U.S. History:
1865 - Present-ish
Class Three
Reconstruction: 1865 - 1877
NOVA Spring 2012
Professor Rushford
What’s On
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Rashomon:
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Brief review - Peer Edit
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Lecture/Discussion:
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Reconstruction: 3 questions:
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Race? Unity? Power?
Preview What’s next . . . Reconstruction Primary Sources on Thursday
Rashomon
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A thief sees a husband and wife go by him
one summer day:
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Who killed the husband?
Explain WHY you think your answer
(thesis) is correct
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Review . . .
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NB: Peer Editing
John Gast, Manifest Destiny (1872)
Next Class
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Reconstruction (1865 - 1877)
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America has been split apart by three major wars:
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The American Revolution in the 1770's
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The Vietnam War in the 1970's
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and, in the middle of this period, the Civil War.
Each war has dramatically changed the generation engaged in battles as well as the generations that
followed.
We will be examining the repercussions of the Civil War, its effects on the American people, and the
agreements and disagreements within the nation over the meanings of "Reconstruction."
Keep these questions in mind:
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The first of those questions: Can the United States be truly united?
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The second: Can black and white Americans coexist peacefully and equally with one another?
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The third question: Who runs this country anyway?
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President? Congress? Supreme Court? The “People?”
Reconstruction
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Begins, really, when ‘the South’
surrenders, April 9, 1865 (Lee-Grant)
And what was left?
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"The countryside looked for many miles like a broad, black streak of ruin and desolation, the
fences all gone, lonesome smokestacks surrounded by dark heaps of ashes and cinders. The
fields along the road wildly overgrown by weeds, and here and there a sickly patch of cotton or
corn cultivated by Negro squatters." - Carl Schurz
Means to “build again”- What did we have
to build again?
Reconstruction
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How did “we” try?
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First, Let’s look at “we”: 4 Theories at Play - all have plans to make “Union” whole
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1. Radical Republicans: Congress/Northerners
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Remake South, especially around social issues
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Thaddeus Stevens, a member of the House of Representatives
from Pennsylvania
the actions of Southern states and Southern individuals had been
so criminal they had shattered the Constitution. If the Constitution
did not apply, then Congress had the right to reconstruct Southern
states in any way it chose. Southern states, Stevens said, must be
treated as conquered provinces under international law.
Reconstruction: Theories
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2. Presidential Theory: Andrew Johnson (‘southen-er’-ish)
that Southern states had never been out of the Union, but "only been
sleeping."
What was needed, Johnson said, was not Reconstruction but
"Restoration."
Southern states had acted treasonably, however, and under the
Constitution the president had the full say over so-called Reconstruction.
Johnson promised to use his pardoning power and to appoint provisional
governors sympathetic to the Southern cause, wake the sleeping states,
bring them back into the Union.
Reconstruction: Theories
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3. Southern Theory:
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argued that the results of the war proved secession could not take place
and that therefore Southern states never had left the Union. There was
no Constitutional question.
Everything should revert to its pre-war status.
4. Forfeited Rights:
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declared secession null and void while also emphasizing that governments
had rebelled against the Union.
Because Southern governments had rebelled, they had forfeited their
rights under the United States Constitution.
Under the Constitution it would be both the duty and right of Congress
to ensure every state a republican form of government.
Conflict over
Unity/Race
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So, there are differing plans to re-build political unity, by Congress and President
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Comes to head very quickly. [NB: 1865 - 1867, early]
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Johnson vetoes 2 bills:
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Freedman's Bureau Bill, designed to educate newly freed slaves while also
providing "forty acres and a mule" to aid freedmen in farming.
Johnson vetoed the bill on the grounds that until the former Confederate
states returned, Congress did not have the right to set up such provisions.
2nd Bill, the first civil rights act in American history, the Civil Rights Act of
1866. Essentially, all it did was bestow citizenship on the newly freed slaves, but
Johnson vetoed it as an unnecessary invasion of states' rights.
The Radicals interpreted the President's vetoes as evidence that he himself,
personally, was a racist and stepped up their demands for control over
Reconstruction.
Conflict over
Unity/Race
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They gained control of the powerful Joint Committee of Fifteen, the committee
on Reconstruction, and it was in that committee that the Forfeited Rights theory
was applied to the South.
Myths . . . [NB: D.W. Griffiths, Birth of a Nation (1922)]
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“Lost Cause” "The Tragic Era;" "The Dreadful Decade;" "The Age of
Hate;" "The Blackout of Honest Government."
Realities:
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Southern Armies:
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Confederate Civil leaders:
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20,000 Union troops in South, 1/3 of which were in LA & TX (Native Am’s)
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African - American Political Figures
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See Black Americans in Congress, e.g.
New South
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Out of these myths and language came the rhetoric of the “New
South”:
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Different economically (-ish)
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Industry
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Cotton, Coal, Tobacco
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- grow and process
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15% more or less
Committed to keeping SOCIAL structure of Old South in
place
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‘Separate but Equal/Jim Crow/Segregation
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e.g., “give white a break” in industrial jobs
New South
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But . . . colonial economy . . . tied to North
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Socially: No Slaves (13th: 1864) BUT •
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Black Codes - e.g, Mississippi
So, 14th (1868): Section 1 [Equality clause]. All persons born or
naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are
citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No
State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any
person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to
any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
and 15th (1870): Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to
vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state
on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude
New South
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But . . . not really enforced . . . 1954
Voting Restrictions on Blacks:
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Mississippi plan (1890) Williams v. Mississippi
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"To restore purity to the governance of the state of Mississippi blacks must no longer
be allowed to vote."
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Literacy tests
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Property tests
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Grandfather Clause (e.g., LA (1/1/1867 . . .)
Jim Crow Laws:
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Segregation: More socially strict than
before War
Jim Crow
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Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
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Homer Plessy
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Jim Crow car of train
Next Class . . .
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Bring Rashomon Peer Edit back . . .
Focus on Primary Sources:
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Black Codes and 2 short readings
and be prepared to chat . . .
Precis?