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PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION “Andrew Johnson’s
Reconstruction, And How It Works,” in Harper’s
Weekly, September 11, 1866. Johnson planned to admit the former rebel states
upon minimal acceptance of emancipation and renunciation of secession.
No provisions were made for rights or needs of southern blacks,
whether previously free or newly emancipated. Instead, Johnson assumed
there would be continued white domination over blacks.
He tolerated white violence to achieve that end, and opposed
measures to uplift blacks such as the Freedmen’s Bureau and the volunteer
Freedmen’s aid societies formed in the North. “The Great Labor
Question From a Southern Point of View,” in Harper’s
Weekly, July 29, 1865. Emancipation removed nearly 4 million blacks
from forced labor. Southern
whites were determined to restore slavery in all but name and to retain
their privileged white status. Through
various “black codes” enacted into law, they denied blacks political
and civil rights, restricted black rights to own property; and passed
vagrancy laws requiring blacks to accept whatever jobs whites offered
or face jail. Carl Schurz,
The Condition of the South: Extracts from the
Report of Major-General Carl Schurz, on the States of South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana: Addressed to the President (Washington, 1866). Traveling through
the south at the order of President Johnson, Schurz reported the consequences
of Johnson’s lenient policies. Of
southerners, Schurz observed “whenever they look around them upon the
traces of the war, they see . . . not the consequences of their own
folly, but the evidences of ‘Yankee wickedness.’ ” . . . “Treason does,
under existing circumstances, not appear odious in the south . . . there
is yet among the southern people an utter absence of national feeling.”
Schurz supported enfranchising blacks for their own safety and
the safety of the Union: “While the southern white fought against the
Union, the negro did all he could to aid it.” United State
Congress, House of Representatives,
Murder of Union Soldiers In North Carolina.
Letter from the Secretary of War . . . (Washington, 1866). A part of the ongoing exposé of southern atrocities
was this investigation into
the hanging of North Carolina loyalists in the Union Army, captured
in 1864. Widespread violence against blacks &
Unionists was not checked by federal troops.
Domination of blacks was essential to the white southern view
of Reconstruction. They attacked
any individuals or institutions that aided blacks.
Schools and churches were favorite targets. Local politicians counted on Johnson and the Democrats to help them
keep blacks subordinate. United States
Congress, House of Representatives, Memphis
Riots and Massacres. July 25,
1866 . . . Mr. E. B. Washburne, from the Select Committee on the Memphis
Riots, made the following Report (Washington, 1866). The Memphis
riot of May, 1866 was one of the worst early manifestations of southern
white rejection of defeat and emancipation.
The riot helped provoke Congress to take control of Reconstruction.
White mobs including police and firemen attacked the black shantytown
in South Memphis; at least 48 people were killed, all but two of them
blacks. “The disturbance resulting from collision between
some policemen and discharged colored soldiers was seized upon as a
pretext for an organized and bloody massacre of the colored people of
Memphis.” United States
Congress, Report of the Joint
Committee on Reconstruction (Washington, 1864). Angered by
southern intransigence, the Radical Republicans assumed control over
the reorganization of the rebel states.
The conquered states had “forfeited all civil and political rights
and privileges under the federal Constitution, they can only be restored
thereto by the permission and authority of that constitutional power
against which they rebelled and by which they were subdued.”
Congressional representatives selected by the southern states
were denied their seats until the Republican majority deemed them “reconstructed.” Charles Sumner,
No Property in Man. Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, on the Proposed
Amendment of the Constitution Abolishing Slavery Throughout the United
States (New York: Loyal
League Publication Society, 1864). “We are constantly
and painfully reminded in this Chamber that pending measures against
slavery are unconstitutional. This
is an immense mistake. Nothing against slavery can be unconstitutional. It is only hesitation which is unconstitutional.” Lazarus W. Powell,
Amendments to the Constitution. Speech of Hon. L. W. Powell, of Ky., In Reply
to Senators Clarke, Hale, and Sumner . . . On the Joint Resolution Proposing
Amendments to the Constitution of the United States (Washington:
The Constitutional Union, 1864). In opposition
to the 13th Amendment, Powell belittled its supporters: “The
negro absorbs your every thought. For
him you will destroy the country; for him you will allow the liberties
of the white man to be stricken down, and every sacred guarantee of
liberty in the Constitution put underfoot without a whimper or a censure.” Benjamin Gratz
Brown, Immediate Abolition of
Slavery by Act of Congress (Washington: H. Polkinhorn, Printer,
1864). This Missouri
Republican long advocated abolition in his home state, and supported
the efforts of Congress to effect it nationwide.
“Missouri, which was consecrated to slavery more than forty years
ago by a national Congress, comes this day and asks a national Congress
to right that wrong and confer upon her freedom as the only sure guarantee
of republican institutions.” James A. Garfield,
Speech of Hon. James A. Garfield, of Ohio,
on the Constitutional Amendment to Abolish Slavery, Delivered in the
House of Representatives, January 13, 1865 (Washington: McGill &
Witherow, 1865). Garfield was ingenuously amazed at the proslavery opposition to emancipation.
“We shall never know why slavery dies so hard in this Republic
and in this Hall till we know why sin has such longevity and Satan is
immortal.” Social, Civil
and Statistical Association of the Colored People of Pennsylvania, Frederick Douglass, Will deliver the Third
Lecture of the Course . . . Subject, “Equality Before the Law” (Philadelphia, 1865.) The emancipation
of southern slaves is not enough, Douglass argued before this gathering
of Philadelphia African Americans.
The next step must be guaranteeing equal rights for all, black
and white alike. Minutes and Proceedings of the Colored Shiloh Baptist Church Association,
of Virginia. Assembled at Ebenezer Church, Richmond, August
11th, 1865
(Richmond: Republic Book and Job Office, 1865). The individual black Baptist congregations created
by free blacks under slavery sought to organize themselves state-wide
to better provide for the needs of their now-free fellow blacks. Tennessee blacks organize to press for the vote
and equality before the law. “We
have met here to impress upon the white men of Tennessee, of the United
States, and of the world, that we are part and parcel of the American
Republic.” Minutes of the Freedmen’s Convention, Held in the City of Raleigh, On
the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th
of October, 1866 (Raleigh: Standard Book and Job Office, 1866). To carry on
their agitation for the vote and equal rights, this convention organized
itself into the statewide North Carolina Equal Rights League.
Paraphrasing the most repellant line from the Dred Scott decision,
they stated, “We believe the day has come, when black men have rights
which white men are bound to respect.” Proceedings of the First Convention of Colored Men of Kentucky, Held in
Lexington, March the 22d, 23d, 24th and 26th,
1866. With the Constitution of the Kentucky State
Benevolent Association (Louisville: Civill & Calvert, 1866). “We are part
and parcel of the Great American body politic,” this Kentucky convention
declared. However, they were for a time prepared to do
without the vote in exchange for other measures guaranteeing them equality
before the law and access to land. William Wells
Brown, The Black Man: His Antecedents, His Genius,
and His Achievements (Savannah: Published for James M. Symms &
Co., 1865). This collection
of black biographical sketches was published by James M. Simms on his
return home. Simms was a free black of Savannah, run out
of town for teaching fellow blacks to read.
He returned to pursue a career as a Republican politician, Baptist
minister, and newspaper editor. He
published this work to provide new role models for the new times. Most of the subjects were alive and active
at the time; and many, like the author, were former slaves. |