MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION
*Life under Reconstruction was not easy for anyone. Blacks had a measure of freedom, although it had been slow in coming thanks to disputes within Congress and between Congress and the President and the South. The XIV Amendment was meant to put black in the same position as women—they were to be citizens but not be guaranteed the franchise by the Federal Government. However, this was partly a compromise to satisfy moderate Republicans and the few Democrats in Congress. The Radicals wanted to give the vote to blacks, at least in the South. They would do this, moreover, while preventing thousands of white Southerners from voting, due to their Confederate service records.
*With the army to protect them, black men in the South voted in great numbers. They joined the Union League, a political organization based in the North but that soon helped Southern blacks learn to vote and to campaign for offices or on behalf of their favourite office-seekers. Even black women assisted in campaigns, often doing important work despite not being able to vote.
*With black votes behind them, black Southerners went to the conventions that created new state Constitutions, they were elected to local, state, and even federal offices. Between 1868 and 1876, 14 black Congressmen and 2 Senators (Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi) will be sent to Washington from the South.
*Reconstructed governments did initiate many valuable reforms, some of which were kept around by the Redeemer governments that replaced them. Among these were public schools, simpler tax systems, and new public works (although these often ended up putting Southern states deep in debt to carpetbaggers—in Tennessee, for example, Governor Brownlow issued far more bonds than the state could afford to Northern speculators promising to build turnpikes and railroads, and most of these bonds later were repudiated to save Tennessee from insolvency). Women also got a few more right, mainly the right to control their own property.
*Southerners will curse the names of Yankees who came south to take part in Reconstruction and the new government, calling these people carpetbaggers, suggesting that they were poor, no-account people at home who carried everything around in a cheap suitcase made of carpet scraps. The only thing worse than a carpetbagger was a scalawag, a Southerner who became a Republican after the Civil War. Most of these men had been Whigs and Unionists before and during the war, but some did change parties when it became obvious who was running the show.
*The stereotype of these scalawags and carpetbaggers was that they were corrupt, opportunistic profit-seekers out to take advantage of the defeated South under a corrupt government. In some cases that was true—the 19th Century after the Civil War was characterized by government corruption at almost all levels. However, many were simply businessmen and even reformers who wanted to modernise the South, although most were, of course, not averse to making some money on the deal. Some, of course, would treat Reconstruction as a period of imperial rule, which is why no West Virginian owns the mineral rights on his own lands any more. Others would skim liberally from public funds, accept bribes, and use government money for private purchases, especially in South Carolina and Louisiana. One carpetbagger governor with an $8,000 annual salary managed to make $100,000 in one year through graft. However, this kind of corruption was common in all the United States, and generally even worse in the North, where there was more to steal.
*Former slave-owners are incensed to see their former slaves running their states, especially when they cannot vote at all themselves, or hold office. They resent being a conquered people prevented from even voting by an occupying army that will seize property and bully former rebels into obedience.
*To fight back, Southerners formed resistance organizations. One of these had originally been formed as a club and mutual aid society for Confederate veterans, but it soon grew into more. On Christmas Eve, 1865 the Ku Klux Klan was formed in Pulaski County, Tennessee. The name came from the Greek 'kyklos,' meaning 'circle.' They soon began playing tricks on black people in order to frighten them out of voting or taking a large role in public life or otherwise ‘getting above themselves.’ To do so, they wore bed sheets so they would resemble ghosts or spooks or something. Early tricks were as simple as pretending to drink an entire bucket of water or claiming to be the ghost of a Confederate soldier. To the superstitious blacks (and even poor whites) of the day, this could be very frightening. Many blacks and carpetbaggers got the message and quit going out to vote or left town.
*Soon, though, pranks were not enough, and the Knights of the Invisible Empire turned to outright violence and terror. The Ku Klux Klan attacked freedmen, carpetbaggers, and scalawags in order to scare them away from things the Klan did not want them doing, especially voting or holding public office. Enemies of the Klan were warned with fiery crosses, and, if nothing changed, they were harassed, kidnapped, and often murdered. 1,000 Louisianans alone were supposedly killed by the Klan in 1868, and 300 Republicans were killed across the South, including a Congressman.
*The Klan grew too violent even for Forrest, and he quit, despite having been a ruthless general during the War, infamous for permitting the Fort Pillow Massacre, where his cavalrymen killed all the black troops who surrendered.
*Congress was outraged. In 1870 and 1871 Congress passed the Force Acts, which, despite the ruling in ex parte Milligan, gave the US Army tremendous power to use against anyone suspected of participating in violence through the Klan or any similar group. However, many of these groups just went underground, claiming to be dancing clubs or missionary societies. Besides, they had already done their work. Afraid to vote or seek office, many blacks were in much the same position they had been in before military reconstruction began. This power, now back in the hands of white Southerners, would be used to flout the XIV and XV Amendments throughout the 19th and even well into the 20th centuries. Afterwards, the Klan would be romanticised as a freedom-fighting organisation that saved the South from oppression by carpetbaggers and their black allies. The most famous instance of this was the 1915 movie Birth of a Nation. It will be one of many forces that brings the Klan back to prominence in the 1910s and ‘20s.
*Congress had problems besides the Klan. The Radicals were increasingly frustrated by that drunken tailor Johnson. The Radicals had an ally in the executive branch, though. Secretary of War Stanton was on their side and often told them what Johnson was up to, essentially serving as a spy against the president on behalf of Congress. This angered Johnson almost as much as Johnson angered Congress. Furthermore, it gave Congress an idea for a pretext for impeachment. Impeachment would benefit Congress because then the president pro tempore of the Senate (according to the custom of the day) would become President of the USA. The present president pro tem was the controversial, but certainly Republican, ‘Bluff’ Ben Wade of Ohio.
*In 1867 Congress declared that since the Senate had to confirm all Cabinent appointments, that also meant that the Senate had to confirm any removal from office of any Cabinet member during a president’s term. This was called the Tenure of Office Act. Congress knew Johnson, who badly wanted to fire Stanton, was likely to break this, and they turned out to be right.
*On 5 August 1867 Johnson requested Stanton’s resignation. Stanton refused and the Senate backed him up. Stanton barricaded himself in his office, even after Johnson named General Grant as his replacement. Grant eventually turned the job down to show support for Stanton.
*This gave Congress what they needed. For violating the Tenure of Office Act Johnson was impeached by the House. During the Senate trial, however, Johnson behaved himself, was quiet, sober, and conciliatory, when he even appeared in the Senate chamber at all. His defence suggested that the law was unconstitutional (and the Supreme Court would officially say so in 1926, but right now is too scared of the Radical Republicans to challenge them much) and that Johnson was not guilty of any high crime or misdemeanor.
*The prosecutors had a fairly flimsy case, and Johnson was acquitted, although only by one vote. This was partly because many Republicans did not trust Ben Wade, who they regarded as a dangerous radical because he supported soft money, the labour movement, and a high tariff, most of which scared the business community. Some simply felt the charges were not strong enough; Johnson was certainly obnoxious, but that alone is neither a high crime nor a misdemeanour. Other Congressmen were nervous about setting a precedent that would weaken the executive office too much. Besides, Johnson would be out of office a few months after the end of the trial in 1868, why make too much trouble? It is quite possible that the entire trial was rigged to yield this dramatic outcome for the sole purpose of breaking Johnson’s remaining power and prestige, and to show him just who was in charge. Indeed, Congress will remain the most important part of the government for the rest of the century.
*The one triumph of Johnson’s presidency will be seen as a great mistake at the time. This was Seward’s purchase of Alaska in 1867 from the Tsar of all the Russias, Alexander II, who wanted America as an ally to counterbalance Britain. Seward got all of Alaska for $7.2 million. It was seen as useless and a waste of money at the time and was called ‘Seward’s Folly,’ but it has since proven to be valuable.
*One irony of the creation of new state constitutions by black legislators and Yankee carpetbaggers is that once the Southern states were back in the Union and the white population could vote again, those black men and carpetbaggers would lost most of their powers under the Redeemer governments of states that got through Reconstruction and set up new, usually anti-black and anti-Northern governments. These Redeemer or Home-Rule governments had to be careful not to re-create de facto segregation too quickly, as they could be re-occupied, and some were. Southern governments remained volatile, but they began to run themselves as soon as they could, and by 1870 most Southern states were back in the Union, although they would still need watching if the North wanted to look after the freed slaves.
*Reconstruction will end in 1877, largely due to the deal made by Tilden and Hayes. By this point almost every Southern state was part of the Union again, but as government scrutiny declined the South would return to some of its brutal ways. The black codes would be replaced by Jim Crow Laws Furthermore, the North and especially the South would remain bitter about the war for generations to come, although a lot was done to re-unite the Blue and the Grey in 1898.