Reconstruction American

  Reconstruction

 

      (1865-77), in U.S. history,  period  during  and  after  the  American

Civil War in which attempts were made to solve the  political,  social,  and

economic problems arising from the  readmission  to  the  Union  of  the  11

Confederate states that had seceded at or before the outbreak of war.

      As early as 1862, Pres.  Abraham  Lincoln  had  appointed  provisional

military  governors  for  Louisiana,  Tennessee,  and  North  Carolina.  The

following year, initial steps  were  taken  to  reestablish  governments  in

newly occupied states in which at least 10 percent of the voting  population

had taken the prescribed oath of allegiance.  Aware  that  the  presidential

plan omitted any  provision  for  social  or  economic  reconstruction,  the

Radical  Republicans  in  Congress  resented  such   a   lenient   political

arrangement under solely executive jurisdiction. As a result,  the  stricter

Wade-Davis Bill was passed in 1864 but pocket vetoed by the President.

      After Lincoln's  assassination  (April  1865),  Pres.  Andrew  Johnson

further alienated Congress by continuing Lincoln's  moderate  policies.  The

Fourteenth  Amendment,  defining  national  citizenship  so  as  to  include

blacks, passed Congress in June 1866 and was ratified, despite rejection  by

most Southern states (July 28, 1868). In response to  Johnson's  intemperate

outbursts  against  the  opposition  as  well  as  to  several   reactionary

developments in the South (e.g., race riots and  passage  of  the  repugnant

black codes severely  restricting  rights  of  blacks),  the  North  gave  a

smashing victory to  the  Radical  Republicans  in  the  1866  congressional

election.

      That victory launched the era of congressional Reconstruction (usually

called Radical Reconstruction), which lasted  10  years  starting  with  the

Reconstruction Acts of  1867.  Under  that  legislation,  the  10  remaining

Southern states (Tennessee had been readmitted to the Union  in  1866)  were

divided into five military districts; and, under  supervision  of  the  U.S.

Army, all were readmitted between 1868 and 1870. Each state  had  to  accept

the  Fourteenth  or,  if  readmitted  after  its  passage,   the   Fifteenth

Constitutional Amendment, intended to ensure civil rights of  the  freedmen.

The newly created state governments were generally Republican  in  character

and  were  governed  by  political  coalitions  of   blacks,   carpetbaggers

(Northerners who had gone into the South), and  scalawags  (Southerners  who

collaborated with the blacks and carpetbaggers). The Republican  governments

of the former Confederate states  were  seen  by  most  Southern  whites  as

artificial creations imposed from without, and the conservative  element  in

the region remained hostile to them. Southerners particularly  resented  the

activities of the Freedmen's  Bureau,  which  Congress  had  established  to

feed,  protect,  and  help  educate  the  newly  emancipated  blacks.   This

resentment led to formation of secret  terroristic  organizations,  such  as

the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the White Camelia.  The  use  of  fraud,

violence, and intimidation helped Southern conservatives regain  control  of

their state governments, and, by the time the last Federal troops  had  been

withdrawn in 1877, the Democratic Party was back in power.

      About  1900,  many  U.S.  historians  espoused  a  theory  of   racial

inferiority of blacks. The Reconstruction  governments  were  viewed  as  an

abyss of corruption resulting from Northern vindictiveness  and  the  desire

for political and economic domination. Later, revisionist  historians  noted

that not only was public and private dishonesty widespread  in  all  regions

of the country at that time but also that a number of  constructive  reforms

actually were introduced into the South  during  that  period:  courts  were

reorganized,   judicial   procedures   improved,    public-school    systems

established, and more feasible methods of taxation devised. Many  provisions

of the state constitutions adopted during the postwar years  have  continued

in existence.

      The  Reconstruction  experience  led  to  an  increase  in   sectional

bitterness, an intensification of the racial issue, and the  development  of

one-party politics in the South. Scholarship has  suggested  that  the  most

fundamental failure of Reconstruction was in not  effecting  a  distribution

of land in the South that would have offered an  economic  base  to  support

the newly won political rights of black citizens.

 

                               Wade-Davis Bill

(1864), unsuccessful attempt by Radical Republicans and others in  the  U.S.

Congress to set Reconstruction policy before the end of the Civil  War.  The

bill, sponsored by senators Benjamin F. Wade and Henry  W.  Davis,  provided

for the  appointment  of  provisional  military  governors  in  the  seceded

states. When a majority of a state's white citizens swore allegiance to  the

Union,  a  constitutional  convention  could   be   called.   Each   state's

constitution was to be required to  abolish  slavery,  repudiate  secession,

and disqualify Confederate officials  from  voting  or  holding  office.  In

order to qualify for the franchise, a person would be required  to  take  an

oath that he had never voluntarily given aid to the  Confederacy.  President

Abraham Lincoln's pocket veto of the bill presaged the struggle that was  to

take place after the war between President Andrew Johnson  and  the  Radical

Republicans in Congress.

                                Property law

Ownership as the absolute right to possession

One may thus define ownership in the same way  that  the  legal  philosopher

Felix Cohen defined property: "That  is  property  to  which  the  following

label can be attached:  To  the  world:  Keep  off  X  unless  you  have  my

permission,  which  I  may  grant  or  withhold.  Signed:  Private  citizen.

Endorsed: The state." Cohen, however, goes on to warn that all the terms  of

the definition "shade off imperceptibly into other  things."  Consider,  for

example,  the  large  range  of  possibilities  encompassed  in  the  phrase

"permission, which I may grant or withhold." In all  Western  legal  systems

there are a number of situations in which the law will  either  assume  that

permission has been granted or will require the  private  citizen  to  grant

his permission. The  situations  tend  to  be  dramatic:  Firefighters,  for

example, are usually allowed  to  enter  private  property  to  prevent  the

spread of a fire and frequently are authorized to destroy  private  property

in order to prevent the spread of a fire.

In the 1960s a  number  of  U.S.  Supreme  Court  cases  starkly  posed  the

conflict between the property owner's right to exclude and civil rights,  in

the context of "sit-ins" in restaurants that  were  excluding  customers  on

racial grounds. These cases suggested, if they did not quite hold,  that  in

this context the possessory right of the  restaurant  owner  would  have  to

yield to the civil-rights claim of those sitting in. In the  same  period  a

number of courts held that owners of farms could not exclude  visitors  from

agricultural migrant labour camps.

The conflict in these cases between property rights  and  civil  rights  was

made starker by the practice in the United States of treating social  issues

as constitutional controversies. The issue, however, of the use of  property

to discriminate against members of  the  society  whom  the  property  owner

disfavours is present  throughout  the  Western  world.  Ultimately  in  the

United States the problem of restaurant sit-ins  was  resolved  by  national

legislation that made it the duty of anyone providing  food  or  lodging  to

serve all comers without regard to race. Similar legislation exists in  many

Western countries, as does legislation allowing access to premises in  which

workers are employed.

 

                                 Black code

in the United States, any of numerous laws enacted  in  the  states  of  the

former Confederacy after the American Civil War, in 1865 and 1866; the  laws

were designed to replace the  social  controls  of  slavery  that  had  been

removed by the Emancipation Proclamation and  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  to

the Constitution, and were thus intended  to  assure  continuance  of  white

supremacy.

The black codes had their roots in the slave codes that  had  formerly  been

in effect. The general philosophy  supporting  the  institution  of  chattel

slavery in America was based on the concept that slaves were  property,  not

persons, and that the law must protect not only the property  but  also  the

property owner from the  danger  of  violence.  Slave  rebellions  were  not

unknown, and the possibility of uprisings was a constant source  of  anxiety

in colonies and then states  with  large  slave  populations.  (In  Virginia

during 1780-1864, 1,418  slaves  were  convicted  of  crimes;  91  of  these

convictions were for insurrection and  346  for  murder.)  Slaves  also  ran

away. In the British possessions in the New World, the  settlers  were  free

to promulgate any regulations they saw fit to govern  their  labour  supply.

As early as the 17th century, a set of rules was in effect in  Virginia  and

elsewhere; but the codes were constantly  being  altered  to  adapt  to  new

needs, and they varied from one colony, and later one state, to another.

All the slave codes, however, had certain provisions in common.  In  all  of

them the colour line was  firmly  drawn,  and  any  amount  of  Negro  blood

established the race of a person, whether  slave  or  free,  as  Negro.  The

status of the offspring followed that of the mother, so that the child of  a

free father and a slave mother was a slave. Slaves had few legal rights:  in

court their testimony was inadmissible in any litigation  involving  whites;

they could make no contract, nor could they own property; even if  attacked,

they could not strike a white person. There were  numerous  restrictions  to

enforce social  control:  slaves  could  not  be  away  from  their  owner's

premises without permission; they could not assemble unless a  white  person

was present; they could not own firearms; they could not be taught  to  read

or write, or transmit or possess "inflammatory" literature;  they  were  not

permitted to marry.

Obedience to the slave  codes  was  exacted  in  a  variety  of  ways.  Such

punishments as whipping, branding, and imprisonment were commonly used,  but

death (which meant destruction of property) was rarely called for except  in

such extreme cases as the rape or murder of a white  person.  White  patrols

kept the slaves under surveillance, especially at night.  Slave  codes  were

not always  strictly  enforced,  but  whenever  any  signs  of  unrest  were

detected the appropriate machinery of the state would  be  alerted  and  the

laws more strictly enforced.

The black codes enacted immediately after the  American  Civil  War,  though

varying from state to state, were all intended to secure a steady supply  of

cheap labour, and all continued to  assume  the  inferiority  of  the  freed

slaves. There were vagrancy laws that declared a  black  to  be  vagrant  if

unemployed and without permanent residence; a person  so  defined  could  be

arrested, fined, and bound out for a term of labour if  unable  to  pay  the

fine. Apprentice laws provided for the "hiring out"  of  orphans  and  other

young dependents to whites, who often turned out to be their former  owners.

Some states limited the type of property blacks could  own,  and  in  others

blacks were excluded from certain businesses or  from  the  skilled  trades.

Former slaves were forbidden to carry  firearms  or  to  testify  in  court,

except in cases concerning other blacks. Legal marriage between  blacks  was

provided for, but interracial marriage was prohibited.

It was Northern reaction to the black  codes  (as  well  as  to  the  bloody

antiblack riots in Memphis and New Orleans in 1866;  see  New  Orleans  Race

Riot) that helped produce Radical Reconstruction  (see  Reconstruction)  and

the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments. The Freedmen's Bureau  was  created

in 1865 to help the former slaves. Reconstruction did away  with  the  black

codes, but, after Reconstruction was over, many  of  their  provisions  were

reenacted in the Jim Crow laws, which were not finally done away with  until

passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

 

 

 

                                 References:

 

1. Garraty, John A

A short history of the American  nation,  -  6th  ed.  –  New  York  Collons

college publ, 1992

2. Ray Allen Willington,

American frontier heritage,- New Mexico, Press 1991

3. Thomas A. Bailey

David M. Kennedy

The American pageant, - 9th ed.- Toronto