Which is like the leading journal of our profession. But he had the last laugh because guess what, in the 1960s during the civil rights era, his view of reconstruction became dominance. They saw it for what it was. And then there was the Second World War were racism was politically unfashionable. Nazism had made racism suspect and race ideas suspect. So the profession as a whole is sort of reckoning with reconstruction in different ways. And many people who write in the sixties, black and white historians, john franklin, they all right to resurrect towards these ideas reconstruction. It is also interesting that it is really a 1940 essay, writing in essay in the american historical review, he criticizes them but he praises some as going beyond the ways in which the Dining School had written about reconstruction. This view, and he wrote in the 19 eighties, you are reading unabridged version of this magnum opus. It read as a manuscript when i was a student at columbia. And what is interesting is that he updates the boys who are times, he is an intellectual air, youre reading his view on reconstruction, that is the standard thing to do now of reconstruction he sees African Americans as central players of the drama of reconstruction and he looks at the expansion of the nation state, the political crises, the fights over the meetings of freedom. Remember that chapter you read about meeting of freedom . And how slaves thought about freedom . Does anyone want to take a stab at that . Any ideas on how phone or talks about freedom being contested. That is the central issue, black freedom on being the central issue. Black people reconstructing their families, their marriages, their communities, their churches. But also thinking about economic independence. Yes . In terms of African Americans, because they had lost so much in slavery, they talked about how they tried to establish families and legalize their marriages so that their personal freedoms became very political because things they were not able to do became things which were regarded as foundations for freedom and how they could engage in their own freedom, even though it might not too much the white dominant society. Really good point. These are what we would consider basic civil rights. Have family, get married to someone. Think about the debate of Marriage Equality and you all probably grew up with it. That is a basic civil rights that many gay people did not have. We should not be stigmatized for who we are. We need this basic civil right. And on the basis of the 14th amendment, they should have. That that is exactly what these states were contending, basics is security, basic security as citizens in this country. And most importantly for eric foner, their political rights. They are looking for economic rights. But political rights, this is the argument of what he calls black politics. Black people want to be politicized. Whether it is that every day life, they are not willing to act as slaves. The idea that black people should move out of the sidewalk when a white person walks by and this would lead to violent fights after the civil war. Or that they should be deferential and cowarding as if they were slaves was something that racial etiquette no longer applied. Black people were a quick to assert their rights as citizens, demand access to schools, demand access to the bell box, demand access to public accommodations. Things that had been they had been deprived. Of everyone is trying to define what rates black people have now, what kind of freedoms today have. This is exactly the point. So even though eric foner calls it an unfinished revolution, reconstruction is overthrown, it will take 100 years at four acts and amendments for women to be implemented in america. To another great mass social movement, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. You can see that it takes a very long time to even implement. That is why it is so radical. It is radical because in the 19th century, people are not talking about black equality. Yet that is the topic. And it takes so long for these basic rights of black citizenship to be implemented in this country. Decides this synthesis of reconstruction, they were other people writing about it in the 19 seventies and eighties. They were a number of people, the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement thought reconstruction was not radical enough, land was distributed, people were constrained by the u. S. Constitution. The federal government could not exercise its power to the extent that it was needed because of the federalist principles of divided government. There is all kinds of ways to say it was not radical enough. But the people who lived through it, confederate, former slaves, northerners, thought it was terribly radical. They talk about living in revolutionary time. Changes are coming so fast and so quick and the country has to keep up with it. Now, in the aftermath there have been current revaluations. Articles coming out, a freedom narrative, books coming out like beyond freedom, saying you know, this was a period that was disappointing. There were a lot of failures. We need to look at other things, this linear narrative of slave and freedom and progress does not really working we have to look at all kinds of other problems during a reconstruction period. People talk about how planes indians were dispossessed after reconstruction. How america emerges as an imperial path. The putting down of philippine independence. These were not as radical as we thought. But these evaluations many times, they come with along reconstruction framework. They dont look at the period of reconstruction, they look at the period after reconstruction. They look at issues that did not really have much to do with the kind of things we are talking about, black rights, citizenship, etc. Maybe the expansion of the nation state . It grew so bake and powerful that they became imperial. That is another popular way of looking at it now. But, none of these ideas have replaced eric foner work. No alternative fences, it is still the Gold Standard in reconstruction history. Lets talk more about the specific issues of the period. Johnson, Andrew Johnson created one of the First Political crises of reconstruction. The first constitutional crises of constitution. Lincoln is often seen as the greatest president of the United States, him and washington but lincoln always gets the top. They have these rankings. There is an irony of history that lincoln was proceeded by buchanan, and then succeeded by a person who was always at the bottom also, Andrew Johnson. Andrew johnson, when he was put on the president ial ticket of the Republican Party in 1864, this is the election lincoln thought he was going to lose. The idea was that there would be a unity ticket. You would have a southerner and the take it and it would proclaim the unity of the nation. It was quite clear that the south was going to lose, at least most people think that this was the dying of confederate resistance. And johnson is put as lincolns Vice President , because he was a senator from tennessee and he was such a staunch unionist, that when the states secede from the unit all other southern congressman, there. Johnson is the only one who did not leave. He is a unionist, he is staunch. He said i am sticking with the union. And when the union occupies tennessee, he becomes the wartime governor of tennessee. He is from non slave origins, he owned slaves, a few slaves. But he is seen as someone who is more rags to riches than lincoln, he represents this poor whites, non slave owning whites. It was a predominantly non stable area. We talked about plantations. Here we have johnson, he is a man who is a staunch unionist, he said im going to make treason odious. People think hes going to be hard on those southern sections. I will be your moses. Lincoln never said that. Right . I will be your moses, i will lead to freedom. The republicans had also taken a risk, but johnson was a huge disappointment. He was a staunch state right democrat. He was never really part of the Republican Party. But his state right democratic roots are very strong. And he is very reluctant to use federal policy or force, black rates certainly. Or to have any federal part in reconstructing the south. What is interesting about johnson is he is a staunch racist. And this comes out during his reticencey. He cannot even contemplate about black people as equals. He is southern, he is whites, he hates the pontiff office. The prosouthern why but it is like black people even more we look at the policies of his reconstruction, you can see this. He at one point meets a delegation led by Frederick Douglass, who has been received politely by lincoln. Johnson meets him calls it the darky delegation. When they leave, his secretary records this now we have hot likes. A politicians sometimes say things that are really crude an awful, sometimes they just say it openly. But a secretary recorded this. And johnson said about this block delegation that a come to plead with him for black, writes the right to vote, led by the great Frederick Douglass. These are his exact words pardon my french he was a pretty crude guy. One of the crudest american president s actually. He says those sons of pitches thought they had me in a trap. I know that douglas. He just like any and word. He would soon or qatar cut a white mans throat and not. This is the president of the United States. Talking about a block delegation headed by Frederick Douglass coming to see him. Row rarely did president s talk in that manner. So his race isnt system is a. And johnson very quickly, he has these amnesty proclamations where the moment he comes to power, one republican said, this is rich for a man whos been may President Biden assassins bullet to be so arrogant. Congress is not in session, he issues these proclamations that the Southern States can reenter the union. As long as they opsec accept their against succession, they accepted slavery is dead and they repudiate the confederate debt. There are no conditions put on, no conditions for black, rights for civil rights, for anything. They can just commit. They can just come into the union. Its a very lenient policy and absolutely no conditions put upon southerners. There is this myth the johnson is simply continuing lincolns policy of president ial action. Daaq that lincoln put forward, his 10 plan. These are just a warm time measure for those 10 of the white populations, loyal they can reenter the union. There were hardly any conditions for several are black rights, and radicals in congress were upset about that. They had their own bill called away davids ball which they set is going to get black people some civil rights but even that didnt give blackmon the right to vote. That does not mean though lincoln was opposed to black rights. Remember his last speeches . He is in support of black rights. He writes a letter to the governor of louisiana saying consider giving the right to vote to those who are very intelligent, those who served in the union army, those who are educated. He is clearly a person who is moving towards black rights. Johnson. Never. In fact he digs into his position that this is simply an impossibility right. The other way that lincoln says a difference is that hes a power party leader. He leads the Republican Party very successfully through the war and in the last year of the war, he works with republicans in congress to achieve quite a. But the most important was the passage of the friedmans bureau bill in 1865. This is a federal Government Agency. The has the federal some federal government as she agency. Its official agency the federal Government Agency that oversee the transition from slavery to freedom in the south. And it was there not just to protect the rights of free people. It was actually giving food and shelter and sometimes opening up its hospitals and sometimes schools to even to southern whites. But it was portrayed as this awful overreach by most southerners of the federal governor that was only helping black people. Actually, they were doing a whole lot of things. They ended up being identified mainly with the fried people called the friedman spiral. This is a contemporary illustration of the freemans bureau. It has to views of the fried onions bureau. What does this tell you . Heres a man, is in the uniform. He couldve been a friedmans bureau agent or the union army. What does this tell you a little bit about the role of the friedmans bureau . In the post civil war south. Any takers . Ryan sorry tasha. A lot touching oversee hasnt spoken as yet. Kind of that it was trying to halt the division between the blocks in the whites, keep the peace for the most part just because there was no other federal agency and obviously johnson peoples children being whipped, them being whipped, you could appeal to the friedmans bureau. It was the first social Welfare Agency formed by the United States government. It literally was going to go down south, and had hundreds of agents. Sometimes the agents were pretty racist. But as a whole, the friedmans bureau was an alternative source of authority and southern whites hated it. They hated people intervening in their quota masticate fares. In the way that they wanted to run their state despite being of course defeated in the civil war. Blacks welcomed it. The boys wrote essays on the friedmans bureau showing how important intervene for africans americans to be able to appeal to the government to protect the rights. So freedmans freedmans became bureau became very important. It cooperates with the republicans to pass the Freedmans Bureau bill in the 1865. In terms of lincolns plans for reconstruction we will never know because he was killed but he actually helped form this agency work with republicans in congress to do this. The second thing that he worked with congress on to say anyone remember that . Its the first reconstruction amendment. Does anyone remember what that amendment was . Ryan . Im a 13th amendment that abolish slavery. Absolutely. So we worked with congress to abolish slavery. The 13th amendment to the constitution in 1860. Five slavery now no one servitude should exist in this country except if you were duly convicted in a court of law. The second section of this amendment is very important. It says the Congress Shall have the power to enforce this amendment. So clearly the 13th amendment saying congress should be deciding and how to implement black freedom. They should pass laws in congress to implement this. What is johnson think . Johnson is not buying this. Hes a statesrights guy. He does not think congress should have anything to do with reconstruction. It is banning black Union Army Troops. Hes issuing his own plan for reconstruction. He says anyone ordering more than 20,000 dollars worth of property shall not be pardoned. But what happens . Hes people, representatives of the he issues wholesale pardons. 14,000 people. He just pardons immediately. So what happens with the new governments being formed in the south. E not many of them are succession years when they were unionists. These unions had opposed to succession of their states but they had also gone with their state and many had fought for the confederacy unoccupied high office in the confederacy. Most important of them was of course Alexander Stevens, the Vice President of the confederacy. So the state governments that are formed in the south of full of these former confederate symptoms still werent wearing or confederate uniforms generals. Dissenting the same guys back to congress under johnsons plan. Andrew Alexander Stevens is elected senator from georgia. So than any other country these people might have been executed or jailed. In fact some people were jailed for crimes committed against the United States government. Jefferson davis was governed jailed for sometime. But none of them really suffered. Jefferson davis writes a siege memoir saying that it is olive statesrights and had nothing to do the same slavery, the civil war. They propagated their own views and theyre really not punished that hard. Do you have a question . Jeremy yeah. The 13th amendment originally stated there should be no slavery accept as a punishment for crime. So how significant did that play for the souths part in enforcing the black codes in that type of thing . Very good question jeremy. Were talking a black codes right . Southerners use all sorts of legal and constitutional loopholes to undermine reconstruction and the project for black rights. People use criminality. They start convicting black people for minor crimes and using them as convict labor. There are serious about mass incarceration taxation to this is where it all starts. Actually, the former people wrote this 13th amendment did not have that in mind at all. It was just a common, english kamala exception to write some privileges. Meeting if youre duly convicted, your rights can be taken away from your feud imprisoned. That is a common sort of exception. The black codes, its not coming out so much from the 13th amendment. These are the codes that i want you to talk and implied you raised. You can be talking about the senate johnson. Slander the states governments that are government dominate by unionists and went with their states all and up and preventing these black codes which causes a real problem. Im gonna be talking about that very shortly. Ryan you had a question. I think the politics of johnson are very interesting but im kind of confused in his motives. During the war, he was very harsh on treaties and so angry against a six exodus. But following the worries seems to allied self with them. Would you say thats more because he wanted their support in his reelection . Who was more power hungry . Because he seemed changes politics even. Shifting to a lot less harsh. Would you say thats more cars his power hungry and wants to be reelected or because he had those views before didnt express him during the war . Thats a good question. It does try to form a separate party because his party basically zones and. When it starts into implementing his policies, they realize it is going against everything not just the Republican Party about what the north stands for. And he tries to form a union party, with democrats, and conservative republicans. He plays a race car. He thinks he can divide northern southerners this time of the race. This time it doesnt work. So maybe part of it is that, the part of it is also that johnson was unionist. He thought the union should be upheld but his vision of the union never included black rats. He was never an anti slavery guy. He was from the south. So he was for the union. There were northern democrats like that were for the union but they didnt have anything to do with black rights. Johnsons johnson, his racism really is what youll see this in the actions. This is the failure of johnsons reconstruction. He is not a continuation of lincoln. There was a conflict of the president of United States in the congress who would control reconstruction. But lincoln worked with the congress. He worked with this party, the Republican Party. Johnson was really a man without a party. And he does these things like he invokes these land grants and remember sherman, all the abandoned lands that they had free people settle on. In low country georgia. All those lands, he takes it and gives it back to the planters. Southern whites are complaining, they dont want black union army. Troops they disband them or they are sent out west. He is clearly worki o platform. Congress, when it reconvenes, these are the things that he is doing in pretty soon after lincolns death. In may, 1865. Congress wanted to reconvene an 1865, joins a joint committee on reconstruction. They wanted to decide what to do with reconstruction. They had testimony of violence in the south, of contention in the south, of free people, etc. And they are trying to come up with some plan that johnson would agree with, be on board with. These are the moderates, not the radicals. They put together two bills. The friedmans bill, to extend the Friedman Bureau act. They want to extend its life. And continue to try to maintain some semblance of order and give some relief to southerners. Also in the aftermath of war. And they enact the silly civil rights of 1866, which for the first time defines National Citizenship in american history. What does it mean to be a citizen of the United States . Before the civil war, each state decided who was a citizen and who is not. Some states in the north gave blackmon the right to vote. Most northern states did not. You could pretty much decide what rights you wanted to give. It was only during reconstruction that you have a National Idea of citizenship. There are federal laws that regulated immigration, but those laws only whites could enter the country. It was a racial law. Here you have a very different view of civil rights and casual National Citizenship. It is to give black people basic rights, the right to sue, hold property, enter into contracts. These are important. You think of them as minor rights but they are important if you were to be paid adequate wages for your work. It was important for black people to get these basic civil rights. The radicals are going further. Radicals wanted to give him right to vote, that was what citizenship is about. Black men at least. Not talking about the. Women they should have the right to vote, we should be giving them the right to vote. These are the bills that go to johnson and he vetoes both. Why is the Civil Rights Act passed . Because of the black code. These johnson state governments in the south, known as the black codes, they are updated versions of the slave codes of the south. Southerners who had been defeated and maybe under lincoln, or someone more statesman like, might have accepted their defeat. But johnson is being so lenient, they decide, you have our man in the white house. Civil war . Forget about that. They passed these black codes. They are pretty awful. They recognize the end of slavery. They say slavery has ended but they try to restrict black rights and freedom and put black people as close back to slavery as possible. Some of these are egregious. The mississippi codes were probably the worst. They enacted vagrancy laws, saying that if a black person is found not working for someone, he can be arrested and fined. In order to pay his fine he will look work for the local plantation. If a black person is telling his own land, or self employed, he is defined as a vagrant. They force black people into enter for a year contracts at plantations. When he was black labor that they had nearly under black slavery. We and if i had signed a contract with a black person for his labor, and another person comes to him and offers him more money, he cannot do it. That is a criminal offense. That is enticing my labor. Is that a free bark it . That is not how that works . If you are a wage labor youre going to work for the person that pays you the most. But that is not allowed. Apprenticeship loss . Usually at apprenticeship was seen at that time as a nice thing, children will be apprentice to local craftsman. They will learn the trade and become the craftsman. What did the apprenticeship law do . It took black children out of their families and apprentice them. Black parents are seen as unfit. White masters, they would not go to schools them. The mississippi law was so bad that it even did not allow black people to own land. They did not own land, they were forced to work for whites on plantations. Every legal or political trick to constrict black freedom or have them working virtually as slaves as what they were doing. Black people could be fined and imprisoned for seditious speech and miss behavior. Even trying to enforce the racial etiquette of slavery, whites they were not allowed to own arms or knives or anything. Whites who gave them liquor or arms are traded with them could also be imprisoned and find. Itn jeremy was asking also. You could say that the black codes overreached, they went beyond. The 13th amendment was punishment for crime, this is regulation for black rights and labor to an extent that is not even visualized in the 13th amendment. They would convince black people for various petty crimes. Many people today trace the origins of mass cursory shun in the United States back to this period for that reason. Eventually they would do that. But, they thought that they were following the law. They had recognize the end of slavery, they dont call slavery but it could be slavery by another name or worse than slavery. So the Civil Rights Act, the committee is gathering testimony from the south. What is happening under the black codes . The civil rights is really a reaction to that. Johnson keeps vetoing. Anyone that thinks that johnson is a continuation of lincoln, he sees this as a states right. This is a federal Government Agency. This is overreach, it is unconstitutional. One thing that was interesting was that the reason for that could be a stronger. He had a strong notion that only the wealthy, white population should be ruling and have political power. I imagine he thought the friedmans bureau offered political power to the black population. In a way, it is sort of connected, i would say. But you could say for johnson, a slave owners them black slaves were two sides of the same coin. He saw them as connected. But when he redid his reconstruct first remember those 14,000 who are pardoned overnight . He liked the fact that they came gravelling to him, begging for a pardon. So, he had no punitive plan. He probably decided that his racism outweighed his hatred or envy of this class. That is one way that you can understand his actions. He does not see the friedmans bureau he sees it as a fight that southern whites have to face. He can see this in his veto message to the Civil Rights Act, which is not giving them what he was asking for. The right to vote. He is just giving them those basic civil rights that would ensure that they are no longer slaves. In his message, which is amazing, read johnsons veto, many of his echoes are still there today. He uses this notion that to begin to say that this is a white mans government . Are we going to give rights to the chinese immigrants . To indians . Native americans . What are we coming to . It is a purely race based argument. He even has this notion of reverse discrimination. If we give black people rights we are infringing on the rights of the southern. Whites this is the way that many of those defenders portrayed him. It is a purely racist argument, this notion that rights are limited. If you give some people their rights, you are inflicting it on other people. This is not the notion of the declaration of independence. This is not the notion of human rights as we understand it today. It is this very parochial, narrow, constricted, racist version of rights. And this notion of white grievance that he puts forward. He said, youre discriminating against whites by giving black people rights. That is his argument. Its echoes can be found in the seventies and eighties. It is reverse discrimination, that notion that if you try to rectify all of the previous wrongs, then you are somehow inflicting that on others. This is a direct quote from his civil rights veto, in fact the distinction of race and colors by the bill. With me to operate in the favor of the colored against the white race. That is the colonel of his reasoning. It is not even states rights. His whole argument is extremely racist. His plan is completely put into disrepute in the north because of what happens in the south in k the famous memphis of new orleans riots. They are not really race riots, it was southern whites attacking blacks. The memphis riot begins with a traffic accident. It escalates into a complete program on black people in memphis. What is shocking is that the local Police Forces cannot be relied on to restore. They join with the white writers and start attacking black people. 46 black men, five black women are raped. The Union Army Troops have to be called into restore order. A few months later in new orleans, the Constitutional Convention meets to discuss reconstruction and radical republicans are asking that they consider black rates or what lincoln had written to michael hassan, the governor of louisiana. Consider giving blackmon the right to vote. What happens here . There is an attack by racist mob on the convention, on the Constitutional Convention. And in the end, 34 blacks and three white radical republicans are killed. The union army has to again be called in to restore order because local Law Enforcement joins in and start attacking black schools, black communities. Im the Union Army General arrives and says, it is a massacre. They are just massacring people. This evokes a huge reaction in the north. People are thinking, wait a minute. Did we just fight a war for four or five years . Them there was a lot of loss of life. And we are back to square one . This is not peace. These issues are still being contested. Johnson does not budge. While people in the Republican Congress are hearing what is happening, people in the north, he says no, i will make the 1866 election about my plan versus the plan of the republicans. He did means himself completely. He was drunk at his own inauguration. At the second inaugural address he was drunk. He was so badly drunk that he had to be held up. He completely the means his office by campaigning against his own party, against the Republican Party. Going to the north, and he plays the race card repeatedly. He thinks he can unite white northerners and white southerners on race. He says this will be a mongrel democracy, black rates, black supremacy. This means marriage, social equality. Would your daughter mary a black man . Thats where begins. He is so crude that people in the