of discrimination in the South. The passing of the 15th
Amendment in 1870, designed to compel both Northern and Southern
states to guarantee black voting rights, was undermined because it did
not outlaw the widespread practice of demanding voting qualifications.
Nor did the Amendment guarantee blacks the right to hold office. The
death of Thaddeus Stevens in 1868 removed the most powerful single
voice in favour of civil rights. It was clear from the presidential election
of 1868 that there was little public appetite for providing any further
help for civil rights. On the contrary, many Northerners were horrified
when Hiram Revels was elected to Senate, showing that black
“domination” of the South was a real possibility. The passing of a
further Civil Rights Act in 1875 was ineffective; political control in the
South had now passed decisively towards the white majority. This
position was to remain essentially unaltered until the renewed civil
rights movement began in the 1950s.