Swallows Charter Academy K-12



DBQ Test: The Failure of Reconstruction

Historical Background

After the Civil War ended in 1865, the United States forged ahead and attempted to put a broken country back together after four years of intense strife. This period of Reconstruction lasted for twelve years, from 1865 to 1877. It was a period of racial conflict and political corruption, but it was also a time of technological innovation and geographic expansion. For black Americans, however, Reconstruction failed to bring them the peace and prosperity they had longed for, and even more importantly, they found themselves under many of the same restrictions (legal, social, and otherwise) they had endured while slaves. For most African Americans, Reconstruction was a profound disappointment.

President Abraham Lincoln began developing his vision for Reconstruction as early as 1863, and his final plan included several contentious points. First, he granted total amnesty and restoration of political and property rights (except slaves) for those willing to renounce secession and accept emancipation. Second, only the highest-ranking officials and military officers would be excluded. Finally, once 10% of the voting population agreed to his stipulations, that state would be allowed to form a state government and a new state constitution that made provisions for freed slaves (in terms of land ownership, voting rights, etc.). Radical Republicans, who wanted the South to suffer, thought his plan was too generous, but Lincoln insisted that punishing the South would only bring more resistance. This signaled the beginning of a series of conflicts between the presidency and Congress over how Reconstruction should proceed (Congress at the time was controlled by the Radical Republicans).

Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, was a Southerner with his own perspective on Reconstruction. Johnson was a champion of the poor white, Southern man, and he grudgingly accepted emancipation. Johnson’s plan did not address black voting rights or the practicalities of the changing racial order. The biggest challenge of his presidency (in regards to Reconstruction) was helping the South transition from a slave labor economy to a free labor economy. Generally, the occupying troops—since the South was full of Union soldiers—required slaveholders to sign contracts with laborers and pay wages. These employers were also supposed to provide food, housing, and medical care. Because most former slaves could not afford to purchase their own land, they signed rental leases with white plantation owners, which stipulated that the land’s owner would receive a certain percentage of the harvested crop as payment. This system of sharecropping became a powerful tool for keeping African Americans in economic subjugation.

It became clear during this period that the white leaders of these former rebel states did not want a social revolution. Thus, white Southerners instituted black codes, which were local and state laws that placed restrictions on black rights. These codes were similar to regulations that had existed under slavery, and included laws that forbade blacks from carrying firearms or marrying a white person (as two examples). White supremacists in Tennessee, led by former Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, formed the Ku Klux Klan in 1866 as a way to enforce these codes. This was a secret, para-military organization that terrorized black communities and worked to reinstitute the racial order that had existed before the war. Thanks to the Klan and their supporters, there was violence throughout the South during Reconstruction. Johnson, being from a Southern background, did little to reign in the KKK. Radical Republicans, on the other hand, supported African American rights and tried to wrest control of Reconstruction away from Johnson. For instance, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which gave newly-freed African Americans various legal rights, including the right to serve on juries and to sue in court. This act was a direct reaction to the black codes. Johnson vetoed this, but Congress overrode the veto.

One thing Congress could control was amendments to the Constitution. The 13th Amendment, which officially abolished slavery, had already been passed in 1865 before the Confederate states were readmitted to the Union. The next project for Radical Republicans was the passage of the 14th Amendment, which Congress passed in June 1866 and was ratified two years later in 1868. It made any person born in the U.S. an American citizen and stated that these citizens would enjoy “equal protection before the law.” Another amendment that Congress passed was the 15th Amendment, which stated that no citizen could be deprived the vote “on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” This became an amendment in 1870.

Meanwhile, in March 1867, Congress overturned the states that came in under Johnson’s Plan and instead began full on military rule of the South. Under this plan, the South would be divided into five military districts; each one was under the jurisdiction of a Union general. After the military conducted voter registration, which included giving blacks the right to vote, then that state could elect delegates to a convention that would draw up a new state constitution. Once Congress approved the new constitution, and that state ratified the 14th Amendment, that state could re-enter the Union. In a move that surprised no one, Johnson vetoed this Congressional plan and Congress overrode the veto. Congress’s hard-handed policy made many white Southerners whether the national government was truly looking out for Southern interests.

By around 1868, Northern resolve to bring a healthy Reconstruction was diminishing. The Republican Party, which had taken a lead in Congressional Reconstruction, was dealing with internal divisions. There also a financial crisis in the early 1870s that, when coupled with widespread political corruption, captured the nation’s attention. Widespread violence in the South, thanks partly to the KKK, also made Northerners question the efficacy of Congress’s policies. Taking advantage of the North’s distraction, white Southerners continually pushed for the re-creation and maintenance of a strict racial hierarchy. While African American men in the South had the right to vote very briefly, and they had overwhelmingly elected Republicans, the tide turned and white Southerners effectively changed the balance of power. One strategy was to pass laws that limited blacks’ participation in government without technically contradicting the 14th Amendment. These included literacy tests as a requirement for voting and poll taxes (as two examples). White Southerners were devoted to re-establishing “home rule,” and they cast themselves as “redeemers,” which meant getting rid of Union troops and restoring the “natural” order of things politically, economically, and socially.

This restoration of “home rule” succeeded with the Compromise of 1877. In the Presidential election of 1876, the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, was running against Samuel Tilden, a Democrat. The electoral results from South Carolina, Louisiana, Oregon, and Florida were in doubt, since both the Republican and Democratic parties claimed victories in those four states. Republicans in the three Southern states with disputed votes claimed that Democrats had refused to count African Americans’ votes, while Democrats accused the Republicans of tampering with pro-Tilden votes to render them illegible. As a result, these four states each submitted two sets of electoral returns to Congress. To determine the results, Congress called a special electoral commission to figure out the situation, composed of five representatives, five senators, and five Supreme Court justices. After an acrimonious debate that threatened to split apart the country, the candidates and their supporters worked out an informal understanding known as the Compromise of 1877. In exchange for the Democrats supporting Hayes (the Republican candidate), Hayes agreed to pull the army out of the South and officially end Reconstruction. He also agreed to keep the federal government from intervening in southern affairs. This compromise signaled the success of the Southern “redeemers” and would solidify white supremacy until the civil rights movement of the twentieth century.

Throughout Reconstruction, white Southerners resisted the changing racial order with everything they could muster, even as African Americans in the South (and their northern allies) tried to create equality for men of all races. As historian James Roark observed, “the Civil War and emancipation set in motion the most profound upheaval in the nation’s history…. Despite massive changes, the Civil War remained only a ‘half accomplished’ revolution. By not fulfilling the promises the nation seemed to hold out to black Americans at war’s end, Reconstruction represents a tragedy of enormous proportions. The failure to protect blacks and guarantee their rights had enduring consequences.”[1] It was not until the modern civil rights movement that African Americans saw effective reforms that could truly protect their rights as American citizens and as human beings.

Document Based Question

W.E.B. DuBois wrote in 1935 that after the Civil War “the slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.”[2] Since Reconstruction’s end in 1877, historians have debated whether or not Reconstruction was a successful movement, given white Southerners’ antipathy toward change and the North’s reluctance to support black rights. Today many historians, such as Eric Foner, have argued that Reconstruction was a failure. Based on your reading of the documents provided, who was responsible for Reconstruction’s failure—the North, or the South? When crafting your response, use parenthetical citations to cite your sources.

Document Index

1. The 13th Amendment (1865)

2. Mississippi Black Code (1865)

3. Andrew Johnson, “Annual Message” (1867)

4. The 14th Amendment (1868)

5. The 15th Amendment (1870)

6. “Worse Than Slavery,” Harper’s Weekly (1874)

7. “A Burden He Has to Shoulder” Harper’s Weekly (1874)

8. Map and Statistics of the Compromise of 1877

9. Henry Adams’ Reminiscence (1880)

10. Susie King Taylor, Reminiscences of My Life (1902)

Document #1

The 13th Amendment (1865)

Background Information: This amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed Congress on January 31, 1865, and was ratified on December 6, 1865.

Section 1.

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

“Transcript of 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery (1865),” 100 Milestone Documents, (accessed August 1, 2011).

Document #2

Mississippi Black Code (1865)

Background Information: Black codes originated in the South as a response to cracks in the established social order. This example comes from “An Act to Amend the Vagrant Laws of the State,” which Mississippi passed in 1865.

Section 2.

All freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes in this State, over the age of eighteen years, found on the second Monday in January, 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business, or found unlawful assembling themselves together, either in the day or night time, and all white persons assembling themselves with freedmen, Free negroes or mulattoes, or usually associating with freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes, on terms of equality, or living in adultery or fornication with a freed woman, freed negro or mulatto, shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be fined in a sum not exceeding, in the case of a freedman, free negro or mulatto, fifty dollars, and a white man two hundred dollars, and imprisonment at the discretion of the court, the free negro not exceeding ten days, and the white man not exceeding six months.

“Mississippi Black Codes, 1865,” The American Black Codes 1865-1866, (accessed August 11, 2011).

Document #3

Andrew Johnson, “Annual Message” (1867)

Background Information: It was customary in the nineteenth century for the President to deliver an annual message to Congress (much like our State of the Union messages today). In this excerpt from his message on December 3, 1867, Johnson responded to Congressional plans for Reconstruction and outlined his views on black rights.

[…] The subjugation of the States to the negro domination would be worse than the military despotism under which they are now suffering. It was believed beforehand that the people would endure any amount of military oppression for any length of time rather than degrade themselves by subjection to the negro race. Therefore, they have been left without choice. Negro suffrage was established by act of Congress, and the military officers were commanded to superintend the process of clothing the negro race with the political privileges torn from white men.

The blacks in the South are entitled to be well and humanely governed and to have the protection of just laws for all their rights of person and property. If it were practicable at this time to give them a government exclusively their own, under which they might manage their own things in their own way, it would become a grave question whether we ought to do so, or whether common humanity would not require us to save them from themselves. But under the circumstances this is only a speculative point. It is not proposed merely that they shall govern themselves, but that they shall rule the white race, make and administer State laws, elect Presidents and members of Congress, and shape to a greater or less extent the future destiny of the whole country.—Would such a trust and power be safe in such hands? […]

[…] But if any thing can be proved by known facts, if all reasoning upon evidence is not abandoned, it must be acknowledged that in the progress of nations, negroes have shown less capacity for government than any other race of people. No independent government of any form has ever been successful in their hands.—On the contrary, whenever they have been left to their own devices, they have shown a constant tendency to relapse into barbarism. In the Southern States, however, Congress has undertaken to confer upon them the privilege of the ballot. Just released from slavery, it may be doubted whether as a class they know more than their ancestors how to organize and regulate civil society. Indeed, it is admitted that the blacks of the South are not only regardless of the rights of property, but so utterly ignorant of public affairs that their voting can consist in nothing more than carrying a ballot to the place where they are directed to deposit it. […]

“The President’s Message, Valley Spirit, December 11, 1867,” The Valley of the Shadow, (accessed August 9, 2011).

Document #4

The 14th Amendment (1868)

Background Information: This amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed Congress on June 13, 1866, and was ratified on July 9, 1868.

Section 1.

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.

Section 2.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

[…]

Section 5.

The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

“Transcript of 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868)” 100 Milestone Documents, (accessed August 1, 2011).

Document #5

The 15th Amendment (1870)

Background Information: This amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed Congress on February 26, 1869, and was ratified on February 3, 1870. It is the final of the so-called “Reconstruction Amendments.”

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—

Section 2.

The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

“Transcript of 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Voting Rights (1870)” 100 Milestone Documents, (accessed August 2, 2011).

Document #6

“Worse Than Slavery,” Harper’s Weekly (1874)

Background Information: This cartoon, by the renowned artist Thomas Nast, depicts members of the KKK and the White League shaking hands to symbolize their joint effort to reclaim the South.

[pic]

“Ku Klux Klan Cartoon,” Ohio Social Studies Resource Center, (accessed August 1, 2011).

Document #7

“A Burden He Has to Shoulder,” Harper’s Weekly (1874)

Background Information: This political cartoon by Thomas Nast illustrates the various burdens of Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency.

[pic]

“A Burden He Has to Shoulder,” Political Cartoons of Thomas Nast on Reconstruction, (accessed August 11, 2011).

Document #8

Map and Statistics of the Compromise of 1877

Background Information: Because the election results for the Presidential election of 1876 were in dispute, Congress instituted a special electoral committee to determine the victor. This map illustrates the final tally for each candidate after the committee reached a compromise, and the two charts below clarify the breakdown of electoral votes.

[pic]

Results BEFORE the Compromise of 1877

Candidate Electoral Votes Winner

|Rutherford B. Hayes (R) |163 |MAYBE |

|Samuel J. Tilden (D) |184 |MAYBE |

|Disputed |22 |---- |

Results AFTER the Compromise of 1877

Candidate Electoral Votes Winner

|Rutherford B. Hayes (R) |185 |YES |

|Samuel J. Tilden (D) |184 |NO |

“Electoral College: 1876,” Wikipedia, (accessed June 1, 2011); statistical breakdown from “Election of 1876,” Presidential Election Project, (accessed August 11, 2011).

Document #9

Henry Adams’ Reminiscence (1880)

Background Information: In 1880, a Senate committee convened to investigate how African Americans were being treated in the South. This committee collected statistical data and spoke with many former slaves who provided testimonies detailing their experiences.

[…] The white men read a paper to all of us colored people telling us that we were free and could go where we pleased and work for who we pleased. The man I belonged to told me it was best to stay with him. He said, "The bad white men was mad with the Negroes because they were free and they would kill you all for fun." He said, stay where we are living and we could get protection from our old masters.

I told him I thought that every man, when he was free, could have his rights and protect themselves. He said, "The colored people could never protect themselves among the white people. So you had all better stay with the white people who raised you and make contracts with them to work by the year for one-fifth of all you make. And next year you can get one-third, and the next you maybe work for one-half you make. We have contracts for you all to sign, to work for one-twentieth you make from now until the crop is ended, and then next year you all can make another crop and get more of it."

I told him I would not sign anything. I said, "I might sign to be killed. I believe the white people is trying to fool us." But he said again, "Sign this contract so I can take it to the Yankees and have it recorded." All our colored people signed it but myself and a boy named Samuel Jefferson. All who lived on the place was about sixty, young and old. […]

[…] In September I asked the boss to let me go to Shreveport. He said, "All right, when will you come back?" I told him "next week." He said, "You had better carry a pass." I said, "I will see whether I am free by going without a pass." I met four white men about six miles south of Keachie, De Soto Parish. One of them asked me who I belonged to. I told him no one. So him and two others struck me with a stick and told me they were going to kill me and every other Negro who told them that they did not belong to anyone. One of them who knew me told the others, "Let Henry alone for he is a hard-working nigger and a good nigger." They left me and I then went on to Shreveport. I seen over twelve colored men and women, beat, shot and hung between there and Shreveport.

Sunday I went back home. The boss was not at home. I asked the madame, "where was the boss?" She says, "Now, the boss; now, the boss! You should say 'master' and 'mistress' -- and shall or leave. We will not have no nigger here on our place who cannot say 'mistress' and 'master.' You all are not free yet and will not be until Congress sits, and you shall call every white lady 'missus' and every white man 'master.'"

“Not Free Yet,” Reconstruction: The Second Civil War, ps_adams.html (accessed August 10, 2011). This also appeared in Dorothy Sterling, ed., The Trouble They Seen: The Story of Reconstruction in the Words of African Americans (New York: Da Capo Press, 1994).

Document #10

Susie King Taylor, Reminiscences of My Life (1902)

Background Information: Susie King Taylor spent four years as a nurse, cook, and teacher with an African American regiment during the Civil War. She first published her memoir in 1902, and it stands as one of the few memoirs that detail a black woman’s experiences during this conflict. She also includes her observations of race relations during Reconstruction.

[…] Living here in Boston where the black man is given equal justice, I must say a word on the general treatment of my race, both in the North and South, in this twentieth century. I wonder if our white fellow men realize the true sense or meaning of brotherhood? For two hundred years we had toiled for them; the war of 1861 came and was ended, and we thought our race was forever freed from bondage, and that the two races could live in unity with each other, but when we read almost every day of what is being done to my race by some whites in the South, I sometimes ask, "Was the war in vain? Has it brought freedom, in the full sense of the word, or has it not made our condition more hopeless?"

In this "land of the free" we are burned, tortured, and denied a fair trial, murdered for any imaginary wrong conceived in the brain of the negro-hating white man. There is no redress for us from a government which promised to protect all under its flag. It seems a mystery to me. They say, "One flag, one nation, one country indivisible." Is this true? Can we say this truthfully, when one race is allowed to burn, hang, and inflict the most horrible torture weekly, monthly, on another? No, we cannot sing, "My country, 't is of thee, Sweet land of Liberty"! It is hollow mockery. The Southland laws are all on the side of the white, and they do just as they like to the negro, whether in the right or not. […]

Susie King Taylor, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp: An African American Woman’s Civil War Memoir (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006), 61-62.

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[1] James L. Roark, et. al., The American Promise: A Compact History, 3rd ed., vol. 1 (Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2007), 423.

[2] W.E.B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880, intro. by David Levering Lewis (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999), 30. He originally published this work in 1935.

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