Introduction. I feel like going to door number one or door number two. Thank you for coming. The immediate peg for this evening is the ratification of the 13th amendment. Lets begin by backing up a bit. The army up for junius surrenders at appomattox. Clearly the civil war is over. Plans forhe unions the south for the freed men . I dont think there was any even though plan, president lincoln had put forward various ideas, plans of reconstruction during the civil war. These were primarily geared to winning the war, so to speak, and maybe detaching states from the confederacy. Nobody had really thought through exactly what the status of the freed people was going to be. Leesense, at the time of surrender and shortly afterwards followed by lincolns was theation, this fundamental question facing the country. You might say, what are the consequences . Slavery was still legal in certain parts of the United States. It was pretty clear by this point that slavery was doomed. What were the implications of that for all americans, black and white . What system of labor would replace slavery, what political system would replace the political system of slavery, and what rights with the 4 million emancipated slaves have . Everyone was groping and away. The day before lincoln was there was a Cabinet Meeting in which they talked about the need to start planning for reconstruction. There wasnt a fixed set of ideas in place. But the 13th amendment was already on its way. It had passed both houses of congress and been sent out to the states. Right. The 13th amendment was working its way toward ratification. Shot, about 21s states had ratified i think you needed 27 to get the 3 4 necessary. Ironically, it was Andrew Johnson who subsequently gets into a giant fight with congress, who kind of required the Southern States to ratify if they wanted to get back into representation in congress. 1865on in the summer of set up these new governments in the south that he said, you guys have to ratify for the 13th amendment or you are never getting back. By the Time Congress met in and aer 1865, 150 years couple of days ago, secretary seward was able to announce that the required 27 states had ratified. Therefore, at that moment, slavery is irrevocably abolished throughout the entire United States. That is 4 million people. Thats right. Its the largest Slave Society in the history of the modern world. If you dont count russia. Yes, there were four more serves in russia. Serfs in russia. A lot of historians are disdainful of biography. You are not one of them. Tell us of the effects of the change from Abraham Lincolns and Abraham Lincoln to andrew jackson. We do not know what precisely when lincoln would have done had he not been assassinated. It is fair to say that lincoln would never have gotten himself into the fix that Andrew Johnson did where he completely alienated the large majority of congress, cut himself off from northern Public Opinion and came within one vote up being removed from office through impeachment too savvyoln was far a politician, far too plugged into the Republican Party, far too able to work with congress to get himself into that fix. Johnson was just not prepared for the job. Johnson comes into office in a gigantic crisis, and he has no real connection with the Republican Party of the north. He was very deeply racist and did not have any conception of rights for the former slaves. He thought they should go back to work on the plantations and not have any particular civil or Political Rights. They have to be paid wages, but he could not really conceive of citizenship inc. Something that applied to black americans as well. Collisionirectly to a with congress which wanted to at least make sure that the basic rights of the former slaves were protected. Had lincoln lived, this is what we call counterfactual history, some kind of reconstruction plan would have been worked out between lincoln and congress. That is what happened in the civil war over and over again. Johnson and congress very quickly were at odds completely, and this had important implications for what could be passed. Every reconstruction measure had majority in congress because johnson vetoed, and that put a tremendous premium on unity in the Republican Party. Whatever passed had to have the approval of basically everybody, because you had to pass it over johnsons vetos. They found him a civil rights bill in 1866 which he vetoed. What were they trying to accomplish . The civil rights bill of 1866 is a critically important law by history. It is still on the books. It was passed under the 13th amendment. There was no 14th amendment yet. It was a billion might say to implement the freeing of slaves, what basic rights came along with being a free person in america. , this is obviously a controversial issue today anybody born in the United States is a citizen. Africanamericans are citizens. The dred scott decision stated that no black person, free, enslaved, could be a citizen of the United States. It went on to say that the citizens have to enjoy basically equal protection of the law, although that language is not in there until the 14th amendment, but it doesnt talk about the right to vote. Its basically the rights of what we call free labor, the right to own property, the right to compete in the labor market, the right to sign contracts, go to enable you to compete as a free person and make a living in the United States. Part of the motivation was to overturn laws that johnsons government had passed, the black codes, which try to use the power of State Government to force blacks back to work on the plantations for white employers with no other option. This seemed like not really free labor. Peonage. It was sort of peonage. Those laws made it a legal requirement for every black adult male to sign a labor contract with a white person. For yourself. Work if you try to work for yourself, you were violating the law. Republicans that offered, theyre trying to restore slavery in the south and johnsons veto of the civil rights bill really was the breach between congress and the president , after that congress said, we cannot cooperate with him, we will create our own plan of reconstruction without the president being involved. Next step after they do pass the civil rights bill is the 14th amendment, which is a complicated one. The 14th amendment is the longest amendment. It had five clauses. Is immaterial today, although actually it popped up, like the National Debt popped up recently. Theays the validity of National Debt cannot be questioned, whatever that means, and not long ago there was talk of exceeding the debt limit. That did not happen. There are things about not paying the confederate debt. Is the first clause, which constitutionalize us many of the things in the civil rights bill, birthright the 14thip now in amendment, equal protection of the law, the law cannot discriminate between black and white, if something is a crime for a white hearse and or a black person, it also has to be a crime for a white person. It is needed. Obviously a law of congress can be repealed by another congress. They want to put the basic principle of civil equality into the constitution, but another thing about the 13th and 14th and 15th amendments that is important to point out is that they all have this final clause saying Congress Shall enforce these amendments to by appropriate legislation. Compare that to the bill of rights, the bill of rights is a set of restrictions on congress. Congress shall make no law. The states were not bound by. Hat says congressment it now sees the states as the danger to liberty and congress can override the states when they try to deprive american citizens of their basic rights. Its a fundamental shift in the federal system from a state centered system before the civil war to one in which the federal government has far more power, particularly when it comes to defining the basic rights of all citizens. In the 20th century, little by ,ittle, the Core Incorporated said ok, because of the 14th amendment the states now have to abide by the provisions of the bill of rights. This went on until very recently, the Second Amendment in the heller case. This process goes on over a long period of time. States now have to respect all those Civil Liberties in the bill of rights, which originally were meant to restrict the federal government and not the states. The civil war greatly enhance the power of the federal government. That also goes into the constitution. Instance is to deal with the issues of these freed men from the south. How popular is that in the north . Thats a big question. The republicans are not sure how popular it is. Not giveamendment does black people the right to vote. There were radical republicans who said, we must give black men unfortunately, almost no one was giving women the right to vote at that time we must give black men the right to vote in the south otherwise they will never be able to protect their rights, otherwise the x rebels will come back into power, but it was not popular in the north. Pennsylvania didnt. They were nervous, the republicans. In the election of 1866, the Congressional Elections, these two things got merged together. One was protecting the rights of the freed people, but also keeping the rebels from coming back into power. There were many northerners who did not care that much about the freed people but sure did not want these ex confederates coming back to any semblance of power in washington. Johnson is empowering the rebels. These two issues which merged together and lead to a big republican victory, which is seen as an endorsement of the 14th amendment in the Congressional Election of 66. Then they go after johnson. First they say, we are getting rid of johnsons governments and creating new ones. Act is the reconstruction of 1867. We are giving the right to vote to black men in the south. New governments have to be created for the first time in American History, you get functioning interracial democracy with many hundreds of thousands of black men voting for the first time, many Holding Office for the first time, and you get this experiment of radical reconstruction in the the 1866 election gives republicans this very big majority in congress. And then they impeach johnson trying to get rid of him. And narrowly failed to evict him, and he tries to get renominated. The impeachment trial takes just aike in may 1868, few weeks before the republicandemocratic national conventions. Johnsons lead attorney, William Everett of new york, told the more moderate republicans look, if you acquit johnson, i promise you he will behave himself from now on. He will not try to interfere with reconstruction. He only has six more months in office or eight more months. I promise you he will behave. He did. Up to that point he was telling white southerners to ignore these laws, that they werent really laws. The president is telling people to ignore the law, that creates a difficult situation. So his lawyer said let him off the hook and he will behave . Yes. Then Ulysses Grant is nominated and elected. Ina fairly narrow margin, 1868 graham runs against seymour, the x governor of new but in thee wins, popular vote its not that big a margin because most of the Southern States are voting again, the blacks are all voting for grant, but the whites are all voting for the democrats. The reconstruction situation is fairly fragile. Republicans controlled the presidency and congress and all the Southern States for the moment. That is the height of radical reconstruction. What do the reconstructed southern State Governments do . It was certainly a big image in the american mind. It was presented by birth of a nation, a little bit by gone with the wind, but just the notion of its good we dont have slavery anymore, but they ran his corrupt governments. For a long time, this view that you just mentioned dominated both scholarly writing and popular imagination, birth of a nation. Theres a little bit. There are some scenes in go with the wind gone with the wind that reconstructed governments were a travesty of democracy. The reason was black suffrage. Basicallypt was thought of the ideological justification of the jim crow south, that after the right to vote was taken away from blacks in the south around 1900, the argument was you give them the right to vote act, you will have powers of reconstruction again. Nation chose this vividly, with blacks running amok and raping and the legislature of South Carolina is sitting there with their feet up, throwing chicken bones. They are not prepared to take part in american democracy. We know thats a complete travesty of the history. What did they do . Obstacles. Enormous the south had been devastated by the civil war, they needed economic rebuilding, they were trying to deal with the transition that needed to be a new labor system put in place in were demandsey among African Americans for civil rights laws and equal access to public accommodations and transportation, they set up the first School Systems in southern history. These governments created for both black and white children, the first public School Systems. In the north you had general common education systems. That was probably their greatest success, getting Public Education started in the south for black and white children. There was corruption. A lot of it came through this railroad building, where they try to attract Northern Investors to Start Building railroads to help build up the south. If you were a northerner with money to invest in 1870, you had honey of opportunity in the west even though the indian wars are going on, in the south things were so chaotic, then violence was very its head with the clue clucks clan quickly making an appearance. Youre not going to invest there until things calm down. People invested tended to be flybynight operators, and there was a good bit of corruption. Corruption is, sad to say, not unknown in american politics. Whethertion is not there was corruption. The question is, was corruption caused by black suffrage . There i would say no. New york city at this very time was stealing a lot more money than they had in the south. Some people say thats because of irish voting and the immigrants. But they also face this serious question of how to deal with violence. I want to focus on that. The reconstructed governments also had southern white support, did they not . Yes. What kind of people were they . In verys from state to state. The largest number of these thats a scallowags, term of abuse, but it has gotten into our language and hard to avoid, were poor white farmers in the hill country like eastern tennessee, where Andrew Johnson came from, western carolina, the woods. The piney very little slavery in those regions. Many of them had not been in confederacy. Every seceded state except South Carolina had a unit in the. Nion army people say, what is it with South Carolina . Theres Something Weird with that place. You can go back to the secession, whatever. Its rather small. Not have an upcountry of nonslaveholders like all the other states did. South carolina only South Carolina and mississippi, the majority of white families own slaves. South carolina had 60 of the population was slaves. They were white southerners who fought for the union army as well as many tens of thousands of black southerners slaves who fought for the union army also. The most commonly known was alcorn of mississippi. Big plantation. He figured out, we have to cooperate with the north. He said, we should ratify the 14th amendment. He said, we have to accept that blacks are voting. People like me, the leader, should join up. We need a harnessed revolution. People like him can keep things under control while still respecting the basic rights. Alcorn and some of these planters also became scalawags, particularly in mississippi. The states with the largest number were north carolina, tennessee. Texas had a bunch of german immigrants who joined the Republican Party. The vast majority of white southerners did not except the legitimacy of reconstruction, did not except the legitimacy of like voting, and that helped to produce the violence of the ku klux klan. The ku klux klan, the white leagues. It is terrorism. This is something on our minds lately. Unfortunately, there is a history of terrorism in this country that is homegrown reconstruction homegrown. They had various names. They use violence to change policy. Does the federal government do in response . We skipped over the 15th 1870,ent, ratified in intended to give black men the right to vote throughout the entire nation, although the 15th amendment is worded in an odd way. Radical republicans wanted a declaratory amendment. Any male citizens 21 years of age has the right to vote. Thats not what they got. They got an amendment saying no state can deprive a person of the right to vote because of race. Whats the difference . It left open many other grounds for depriving people of the not necessarily intentionally, but thats how it worked. Literacy tests, poll taxes, understa