Many Black children—especially those without parental support—were arrested and forced into unpaid labor for white planters. The deadly 1866 New Orleans and Memphis Race Riots had convinced Congress that Reconstruction policies needed to be enforced. But President Johnson in the summer of 1865 ordered land in federal hands to be returned to its former owners. During the Civil War, they were opposed by the moderate Republicans, including President Abraham Lincoln, and by pro-slavery Democrats and Northern liberals until the end of Reconstruction in 1877. In every state, African Americans formed the overwhelming majority of Southern Republican voters. View Reconstruction.pdf from CHST 301 at Concordia University Irvine. African American parade in honour of adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment. The Reconstruction Era for kids: President Ulysses S. Grant The Civil War hero and General of the Union army, Ulysses S. Grant, became the third President during the Reconstruction Era. ThoughtCo, Jan. 11, 2021, thoughtco.com/reconstruction-definition-1773394. In the 1866 mid-term congressional elections, Northern voters overwhelmingly rejected President Johnson’s Reconstruction policies, giving Radical Republicans nearly total control of Congress. After the Reconstruction measures of President Andrew Johnson in 1866 resulted in the continued abuse of formerly enslaved Blacks in the South, the Radical Republicans pushed for the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment and civil rights laws. Give an example from This political uprising ushered in the period of Congressional or Radical Reconstruction. By 1876, the legislatures of only three Southern states: South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana remained under Republican control. While nearly four million formerly enslaved Black Americans gained freedom and some political power, those gains were diminished by lingering poverty and racist laws such as the Black Codes of 1866 and the Jim Crow laws of 1887. Sixteen African Americans served in Congress during Reconstruction—including Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce in the U.S. Senate—more than 600 in state legislatures, and hundreds more in local offices from sheriff to justice of the peace scattered across the South. In the South, a politically mobilized Black community joined with white allies to bring the Republican Party to power, and with it a redefinition of the responsibilities of government. After Civil War: Division, Reconstruction, and Reconciliation in Europe seeks to offer an original and comprehensive analysis by examining how post-war reconstruction has been conducted in contemporary European history, with a specific focus on the issue of national identities and how they come into play during and, most importantly, after a civil war, writes Claire Constant. Reconstruction refers to the period immediately after the Civil War from 1865 to 1877 when several United States administrations sought to reconstruct society in the former Confederate states in particular by establishing and protecting the legal rights of the newly freed black population. Within a decade after the Civil War, Congress began to abandon the promise of assistance to millions of formerly enslaved Black people. As a Union victory became more of certainty, America’s struggle with Reconstruction began before the end of the Civil War. On what terms would the Confederate states be accepted back into the Union? Soon afterward, Congress approved the Fifteenth Amendment, prohibiting states from restricting the right to vote because of race. The dream of “40 acres and a mule” was stillborn. We know about aspects of slavery and the Civil War, but what happened after the slaves were freed? Enacted in March 1867, the First Reconstruction Act, also known as the Military Reconstruction Act, divided the former Confederate states into five Military Districts, each governed by a Union general. Du Bois, first published in 1935. Reconstruction addressed how the eleven seceding states would regain self-government and be reseated in Congress, the civil status of the former leaders of the Confederacy, and the Constitutional and legal status of freedmen, especially their civil rights and whether they should be given the right to vote. A combination of personal stubbornness, fervent belief in states’ rights, and racist convictions led Johnson to reject these bills, causing a permanent rupture between himself and Congress. To be allowed to reenter the Union, the former Confederate states were required to agree to abolish slavery, but no federal law had been enacted to prevent those states from simply reinstituting the practice through their new constitutions. Johnson’s plan for restoring the splintered Union pardoned all Southern White persons except Confederate leaders and wealthy plantation owners and restored all of their constitutional rights and property except enslaved persons. Why? The Act placed the Military Districts under martial law, with Union troops deployed to keep the peace and protect formerly enslaved persons. As the title suggests, West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America After the Civil War deals with Reconstruction. The first extended the life of an agency Congress had created in 1865 to oversee the transition from slavery to freedom. Reconstruction demanded answers to a multitude of difficult questions. Thereafter, the federal government would guarantee all Americans’ equality before the law against state violation. Under the plan, if one-tenth of a Confederate state’s prewar voters signed an oath of … By contrast, the Civil War and Reconstruction brought opportunities for progress and growth. They also offered lavish aid to railroads and other enterprises in the hope of creating a “New South” whose economic expansion would benefit Blacks and whites alike. Rather than sticking to the traditional narrative of North and South, Richardson includes the West. Reconstruction: America After the Civil War explores the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself in the face of profound loss, massive destruction, and revolutionary social change. Passed during the Civil War, economic stimulus legislation such as the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Act opened the Western territories to waves of settlers. WHAT IT’S ABOUT Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s “Reconstruction: America After the Civil War” — which began last week — ends Tuesday, with the first hour covering the period 1877-1896, and the rise of … In 1863, months after signing his Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln introduced his Ten Percent Plan for Reconstruction. Reconstruction: America After the Civil War explores the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself in the face of profound loss, massive destruction, and revolutionary social change. The second large group, scalawags, or native-born white Republicans, included some businessmen and planters, but most were nonslaveholding small farmers from the Southern up-country. In early 1866, Congress refused to recognize or seat representatives and senators who had been elected from the former Confederate states of the South and passed the Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights Bills. Arguably the most important addition to the Constitution other than the Bill of Rights, the amendment constituted a profound change in federal-state relations. In December 1863, less than a year after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Pres. The Civil Rights Act became the first significant legislation in American history to become law over a president’s veto. An economic depression during which much of the South fell into poverty led to the Democratic Party winning the House of Representatives again, the first time since the Civil War. More than a blueprint for rebuilding the postwar South, Lincoln saw the Ten Percent Plan as a tactic for further weakening the resolve of the Confederacy. The year after the war’s end, a U.S. Congress still operating without representation from most Confederate states passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, declaring Black Americans full citizens entitled to equal civil rights. Reconstruction After the Civil War . Grant was reelected in 1872 in the most peaceful election of the period. During this tumultuous time, the U.S. government attempted to deal with the reintegration of the 11 Southern states that had seceded from the Union, along with 4 million newly freed enslaved people. Nonetheless, the political revolution of Reconstruction spawned increasingly violent opposition from white Southerners. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. To Blacks, freedom meant independence from white control. During a brief period in the Reconstruction era, African Americans voted in large numbers and held public office at almost every level, including in both houses of Congress. African Americans strongly resisted the implementation of these measures, and they seriously undermined Northern support for Johnson’s policies. Traditionally, citizens’ rights had been delineated and protected by the states. Post-Civil War America was a new world. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Omissions? To be accepted back into the Union, the former Confederate states were required to abolish the practice of slavery, renounce their secession, and compensate the federal government for its Civil War expenses. Though Lincoln pocket vetoed the bill, he and many of his fellow Republicans remained convinced that equal rights for all formerly enslaved Black persons had to be a condition of a state’s readmission to the Union. However, in the summer of 1865, President Johnson ordered all of this federally controlled land to be returned to its former White owners. To Lincoln, the plan was an attempt to weaken the Confederacy rather than a blueprint for the postwar South. A comprehensive and compelling history of the United States immediately following the Civil War. The bill mandated that all male persons born in the United States, except for American Indians, regardless of their “race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude” were “declared to be citizens of the United States” in every state and territory. https://www.thoughtco.com/reconstruction-definition-1773394 (accessed January 22, 2021). For decades, most Southern Blacks remained propertyless and poor. There was controversy, however, on how to go about rebuilding the nation. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were unenforced but remained on the books, forming the basis of the mid-20th-century civil rights movement. "The Reconstruction Era (1865–1877)." In the fall 1866 congressional elections, Northern voters overwhelmingly repudiated Johnson’s policies. Although the Senate, by a single vote, failed to remove him from office, Johnson’s power to obstruct the course of Reconstruction was gone. ThoughtCo. By creating “radical regimes” and enforcing martial law throughout the South, the Radical Republicans hoped to facilitate their Radical Reconstruction plan. Updates? What happened next in the South remains largely unknown to most Americans. Not until the civil rights movement of the 1960s—aptly called the “Second Reconstruction”—did America again attempt to fulfill the political and social promises of Reconstruction. The twelve years that composed the post-war Reconstruction era (1865-77) witnessed a seismic shift in the meaning and makeup of our democracy. As a result of Reconstruction, Black citizens in the Southern states gained the right to vote. Those who refused or were otherwise unable to do so could be arrested, fined, and if unable to pay their fines and private debts, forced to perform unpaid labor. The result was a costly and bloody civil war. Reconstruction in the South meant a massive social and political upheaval and a devastated economy. Finally, in granting Congress the power to enforce its provisions, the Fourteenth Amendment enabled the enactment of landmark 20th-century racial equality legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. White supremacist organizations that committed terrorist acts, such as the Ku Klux Klan, targeted local Republican leaders for beatings or assassination. Senator Charles Sumner had prophetically called them “sleeping giants” that would be awakened by future generations of Americans struggling to at last bring true freedom and equality to the descendants of slavery. The second defined all persons born in the United States as national citizens, who were to enjoy equality before the law. Three groups made up Southern Republicanism. While they now worked for minimal wages or as sharecroppers, they had little hope of achieving the same economic mobility enjoyed by White citizens. While U.S. Pres. Reconstruction: America After the Civil War: Watch full length episodes & video clips. Andrew Johnson attempted to return the Southern states to essentially the condition they were in before the American Civil War, Republicans in Congress passed laws and amendments that affirmed the “equality of all men before the law” and prohibited racial discrimination, that made African Americans full U.S. citizens, and that forbade laws to prevent African Americans from voting. It was also the process used to readmit all the Confederate states back into the Union. Enacted by Congress on April 9, 1866, over President Johnson’s veto, the Civil Rights Bill of 1866 became America’s first civil rights legislation. The book is his companion to the new two-part PBS series he hosts, "Reconstruction: America After The Civil War," which airs April 9 and 16. For African Americans living in the former Confederacy, Reconstruction was what historian W. E. B. Fleming, Walter L. “Documentary History of Reconstruction: Political, Military, Social, Religious, Educational, and Industrial.” Palala Press (April 22, 2016), ISBN-10: 1354267508. Some Republicans were already convinced that equal rights for the former slaves had to accompany the South’s readmission to the Union. AP.USH: KC‑5.3.II.D (KC), NAT (Theme), Unit 5: Learning Objective L. Google Classroom Facebook Twitter. Under it, when one-tenth of a state’s prewar voters took an oath of loyalty, they could establish a new state government. The Civil War which ended in 1865, demolished slavery and emancipated four million human beings. The bill thus granted all citizens the “full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property.”. Taking a more anti-federalist stance, however, President Johnson vetoed the bill, calling it “another step, or rather a stride, toward centralization and the concentration of all legislative power in the national Government.” In overriding Johnson’s veto, lawmakers set the stage for a showdown between Congress and the president over the future of the former Confederacy and the civil rights of Black Americans. In 1867, U.S. After four years of fighting, the Union was restored through the force of arms. Though they never achieved representation proportionate to their total number, some 2,000 Black held elected office from the local to national level during Reconstruction. As a Union victory became more of certainty, America’s struggle with Reconstruction began before the end of the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln announced the first comprehensive program for Reconstruction, the Ten Percent Plan. In the South, Reconstruction brought a massive, often painful, social, and political transition. At the national level, new laws and constitutional amendments permanently altered the federal system and the definition of American citizenship. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. This helped end Reconstruction. And perhaps most momentously, did emancipation mean that Black people were to enjoy the same legal and social status as White people? Hiram Revels (seated at far left) of Mississippi, the first African American U.S. senator, along with black members of the House of Representatives (seated, left to right) Benjamin S. Turner of Alabama, Josiah T. Walls of Florida, and Joseph H. Rainey and Robert Brown Elliott of South Carolina and (standing) Robert C. Delarge of South Carolina, and Jefferson H. Long of Georgia. Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880 is a history of the Reconstruction era by W. E. B. Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s documentary series, Reconstruction: America After the Civil War, explores the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself in the face of profound loss, massive destruction, and revolutionary social change. The Second Reconstruction Act, enacted on March 23, 1867, supplemented the First Reconstruction Act by assigning Union troops to oversee voter registration and voting in the Southern states. After attempting to remove Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, in violation of the new Tenure of Office Act, Johnson had been impeached by the House of Representatives in 1868. Violence, mass lynchings, and lawlessness enabled white Southerners to create a regime of white supremacy and Black disenfranchisement alongside a new economic order that continued to exploit Black labor. Du Bois once described as their “brief moment in the sun.” But support for the social, economic, and political gains they achieved didn’t last long. United States Army troops guarded the streets of Richmond, Virginia, on May 31, 1867, but the former Rebel capital teemed with Confederate spirit. Serving an expanded citizenry, Reconstruction governments established the South’s first state-funded public school systems, sought to strengthen the bargaining power of plantation labourers, made taxation more equitable, and outlawed racial discrimination in public transportation and accommodations. Civil Rights Bill of 1866 and Freedmen’s Bureau. Reconstruction witnessed far-reaching changes in America’s political life. In many congressional districts across the South, Black people comprised a majority of the population. "The Reconstruction Era (1865–1877)." In 1864 Congress enacted (and Lincoln pocket vetoed) the Wade-Davis Bill, which proposed to delay the formation of new Southern governments until a majority of voters had taken a loyalty oath. An economic depression from 1873 to 1879 saw much of the South fell into poverty, allowing the Democratic Party to win back control of the House of Representatives and heralding the end Reconstruction. HipHughes gives you a hug and then a big fat slug as he guides you through U.S. Reconstruction. Congress decided to begin Reconstruction anew. Shortly after the election of President Ulysses S. Grant on March 4, 1869, Congress approved the Fifteenth Amendment, prohibiting the states from restricting the right to vote because of race. Arising around 1854, before the Civil War, the Radical Republicans were a faction within the Republican Party who demanded the immediate, complete and permanent eradication of slavery. For decades, most Southern Black people were forced to remain propertyless and mired in poverty. In 1874, Black members of Congress, led by South Carolina Representative Robert Brown Elliot, were instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, outlawing discrimination based on race in hotels, theaters, and railway cars. But the economic program spawned corruption and rising taxes, alienating increasing numbers of white voters. Black Soldiers in the Civil War Historian Hari Jones summarizes the experience of African American Civil War soldiers, from emancipation, to the authorization of United States Colored Troops, to their experiences on the battlefield. Once these conditions were met, however, the newly restored Southern states were allowed to manage their governments and legislative affairs. In March 1865, Congress, at the recommendation of President Abraham Lincoln, enacted the Freedmen’s Bureau Act creating a U.S. government agency to oversee the end of slavery in the South by providing food, clothing, fuel, and temporary housing to newly freed enslaved persons and their families. Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the states on December 6, 1865—the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery “within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The former Confederate states were required to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment as a condition of regaining their pre-secession representation in Congress. During the Civil War, Union forces had confiscated vast areas of farmland owned by Southern plantation owners. The outcome of the 1876 presidential election between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, was decided by disputed vote counts from those three states. Violent controversy erupted throughout the Southover these issues. African Americans: Reconstruction and after As a result of the Union victory in the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1865), nearly four million slaves were freed. 1. From the beginning of Reconstruction, Black conventions and newspapers throughout the South had called for the extension of full civil and political rights to African Americans. Reconstruction, in U.S. history, the period (1865–77) that followed the American Civil War and during which attempts were made to redress the inequities of slavery and its political, social, and economic legacy and to solve the problems arising from the readmission to the Union of the 11 states that had seceded at or before the outbreak of war. At Colfax, Louisiana, in 1873, scores of Black militiamen were killed after surrendering to armed whites intent on seizing control of local government. First up: African Americans grapple with the terms and implications of Reconstruction and their hard-won freedom; and the 1876 presidential electiondeals Reconstruction a blow as the forces of white supremacy ascend. After the Civil War, the Radical Republicans pushed for full implementation of emancipation through the immediate and unconditional establishment of civil rights for formerly enslaved persons. Reconstruction After the Civil War . The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments went largely unenforced, setting the stage for the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Though most Southern White people hated the “regimes” and being overseen by Union troops, the Radical Reconstruction policies resulted in all of the Southern states being readmitted to the Union by the end of 1870. Join us weekly as we view the four-part series “Reconstruction: America After the Civil War,” and discuss the ways that the Reconstruction has shaped our country, the South, and the lives of African Americans. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. As Black activists and scholar W.E.B. By 1869 the Republican Party was firmly in control of all three branches of the federal government. As a Union victory became more of certainty, America’s struggle with Reconstruction began before the end of the Civil War. Summary: Henry Louis Gates Jr. presents the history of the years after the American Civil War. However, this provoked a violent backlash from whites who did not want to relinquish supremacy. In 1870, Joseph Rainey of South Carolina was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first popularly elected Black member of Congress. Many former Confederate states took advantage of this omission by instituting poll taxes, literacy tests, and “grandfather clauses” clearly intended to prevent Black persons from voting. The Civil Rights Act was the first significant bill that became a law despite a presidential veto. The ensuing period known as Radical Reconstruction resulted in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which for the first time in American history gave Black people a voice in government. The Reconstruction Era (1865–1877). Start studying reconstruction of america after the civil war. This video is part of the Civil War Trust's In4 video series, which presents short videos on basic Civil War topics. All Black persons living in the states that enacted Black Code laws were required to sign yearly labor contracts. Blanche K. Bruce, senator from Mississippi. https://www.britannica.com/event/Reconstruction-United-States-history, Texas State Historical Association - The Handbook of Texas Online - Reconstruction, PBS LearningMedia - Michael Williams: Reconstruction, Official Site of Wofford College, Spartanburg, South Carolina, United States, African American Registry - Biography of Ed Wilson, Reconstruction - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Reconstruction - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), United States presidential election of 1868. “The Man with the (Carpet) Bags,” cartoon by Thomas Nast depicting a common Southern attitude toward Northerners during Reconstruction, 1872. Neither status offered much hope for economic mobility. In 1863, months after signing his Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln introduced his Ten Percent Plan for Reconstruction. 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