Transcripts For CSPAN3 Reconstruction And Civil Rights 20170730

Away from antebellum history and became a contemporary historian. Because you cant compete with people like him. But eventually, i came back to antebellum history and slavery and since then, i have relied on many of erics more than 20 books. I would read you the list, but we do not have that much time. I do want to say, though, and this is always the fun of introducing a speaker, looking at his selected publications, i notice he has written a book called dance for the city 50 years of the new york city ballet, and i can think of no better preparation for giving a talk today, at this moment, on reconstruction and the radical republicans who helped reconstruct the nation than somebody who knows how to move quickly on his feet. [laughter] and with that, i would like to introduce my good friend, somebody who i admire enormously, the winner of the lincoln prize, the pulitzer prize, and i think every other prize that is available, eric foner. [applause] thank you, Paul Finkelman, for that. Thank you all for braving the elements, finding this place. This is obviously an audience that is very dedicated to hearing about history. And thanks also to lauren and the others who organized this conference. So effectively. I should say, paul, in the interest of fairness and the stability of my marriage, my garafola, is actually a scholar of dance history, and that book did have my name on it, but really only as a kibitzer. It is really her book. It shows you something about our society. The publisher insisted my name had to be on it, because it would sell more books. Ven though i just kibitzed she was annoyed about it, honestly. That aside. Not much to do with reconstruction. After i am finished tonight, i am happy to answer questions for a while. Please feel free, after i am done, to raise questions, comments, whatever. There will be a couple of microphones passed around for people who are doing that. The that will be in a while. So what is reconstruction anyway . By the way, one of the things for Paul Finkelman, we now the younger scholars are talking about a long reconstruction. It didnt really end in 1877. Some people are taking it all the way up to 1900. So you will have many, many opportunities to celebrate the 150th anniversary of reconstruction, all the way up to 2050. So be prepared for those conferences. Anyway, reconstruction is a time period of American History, usually dated 1865 to 1877. But there is a lot of flexibility. Maybe more important, it is a historical process. One might say the process by which the United States tried to come to terms with the consequences of the civil war, the two most important of which were the preservation of the nation and the destruction of the institution of slavery. If you view reconstruction that way, you might also say we are still trying to work out the consequences of the end of slavery in american life, and therefore, reconstruction never quite ended. I have devoted a lot of my career to studying reconstruction. I have written books on the period, created a museum exhibition, but i have to admit, most americans know very, very little about the reconstruction period. In fact, some while ago, the department of education did a survey of graduating seniors from american high schools, 15,000 of them, about what they knew about American History. They gave them a list of things to see if they could identify them. Most of them could identify things like the dropping of the first atomic bomb or the westward movement, but at the bottom of the list, only, like, 15 could say anything intelligible about reconstruction. Now i had recently published a 600page book on reconstruction, so i found this disheartening. [laughter] but the fact is that even though we do not know much about it, many people do not, many of the key questions facing our society right now, today, have their origins in some way in reconstruction, or at least you cant understand them without knowing something about that period 150 years ago. Issues on our agenda today are reconstruction issues. Who is entitled to american citizenship . That is a reconstruction question. Who should have the right to vote . Thats a reconstruction question. And still very much alive today. The relationship between the federal government and the states, in terms of respective powers. Thats a reconstruction question. How to deal with terrorism is a reconstruction question. Not terrorism from abroad, but homegrown american terrorism, the ku klux klan and kindred organizations, which were founded in reconstruction. What is the relationship between political democracy and economic democracy . That is a reconstruction question, which is still may be being debated more now than it has for a while in our country. One other thing before i get into the actual history of reconstruction. This era is also a prime example of what we sometimes called the politics of history. Im not talking about whether a historian is a republican or a democrat. What i mean is the way that historical interpretation both reflects and helps to shape the politics of the present. In other words, the politics of the time the historian is writing. Writing about reconstruction often tells us as much about the moment the historian is writing in as about that historical period. As many of you know, for most of the 20 century, what we call the old or the standard or Dunning School view of reconstruction, after my predecessor at Columbia University a long, long time ago, william a. Dunning, who taught the civil war era there the Dunning School view dominated historical writing. And popular images of reconstruction. And in a nutshell, in that view, reconstruction was the lowest point in the whole saga of american democracy. According to that interpretation, president abraham lincoln, at the end of the civil war, wanted to bring the defeated south back into the lenient,a quick, forgiving manner. After his assassination, his policy was continued, according to this view, by his successor, president Andrew Johnson. Johnson was thwarted by the villains of the story, the radical republicans in congress. Depending on which historian you read, they were motivated by irrational hatred of the south or the desire to fasten the grip of northern capitalism on the self, or simply by the desire to keep the Republican Party in power. But for whatever reason, they overthrew johnsons lenient plan and imposed blacks suffrage that is the vote for black men, since women did not vote in any state at that time. Nearly all of them, of course, were newly freed slaves in the defeated south. The crux of the dunning view is black people are incapable of taking part in political democracy. They just lacked the foresight, lacked the rationality, selfdiscipline. Whatever it is, they were incapable. As a result, what followed was an orgy of corruption and misgovernment, presided by carpetbaggers. Carpetbaggers, that is northerners, who supposedly came down to the south to reap the coffers. Scalawags, who were white southerners who abandoned the race to join up with blacks and cover baggers in the reconstruction governments and the africanamericans themselves. The result, as they say, were corruption, abuse of power, and eventually patriotic groups like the klan organized to overthrow this reconstruction and restore what was politely called home rule, or really what we should call White Supremacy in the Southern States. This interpretation not only dominated historical scholarship, but it reached a mass audience through films like birth of a nation, which many of you know of, which had its premiere in Woodrow Wilsons white house and glorified the ku klux klan. And the bestseller of the 1920s by the journalist Claude Bowers called the tragic era. What do i mean by the politics of history . Why did this interpretation have such amazing longevity . Historians make their living overturning what previous historians have said. To remain the standard view for 60 or 70 years is unprecedented. I cant think of another view it would be as if people in the 1980s were still adhering to charles beards interpretation of the american constitution. That does not happen. But it happened in this case. Why . The explanation is the dunning view harmonized with the racial reality of the United States, the racial system, we call it jim crow in the shorthand, of the United States from, lets say, 1900 up to the civil rights revolution. The political lessons of this view of reconstruction were very clear. One, it was a mistake to give black people the right to vote. Therefore, the white south was justified in taking away that every Southern State did between 1890 and 1908, and if you gave blacks back the right to vote, the horrors of reconstruction would be repeated again. Secondly, reconstruction was imposed on the south by outsiders, by northerners. Maybe some of them were even dogooders, with humanitarian motivations. But the evidence, then, is that outsiders do not understand southern race relations, and therefore, the white south should resist outside calls for change. Whenever people thought of criticizing the race system in the south, you always heard about the horrors of reconstruction if any change took place. And the third lesson of this review, which is a little arcane today, is it is a pillar of the solid democratic south, as it used to be called. Reconstruction was created by the Republican Party, and if southerners, white southerners, were tempted to vote republican, you would have another period of reconstruction. Claude bowers, who i mentioned, who wrote the tragic era, which is a lurid work of historical fiction masquerading as history it was published in 1929. Why . In 1928, for the First Time Since reconstruction, republicans had carried a number of Southern States in the president ial election. Herbert hoover. Why . Democraticsmith, the candidate, was a catholic, and roman many evangelical voters in the south did not want to vote for a catholic. Others werend alarmed by the inroads hoover had made in the southern vote, and his lurid book was a warning of what might happen if southerners turned to the Republican Party. Well, then the civil rights revolution took place. The pillars of the old view fell to the ground. You could no longer argue that black people are inherently incapable of taking part in political democracy. And the historians completely revised their view of the period. Today, i would say most historians see reconstruction as a noble, if unsuccessful, effort to establish, for the first time in American History, an interracial democracy, a democracy with the participation of both africanamericans and whites at the same time, which had never existed in the United States before the civil war. And if reconstruction was tragic, we now would say it was not because it attempted, but because it failed. That was the tragedy. And that it left to future generations this very difficult problem of Racial Justice in american society. Now to understand how radical reconstruction was and how, despite its immediate failure, it reshaped American History in significant ways, we have to very quickly remind ourselves of what this country look like in 1860. On the eve of the civil war. There were 4 million slaves in the United States, black people, slaves in 1860. Slavery was, by far, the countrys most important economic institutions. Slaveowners pretty much owned of the federal government from the conversation up to the civil war, with a few exceptions, but mostly they did. Slavery was powerful, thriving, and expanding. It was not going anywhere. It was not dying out or going away. There were more slaves in the United States in 1860 than there had been at any point in our history, and there was no reason to think that expansion of slavery, growth of slavery would not continue. The power of slavery shaped the definition of american nationality or citizenship before the civil war, giving it a powerful racial overtone. As you know, im sure, on the eve of the war in 1857, the Supreme Court, in the dred scott decision, ruled that no black person could be a citizen of the United States. Blacks, it said, were aliens, even if they were born in the United States. Even if their ancestors had been here for generations. It did not matter. States could make black people citizens back then, citizenship was defined in peculiar ways, as we will hear, probably, tomorrow but a state could make a black person a citizen, like massachusetts did, but other states did not have to recognize that. A clause of the constitution says each state has to treat equally the citizens of other states, does not apply to black people, says the Supreme Court. And the federal government certainly does not have to recognize them as citizens of the United States. Tomphasize all this mostly draw attention to the remarkable change that came about as a result of the civil war and thenstruction in what writer Benedict Anderson once called the imagined community. A nation, anderson wrote, provocatively, is not just a physical space on a map. It exists in the imagination. People think who is an american . What does it mean to be an american . Who can be an american . That imagined america was fundamentally changed during reconstruction. Before the civil war, the only people who really put forward the idea of an american nation beyond the tyranny of race was the Abolitionist Movement, who insisted not only that black people be freed, but that they be absorbed as equal members of the society and the polity. But that is what came about as a result of reconstruction a concept of citizenship, which is still in our laws today, no matter how often violated, severed from racial definition. The most important thing that put the question of black citizenship on the national agenda, of course, was the end of slavery, but more immediately, actually, the service of 200,000 black men in the union army and navy during the civil war sort of staked a claim to american citizenship. Abraham lincoln himself, who had never supported Political Rights for black americans before the civil war although he was deeply opposed to slavery at the end of the war was advocating that some africanamerican men be given the right to vote. Who . He singled out what he called the very intelligent, that is the free blacks who had some education, and those who served nobly in our ranks. That is, the former soldiers. They had earned the right to vote, said lincoln. Now, that was not universal suffrage. It was not universal manhood suffrage. But at that point, lincoln was considerably ahead of the curve. At that point, only five northern states, all in new england with very small black populations, allowed black men to vote on the same basis as white, and lincoln is not pushing that direction. Of course, lincoln was killed before you had the opportunity to preside over reconstruction. His successor, Andrew Johnson, was once lionized in the old literature as a heroic defender of the constitution against radical republicans. Historians, we play this game sometimes where we rank the president s. Lincoln is always up there, fdr, George Washington the top ones. And then Richard Nixon and a few others are at the bottom. Most of them are kind of somewhere in the middle. Andrew johnson used to be up there with the greats. When i was in school, he would be number 7, 8, 9. He was considered a really significant president. Today, i think, johnson has a strong claim to being considered the worst president in u. S. History. There is competition for that ranking [laughter] prof. Foner you know. But johnson is a strong contender, anyway. Johnson lacked all of the elements of greatness that lincoln possessed. He was incorrigably racist. He lacked basic competence. He had no sense of northern Public Opinion. No compassion for the former slaves. Connection to the Republican Party. And the inability to work with congress. Johnson was a unionist democrat from tennessee. He had remained in the senate when his state seceded from the union. He had to come become military governor of tennessee under lincoln. And he was seen as someone who could appeal he was put on the ticket as Vice President not because anyone thought he would become president. Lincoln was a pretty young guy. He was in his early 50s. Nobody expected him to die in office, although lincoln himself was pretty morbid and had dreams about his own death. But he did not think about it that much. If he would have thought seriously, he would have thought i cannot put johnson as president. But johnson basically felt the africanamericans are free, no question, absolutely. They should now go back to work on the plantations and leave public issues to white americans. He set up, in 1865, new governments in the south completely controlled by whites with blacks having no Political Rights whatsoever. These government enacted a series of laws known as the black codes to sort of regulate the condition of these former slaves. And basically, they put them into a position of second class or third class citizenship. Basically the black codes tried to use the power of the state governments to push africanamericans back to work on the plantations. They gave blacks certain rights, like their marriages would now be recognize under law, which they werent under slavery, of course. Made it legal to own property except mississippi. Mississippi made it illegal for black people to own property outside of cities. But no civil rights. They could not go to court and testify in cases involving whites. They could not serve on juries. They could not vote. No Political Rights. And they required all black men at the beginning of each year to sign a yearlong labor contract with a white employer. If you did not do that, you were deemed a vagrant. Even if you wanted to work for yourself, you were a vagrant, because you were not working for a white employer. You would be fined. If you could not pay the fine, you would then have to go to work for a white guy, who would pay your fine, and you would have to do that for the whole year. Now these black codes turned the northern Public Opinion against johnsons policy. They alarmed at the Republican Party, who controlled congress, thinking that the south is trying to reintroduce slavery in all but name. In 1865, of course, these states had ratified the 13th amendment, which irrevocably abolished slavery throughout the United States, and, by the way, introduced the word slavery into the constitution for the first time. The founders had used circumlocutions like persons held to labor and things like that. The 13th amendment has been back in the news lately thanks to the documentary 13th, which got a lot of viewing and which linked the 13th amendment to mass incarceration and prison labor today. Because the 13th amendment basically just borrowed the language of the northwest ordinance. And both of them prohibit they could be forced into involuntary servitude without violating the 13th amendment. Inadvertently, congress created a loophole that would later lead to the widespread use of convict labor in the south chain gangs, the widespread use of prison labor today in many states as the documentary shows. The documentary, unfortunately, like many hollywood things has a conspiratorial air to it and leads you to think that congress in 1865 was thinking ahead to mass incarceration in 2017. I can assure you that the members of congress did not anticipate 150 years later, mass incarceration, and mass prison labor. But that languages vary familiar but that language was there he do familiar. It came from jefferson, oddly enough. Apart from that, which was a serious flaw in the 13th amendment, it irrevocably abolished slavery. Very close to the Supreme Court, just across the way. As you all know, there had been certain justices who insist the way to think about constitutional amendments is by ascertaining the original intent of the people who wrote them, or the original meaning of the words of the time, not what it means today, but what it meant back then. As an historian, i dont think any historian actually thinks that any important document has one, single original intent. Numerous,ll open to plausible interpretations. There is no single the 13th amendment, the 14th amendment, they were drafted, they were debated, they were ratified, they were discussed and there were all sorts of interpretations and intents there. There were also unintended consequences, like prison labor which no one anticipated in any , significant way. But anyway, my point is the 13th , 14th, and 15th amendment were not enacted at one time. They were enacted over five years in response to a rapidly changing political situation in which peoples political views changed as time went on. The search for the original intent i think is a fruitless task. An historian it , is our job to try to figure out what were they trying to accomplish . Why were they trying to pass these things . They must at some purpose in mind. Contrary, since Paul Finkelman mentioned the movie, contrary to that movie about lincoln what you might think, lincoln did not originate the 13th amendment. In fact, it was more the Abolitionist Movement that originated it. This is not just a piece of historical trivia. Abolitionists sought is not the end of the story, but the beginning of an even deeper transformation. What might be called today that is whate. They were aiming for. It had to be altered fundamentally. The transformation of a prewar, proslavery regime into one committed to the idea of equality. Most republicans were not abolitionists. But they agreed on certain principles. 1 slavery had cost the civil war, and the death of three quarters of a million americans. It had done more than just a slaves,aves, oppress it was a cancer that degraded the entire country, that degraded white labor and essential liberties of all americans, not just slaves. The 13th amendment aimed to change all of this, a step toward changing that entire regime. In one respect, it was truly revolutionary. It abolished the largest concentration of property in the United States with no monetary compensation. This has very rarely happened in history. I dont think it happened in the french revolution. They do not just abolished all the landholdings. They cut the heads off of people, that was one thing. [laughter] aggregating the property is a pretty radical thing. Anyway the 13th amendment , settled the fate of slavery , but it opened whole lot of other questions. What exactly was being abolished . Was it simply holding another person is property . Was that it . What about the racial inequality that was built into slavery . Was that being abolished . What about the political system based on slavery . What did it mean to be a free person in the United States . The 13th amendment opens that question, but it does not answer it, although it does authorize congress to figure it out. Republicans, this was early reconstruction we are talking about, 1865, 1866, believed one thing that came along with freedom was equality before the law. In other words, they could no longer be one set of loss for black people, and one set of laws for white people, as the Southern States had just passed these black codes, but every state has some kind of law discriminating against africanamericans. And very quickly, congress decided that Andrew Johnsons reconstruction plan was not working. It needed to be amended anyway, and relying on the 13th amendment they passed one of the , most important laws in American History the Civil Rights Act of the first law to 1866. Declare in a sense who is a a the first law to declare in citizen of is a free the United States, and the rights these citizens are supposed to enjoy. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 state to anybody born in the United States is a citizen. This seems pretty straightforward. It was, i think, there are people who know more about this than i do, but there was a common sense of people maybe before the civil war, if you were born in the United States, you are a citizen. But it did not apply to black people according to the Supreme Court, and according to many states. So, there were classes exempted from that principle. Haveow, those exemptions ended. Everybody born in the United States is a citizen. And of course, i say, pick up your newspaper today. That is a public issue right now because it has to do with the status of the children of undocumented immigrants who are born in the United States. Those children are citizens. There is no question about that, even though there are people who deny it. Or dont understand it. Because of the Civil Rights Act and then the 14th a minute, which put this into the constitution. But this is a statement of principle. It says nothing about race, it says anybody. It is a statement that anybody can be a loyal american. It doesnt matter what your race is, your national origin, your religion, or what the legal status of your parents is is. Ied anybody bor anybody born here can be a good citizen of the United States. It severs citizenship from race, which is something abolitionists have been demanding for a long time. The Civil Rights Act goes on to say, and now these citizens have to have certain rights, what are they . Equality before the law. The law cannot discriminate between black and white. And the rights of what you might call free labor, the right to sign contracts, the right to own property, the right to testify in court, the right to sue and be sued. These are the rights necessary in order to compete in the economic marketplace. The laws of the state. Intriguingly, it says no law or custom, no custom can deprive citizens of these basic rights. The language of the Civil Rights Act is very interesting. What it says is that all citizens must enjoy these rights the same as enjoyed by white persons. The same way as white persons. Before the civil war, the word white is in a lot of legislation, but it generally as a barrier. White people can vote. It is a barrier of exclusion when you put white people in, it means other people do not have these rights. Now, and this law whiteness , becomes a baseline. The rights that white people have have to be enjoyed by everyone else. It is very interesting. It just changes the way that concept of whiteness is used in american law. And the prohibition of customs that deprive citizens of their rights makes it clear that congress was acting against private acts of discrimination , as well as laws. Because they well knew there was also violence, private violence against former slaves, that plantation owners have formed organizations to restrict the Economic Opportunities of former slaves. They were trying to get at that also, not just the legislation. Well anyway, Andrew Johnson be towed the civil rights law vetoed the civil rights bill. It became law over his veto, the first significant law in American History to do that. Johnsons veto message is worth reading because johnson attacked for, what today, we would call reverse discrimination. The distinction of race and color, he said, is made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race. In fact, in the idea that expanding the rights of nonwhite people take something away from white people, the ghost of Andrew Johnson is still around today in our politics in that concept. That there is a finite number of rights, and so if one group gets more, someone else must be losing them. We do have that today. But the law can be repelled by the next congress. So, Congress Moves to put these principles and other things into the constitution in the 14th amendment, which is passed through congress in the summer of 1866. The most important change in the constitution since the bill of rights. The 14th amendment is the longest amendment ever ratified, it is complicated, convoluted, it is wheres the written in some places. Talking about original intent. Its a language is a series of eight to seven votes 87 votes and it is impossible to , figure out what every person meant by this big language. But what the 14th amendment language basically is, is putting into the constitution the victorious north , understanding their victory of the civil war, the fruits of that victory. Some of the provisions have no relevance today. It prohibits monetary compensation for slaves. It abdicates confederate debt, people who radically loaned money to the confederate government will never be repaid for that. It also absolves the National Debt. The validity of the National Debt shall not be questioned, which is a pretty weird way of putting it. I dont think there is any jurisprudence about that, and recently became an issue when it was thought that Congress Might not expand or increase the debt ceiling, which would mean the government would have to default on some of the bonds it has issued. And there were people who said, well, under the 14th a minute, president obama would have the right to unilaterally increase the debt ceiling because the 40th the nimitz said you cannot question the validity of the National Debt the 14th amendment said you cannot question the validity of the National Debt. There is a convoluted clause, section two, depriving some of depriving states of some of their members of the house of representatives, that they dont give black men the right to vote. This arose because of a strange situation that because of the end of slavery, southern representation in congress would actually increase. Why . Because before the civil war, the number of members of congress was based on the free population and 3 5 of the slaves. This actually was a boon to the south before the war, but now, all the former all the black people were counted 5 5. They were all free. Representation has increased, and the south will have more political power. Republicans were not up moreed in giving political power. You get governments that are more equitable, but most republicans thought you would not be able to get this ratified, giving black men the right to vote. There was still strong opposition to that. So they ended up with this crazy thing that if you deprive any group of men the right to vote, proportion ofa your members of congress. So, if mississippi where blacks are half the population, says only white people can vote, you lose half of their members of congress. It gives them the choice. It does not tell the stacy had to give black to right it is not tell the states that they have to give blacks the right to vote it says you have to choose. , by the way, this was never enforced. Long afterward when the Southern States did take with the right to vote to black people, they said they should lose members to congress, but the Supreme Court would not touch it with a 10 foot pole, and congress, the house never enforced it on itself. Mark my words, this may become an issue again. If you take a state like texas ,oday, with its voter id laws which are being held up in court , but if they are able to do that, they will be this franchising enough people that they should lose one of their members of congress. Even if they disenfranchise just 3 of 4 . I dont know how many members of the house, texas has. If you lose 4 of the vote, you should lose one of those members of congress. So i am going to lead a campaign to enforce this section of the 14th amendment. By the way, the Womens Suffrage Movement was buried was there Womens Suffrage Movement was very annoyed by this because it introduced the word male into the constitution for the first time. If you deprive a group of men of the right to vote, you lost members of congress. If you deprive women of the right to vote, as they all did, there was no penalty. But the heart of the 14th amendment is the first section, and this makes lawyers rich. They are always fighting it out in the Supreme Court. What the heck does this mean . A constitutional right is birth rights it starts out, all persons born in the United States are naturalized citizens, and it goes on to bar the states from abridging the privileges of citizens, or denying to any person, life, liberty, or property without due process of law, without the protection of the law without the equal protection of the law. It lists general principles. Due process, equal protection, privileges and communities. What are they . Well nobody quite knows. It says congress can figure it out. It leaves it up to congress to breathe meaning into these principles. What it does is introduce the concept of equality for the first time into our constitution. The original constitution did use the word equal at in one point referring to the number of senators each state has. But that is not what we mean the we talk about equality. The 14th amendment makes the constitution what it never was, but what it became later, as a result of this, which is a document that americans who feel they are being denied equality , can appeal to. You could not go to court for the civil war and say i am being denied the right to equality. You did not have one. Now you do, even though what that means has to be worked out. Of course, there is nothing about race in this either. Obviously, the status of the former slaves is on their mind, but it applies to everybody. The most important, recent case utilizing the 14th amendment was statese, was prohibited from denying gay people the right to marry. That is a 14 the minute decision by justice kennedy. It is based, that states cannot deny you of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, kennedy said, it has become a case that youre right to marriage, youre right to freedom in your intimate life, is part of liberty. It was not in 1866. They were not thinking about gay marriage back then. Gay as no concept of a concept in 1866, but kennedy gives you the opposite of the original interpretation. These concepts grow and expand. And today, denying the right to marriage is a violation of someones liberty. But again it is a 14th amendment , decision. The 14th the minute also marks a significant change, as does the 13th in the 15 come all these the federalin system, the balance between the states and the federal government. You can see the point i am making. If you compare these amendments with the bill of rights, the first 10 amendments, which give us our basic Civil Liberties freedom of speech, trial by jury, etc. , etc. The first words of the bill of rights is Congress Shall make no law. The bill of rights protects these liberties against federal abridgment. It has nothing to do with the states. South carolina had all sorts of laws making it illegal to criticize labor. Criticize slavery. You cannot get up and make a speech against slavery. Did not didnt they violate didnt that violate freedom of speech . No. The First Amendment has to do with the federal government. Massachusetts had an established church until the did that not 1820s. Violate the bill of rights . No, it was a state. First amendment does not have anything to do with states. Now look at the last clause of the 13, 14, and 15th amendments. Congress has the power to enforce these. The civil war crystallized the idea of the federal government , ande protector of liberty the state governments, it was state law that established slavery. It was states that were violating the basic rights of the former slaves. In states were the ones danger of limiting the liberties of all americans. So, the federal government now becomes the oversight, the power to oversee what the state to do in protecting the basic liberties. And as time went on, the Supreme Court, as they say in corporator, absorb the bill of rights to the states using the 14th amendment. They would say now the states have to abide by freedom of speech, freedom of press. That has been going on for decades. Since the 1920s. Most recently, well, 10 years ago, the mcdonald case, with the Second Amendment was incorporated to the states and local governments. That was about the right to bear arms that cannot be infringed on. So, that process has gone on, but the main point is, the empowerment of the national government, at the expense of the states through this. The 14th amendment said nothing about the right to vote directly. The second section sort of tried to encourage states to give blacks the right to vote, but there he quickly but very quickly after this, congress decided that there was no point working with johnson, his governments were no good and had to be replaced. In 1867, the past the reconstruction acts, which called for the creation of new governments in the south, based on universal manhood suffrage. That is what that is with black men 40 for the first time in American History in any large numbers, and holding office. We callins this period radical reconstruction. Before the civil war, only a tiny number of black men could vote anywhere in the country, and asked holding office, i have seen reference to about five black men who Held Public Office before the civil war. Mostly justices of the peace in massachusetts or oberland, ohio, a weirdly liberal place. Heck of a lot. T a now black men can vote and hold 70, office. And then it is extended to the whole country. And in the 15th minute, this is extended to the whole country. States, ah amendment state cannot deprive anyone of the right to vote because of race. That was not the amendment the radical republicans wanted. They wanted a positive statement of the right to vote. It wouldve saved a lot of trouble later on if they had done that. It would have been men unfortunately at that time, any male citizen 21 years of age or older has the right to vote. And an affirmative statement. That is not what the 15th amendment is. It says no state can deny you the right to vote because of race. But there are plenty of other reasons they can deny you the right to vote. Gender, to begin with. Women are not get the right to vote because of this. And as what would later happen, literacy, pole taxes, understanding clauses. The way the self eventually took the right away did not say anything about blacks. If they said that people cannot vote anymore, that would have filing of the 15th amendment, nonracialostensibly, methods, even though they were implemented in a completely racist manner, was upheld by the Supreme Court. Well, look, it doesnt say anything about race. We cannot go into the motivations of the registrars and legislators and what they really mean. We are looking here and what the law says, and it says anybody can vote as long as they can understand the state constitution. What is wrong with that. What is wrong with that . The 15th amendment was a remarkable step four, but on the other hand it was too weak to a , congress permanently what it try to do. Nonetheless, this period of radical reconstruction when new, by racial governments can to power in the south, was a massive, unprecedented experiment in interracial democracy. And these governments, despite the old view, had many achievements. They created the first tax supported Public School systems in the Southern States. They began the process of trying to rebuild the southern economy. , civilssed many state rights laws, trying to uphold the basic rights of former slaves. Held publiclack men office at every level from the first two black members of the senate, both elected from mississippi, to members of congress, twostate legislatures to state legislatures state , constitutional conventions, justices of the peace, shares, school board officials, mayors, you name it. One black man, jonathan j. Right served on the state Supreme Court of South Carolina. Most power remained in the hands of whites, but the fact that over 2000 black men by my count, held some Public Office during reconstruction, was an amazing change in the political system. But of course, the problems of people coming out of slavery were not just civil and Political Rights. Black schemata slavery without money, without property. Blacks came out of slavery without money, without property. They wanted land, of course, one of the few things people have heard about in reconstruction was the phrase 40 acres and a mule, which summarize the africanamerican desire for land as a kind of economic underpinning to their new freedom. But that did not happen. And so, the former slaves were left with little alternative and to go back to work, to go to work for white employers. But the Political Revolution was dramatic enough that it inspired, as i mentioned, a wave of violence in the south by the by thecringe or it klan, and kindred groups which , used terrorism to try and intimidate people and undermine these governments, to try and destroy the Republican Party on the local level, to try to prevent people from voting. Violence succeeded in some places in paralyzing these governments, and even overthrowing them. But handinhand with that came a retreat in the north in the 1870s from this ideal of equality, from a willingness to enforce the new constitutional provisions. One, this was a long, complicated story, but i am nearing the end of my talk these , governments fell by the wayside until by 1877, which is traditionally listed as the end of reconstruction, the entire south was back under the control of white, supra menaced democrats white, supremacist democrats who would control it. This is a long story, i am just about at the end of my time. By about 1900, new system was put in place in the south of what we call jim crow by shorthand. Which was based on taking away the rights of voters, racial segregation, the severe cutbacks in black education. A rigidly segmented labor market in which good jobs were reserved for whites, and in policing it at the edge, was violence, lynching. Over 3000 people were lynched, killed by mobs. Most of them africanamericans. Withhile violated impunity, the 14th amendment, the 15th amendment remained on the books. What Charles Sumner called sleeping giants. Byer, they would be awakened a new generation to provide the legal basis for the civil rights revolution, which is sometimes called the second reconstruction. When southca africa abolished apartheid, they needed to write a new constitution. Our Civil Rights Movement did not produce any change to the constitution. We did not need a new constitution. We needed the old constitution to be enforced. And finally, after many, many decades, the changes that reconstruction put into the constitution were finally enforced, to some extent anyway. Now, there were a couple of lessons i want to finish with. Books arehts on the not sufficient. They are not selfenforcing. The 14th 15th amendments, the civil rights legislation, remained on the books but books, but they were ignored. And unfortunately, in this long retreat from this i do love equality, the Supreme Court of the United States platy bury significant role. The retreat was gradual. It was never total. But certainly, the 14th and 15th amendments became dead letters in many parts of the south. Point is simply is that americans we like to think of our history as a Straight Line of greater and greater freedom. Actually, as reconstruction shows, our history is a more complicated, more interesting story of ups and downs, of progress and retrogression. Of rights that are gained and rights taken away. To be far for another day. Said anhitworth higgins abolitionist, who commanded a unit of black soldiers in the civil war, wrote around the time reconstruction began, revolutions may go backward. Reconstruction was a revolution that went backward. But the fact that it happened at all laid the foundation for future generations to try to bring to fruition, the aspirations of that era, and the concept of a country beyond the tyranny of race that had inspired reconstruction in the first place. We may be entering another period when rights taken for granted are taken away. We have come very far, but the challenge of dealing with the legacy of slavery the crux of , reconstruction, still confronts us a century in the half after the end of the civil war. So, thank you very much for listening. [applause] thank you. Thank you very much. I dont have to field questions, this man has been teaching longer than i have. I just want to point out that we had to people with microphones. So, if you have a question, wait until the microphone gets to you. And the other thing you should know is that we are honored to have cspan here. So if you do not want to begin your 15 minutes of fame on tv, dont ask a question. [laughter] on the other hand if youre , anxious for fame, here is your opportunity. Mr. Foner right. Professor lowing can be first. An excellent scholar here. Thank you. Im going to send you an email about a bunch of little points, but i have a big question. I think we should date the big 1890 becauseto lake in that year, first of all, we had what used to because the battle of wounded knee. Now it is called the massacre at wounded knee. Mississippi passes its new constitution later in that year, and the United States government more or less by a single vote in the senate, skills to pass the federal elections bill of 1890, and after that, the democrats deride the republicans. Black folks have no allies. Mr. Foner that is what you are talking about. I think 1890 is a more important change point than 1876, 1877. Mr. Foner no, i think that is av ery good argument no, i think that is a bury a very good argument. As i said, there is now a debate, when should we and reconstruction . 1890 is a good argument as you said. In the 1880s, black people continued to vote in many places in the south. In some places, they voted but they were not counted properly or stuff like that. Were a kinde 1880s of transitional period. It is a little unclear, some black people go to court when they are denied proper seating on a railroad, and win their cases and get damages. Some people do not win. It is not until plessy that racial segregation is given the full attention. 1890 the disenfranchisement in aent and a significant way in mississippi. Some people say you should end in 1906 when georgia completed the whole process. Or maybe plessy v ferguson. In other words, there were other contenders, but the point, a can 77 is not just the end of everything is completely right. History never ends at any particular point. I wrote a 600 page book which ended in 1877. If i had to go to 1890, that book would have been 1200 pages. It would have been impossible. [laughter] mr. Foner you have a second reconstruction in North Carolina and the 1890s. Ofually, maybe 1898, the end the populist Republican Coalition government in North Carolina, where you actually had another another government coming to power for four years. So, not everything was totally closed off until the early 20th century. But i think it is a good point that we should not be wedded to that rigid chronology. Ok, who else wants the person who is calling on people is actually lauren with the microphone. So there you go. But keep your hands up. Yes, go ahead, sir. Iq thank you very much. You make an excellent point that reconstruction was a failure because of its tragedy in not doing what it should have done. And i would say that is a part of American History throughout. America failed when it was in its colonial state. When we built a society based on slavery. We failed at the Early National period, but all of the country, the constitutional debates, when we codified slavery and made it the law of the land. And on and on. Indulge me a little bit. Lets play a what if game of history. [laughter] considering all the things you have laid out as the failures political failures and process reconstruction what are the one or two things, just one or two, that would have made reconstruction a success . One of those many things you laid out, if they had gone the other way, if the will had been there to go in a different direction . What are those one or two things that would have made the difference . Mr. Foner in a certain sense, you answered the question at the end of the question. When you said if the will had , been there. That is what would have been necessary. You know, i get the point you are making in your question very effectively. Even though i use the term, i actually dont like to just say reconstruction was a failure and leave it at that. Many things were accomplished and reconstruction that were not failures. Reconstruction, which it could not talk about here, reconstruction creates the foundation for the modern black community. Black churches, black schools, black institutions of all kinds are created in the space that opens up in reconstruction. And they survived. I mean, you know, the black colleges survive, and a black church obviously survives. And so, it is not that everything that happened in reconstruction was just wiped away. It is absolutely true and i dont want to be pollyanna ish. The political ideal of an interracial politics was wiped away for a long, long time. Wasthe ideal of equality pretty much abrogated for a , but in the jim crow era there were many accomplishments, too. And this is not really a question, but we cannot teach reconstruction backward. You know what i mean . The real issue is why did it fail . Because the people involved in reconstruction did not know it was going to fail. Not operating under the assumption it was going to fail. They were trying to build something, do something bury remarkable. And that is will we have to look at. And we can say, it did not work and why, but if you make a failure the beginning of the story rather than the end, i think youll miss a lot of what happened. What could have been done . I dont know. Some people would say look, it was impossible, no other society that abolished slavery, and many of them went through a reconstruction. There was no other effort to really empower the former slaves in such a dramatic way, even if it was temporary. So, you might say the amazing thing about reconstruction is not that it failed, but that it happened at all. And it took remarkable computation of events and actors to make this remarkable moment happened. But, you know, if you can imagine a situation where the federal government try to enforce the law more effectively, i mean, that is what they are supposed to do, you know . Maybe reconstruction would have stuck more. I dont know. It is hard to work out a counterfactual thing because it becomes pure speculation , divorced from any kind of historical reality. But you know, everything seems inevitable after it happens. And it is inevitable. Because historians make it inevitable. After something happens, historians come along and expect why it had to happen. And we eliminate all the other options that may have been existing at any historical moment. I dont know what is going to happen. Let us imagine that President Trump is impeached. Lets imagine that. Historians will come along and say it was inevitable, and this is exactly why it happened. But it is not inevitable. It may not happen, it may happen, but you know, we dont know if it will happen. Most people and most moments in history dont know what will happen. And we have to realize that when we talk about reconstruction. Im a little skeptical of counterfactual history. Thats why. Who has the microphone . Just got somebody who looks like they want to talk. Wonderful talk. Were the obstacles almost thatmountable in the sense you have this rebellion that officially did not occur because the states cannot leave the union. And you had people in gray uniforms returned home. And unless you deprived them of suffrage, you are not going to get permanent majorities in the 11 seceded states. And the federal Occupation Forces until 1877, were they ever large enough to enforce the three amendments and civil rights laws . And was the Political Support among white northern voters Strong Enough had they tried to do so . Mr. Foner well, really not. As you say, but in a sense, you are asking a similar kind of question. In many Southern States, African American voters were with some sort of small number of small allies, were sufficient enough to govern the state, or be a sufficient element that rates would have been protected. That would not have been the case in all the states. For some weird reason, the states that were the most recalcitrant or the order states recalcitrant were some of the border states that remain in the union. Kentucky joined the confederacy after the civil war, they do not realize it was over. [laughter] in noner you know, but state, the black population is a smaller and lacking, but in mississippi, alabama, in the deep south, blacks are 45 , 55 of the population. So, if they could actually exercise the right to vote freely and without violence, then you would have governments which would respect their rights. Why is white that is they are getting the right to vote in the first place. This is the way you protect your rights by voting. So then the question becomes, could violence have been prevented, or could the law has been enforced . A recent book by Gregory Downes about the army and occupation , in the beginning every construction, the army was pretty effective, and was pretty numerous up to around 1870. The idea that 1877 withdrew the troops is a myth. Because there were hardly any truth by that time. You know, that is not the importance of 1877 that if you choose the troops were long gone before that. Trying toook, im not put forward an unrealistic it wouldwhere you took have developed. What would success look like . The south was a devastated region. Economically, it was impoverished. Going to have really severe difficulties no matter what happened economically. The world Cotton Market was over. It was a glut of cotton on the world market. I dont care black, white, tobody farmers were going be really suffering in the late 19th century south. White farmer suffered terribly because of the decline in price of cotton. The whole National Credit system was geared against the south. I mean, you name it. They had a million problems. So what would success look like . Basically, i think success wouldve looked like just people having basic rights, respected, you know . That does not seem that amazing. I think it is possible to imagine scenarios where that would happen. But you know, it is very easy once we see what happened to think it was inevitable. And i am not so sure that i am willing to buy into that 100 . So, the question is, how the Southern States were covered in the period before congressional reconstruction mr. Foner under president johnsons reconstruction . Yes. Mr. Foner they were governed by white electorates, and mostly by people that had some sort of, you know, connections to the confederacy in one form or another. Right. Controlled . Get the military governors appointed like johnson was appointed a military governor in tennessee. Mr. Foner that was during the war. As the war ends . Mr. Foner then Andrew Johnson appoints governors in the Southern States, and instructs them to call constitutional conventions that will abolish slavery, and also repudiate secession. And then they can have legislative elections and elected government. 1867, newlyf elected governments are in place and all of the ex confederate states. They were elected by the white electorate. The blacks are not given any voice. Johnson had an idea that small, white farmers were loyal to the union, and had been dragooned into the rebellion by the planters. And if you could keep the planters out, you would have loyal, honest, Small Farmers running things. But it did not work out that way. They voted the old confederates back into office. Johnsonsow, so governments functioned in 1865 and 1866. In 1867, congress said, these governments are no good and we are getting rid of them. That is when you have what is called a military reconstruction, which is a bit of a misnomer actually. The south was divided into military district, and generals were appointed to register voters and have elections to create new government. You did not have military governments there except for a fairly brief period of time. So, basically, new governors were elected in the south to replace the johnson government. But didohnson johnson have the power to somehow appoint governors . During the first year or so . Mr. Foner did he have the power . He said, yes, i am doing it. Somebody had to appoint them. There already was a governor, a legislature. Mr. Foner no, they were confederate. They were illegitimate. He said, those are not real governments. Those are not go governors. Not the legislatures. That theyto exist dont exist anymore and that you need legitimate governments in the south. So, he appointed the governors to create that. The constitution the people who wrote the constitution did not anticipate a situation in which 11 states would wage war against the rest of the country. So, there is nothing in the constitution that says come in the event of the civil war, here is what happens. So, these guys for making it up as they went along. They wanted to be entombed with the constitution in some way, but on the other hand, they could not find anything in the constitution which told them what to do. So johnson said, all right we , need new governments there. Somebody has to do it. I will do it. Only i can do it, he said. [laughter] mr. Foner i alone, i alone can do it, yeah. January 1860 five, lincoln was willing to recognize the loss of capital in the south. They were willing to buy the slaves for half million dollars. Forget about him, but if the government had not invested that much additional money, once the off theover, bywas table, but investing that kind of money, what kind of an impact with that have had on the success of reconstruction . Mr. Foner lincoln had long advocated a plan of gradual enough the patient and emancipation and compensation to the owners. Proclamationion kind of ended that. But you are absolutely right. That after the Hampton Roads conference of february 1865, lincoln came back to his cabinet , and said, maybe we should, you know, give them was it 500 million or 250 million . Whatever it was, whatever it was, it was a good sum of money. It was unclear what he had in mind. Was it to go to the planters with compensation for the slaves . Was it to go to the south as a kind of Marshall Plan for development . He brought it to the cabinet and the cabinet secretary you have to be crazy, lincoln. Absolutely that is ridiculous. All of these people have been killed. Billions of dollars have been spent. You want to give these guys money . What did lincoln say . He said, you are all against me, and he dropped the idea. Congress would never have appropriated money for Something Like that. Now, why did, what did lincoln thing . Lincoln thought that there were a substantial number of white southerners who could be brought back to real loyalty to the United States. That there were many, many who have gone with the confederacy reluctantly, or maybe not at all really believing in it. I think lincoln overestimated their numbers. Andrew johnson also overestimated their numbers. But, you know, that is a another what if. Some people have said, you needed a Marshall Plan. We are going to create Job Opportunities for black, white, everybody. That was utterly impossible in the 19th century. There was no such thing as a Marshall Plan in the 19th century. And given the hostility the civil war created, i dont think most northerners one of their tax money to go to bolster confederates in the south. That is how they wouldve seen it, at least. Thank you. I learned something. You just said most of the troops had been pulled out by 1877. Mr. Foner oh yeah. So, i thought one of the crux is from the hayes election was pulling out the troops. If most of them are already pulled out, what was the crux of the deal . Mr. Foner the deal was, in a nutshell, that hayes would be recognized as president in a disputed election, and the federal government would westernize would recognize there were troops guarding. There were disputed results in those free states South Carolina, florida, and the louisiana. They had to determine who won those states in terms of electoral votes, and they have to determine who had one for the governorship of those states. There was a republican who claimed to be governor, and a democrat who claimed to be governor, and federal troops were guarding the Governors Mansion with a republican climate, but that was 20 guys. You know, guarding what hayes said is we are withdrawing those troops back to their barracks. They are no longer going to have anything to do with the dispute within the states about who won the gubernatorial elections. The democrats took over the state. You may say the deal was the republicans would get the presidency, and the south and the confederates, that is, or the democrats really, would get complete control of the southern at that all the other point, Southern States were under control of democrats. That is really the deal. Hayes eventually pulled troops out in july, 1877. Why . Because he needs them to suppress the Great Railroad strike, which has broken out. The First National strike in American History. Troops are sent into the north, send it to the north from the south to put down the railroad strike. They are not willing to protect the rights of African American voters in the south, but they are perfectly happy to protect the rights of property in the north. In a way, that is a significant shift in the outlook, so to speak, or the raison detre of the Republican Party. In the 1880s, they build armories in northern cities. You know, new york city the , armory show. Modern art comes to america. 1913. What the hell was in armory doing there . On park avenue. What do we have an armory for . We have an armory because they were afraid of workingclass uprisings in the north and violence and labor conflict. Armory was built in 1880s. They did not build armories in the south so there would be troops ready to protect the rights of black citizens. The build armories in the north so troops would be ready in the case of violent labor conflict which was endemic in the 1870s 1880s and 1890s. , that is a sign of the shift of what the Republican Party stands speak, which is part of the story. Last question. Mr. Foner who wants to be the last question. Last question . There he is. Well, thank you for your presentation. I have a question relating to a development. Recently, the federal government established the first Reconstruction Era National monument under the National Park service in beaufort, South Carolina. There were a remarkable number of structures unchanged since that period. I wondered, are there other side, maybe one or two other spots in the country that you think deserves similar designation to teach us about the reconstruction era, and actually present a physical reminder . Mr. Foner this is a setup, this question. [laughter] mr. Foner really. I was more responsible for this beaufort thing more than anybody. In the year of 2000, things take a long time in washington, as many of you are aware. The secretary00, of the interior, bruce babbitt, called me up. I did not know him. He was a nice guy. He called me up at columbia and said, i just read your book on reconstruction. And i said, the surprises me, mr. Secretary. I just dont think members of the cabinet have time to read among books like this. No, no, no i read it, and i want to know why there is no National Park, Historic Site about reconstruction . We have all of the civil war sites all over the place and there is not a single for reconstruction. One i said, if you read my book, you know why. [laughter] mr. Foner he said, you we have to build one. And i what you to come down. I came down and had lunch with him. And he said, i would like you to write a report on where should be. And i studied this. The key is, where are these artifacts if everything was destroyed, we cant have a National Park site. But beaufort is great because a lot of reconstruction happened in the beaufort area. The sea island experiment, the penn school, black soldiers raised there. All sorts of things. And luckily, the confederates there were total cowards. And a soon as the union navy arrived, they all ran away. And that is great for historians because the buildings were all standing and nothing was destroyed. They said to their slaves, we are running away, and the slaves said, would you mean the . What you mean we . [laughter] mr. Foner reconstruction began in the buford area. It took a long time because you need the support of the local congressman to do this, and the local congressman from that area was not happy. Especially because the sons of confederate veterans did not want a reconstruction site in the state of South Carolina. And they seemed to have a lot of political cloud. But eventually, the current no, it is asaid good idea, we should do it. The senators went along. And then president obama, you know, designated this. So from 2000 to 2016 it took 16 years to get this site designated. Are there other places . Im sure there are. New orleans has many buildings , which are related to the history of reconstruction. Natchez, mississippi, which has a very fine National Park site about urban slavery. Also has many places that were connected to reconstruction in mississippi. So, you know, i think we need more than one. It is not like buford is sufficient to cover the whole thing for the whole country, not at all. So i hope there will be more and more sites of reconstruction. And i also will say that i hope that one of these days, there will be like statues. Like statues of reconstruction. There is a lot of debate right now about taking down statues. Last night in new orleans, they took down jefferson davis. A week ago, they took down the battle of Liberty Place monument. But i think that is only half the story. They should put up new they ones. Should put up a statue of the first black senator or anybody. Any of these leaders, or jonathan j. Wright. Jonathan j. Wright, the only black member of a state Supreme Court in South Carolina. A portrait of jonathan j. Wright was not put up in the state Supreme Court holding until 1999. They had a portrait of every single other person who had served on the Supreme Court of South Carolina from the revolution until the present, one after another of them, but no portrait of jonathan j wright, because he was black. Other. This is the erasure. Downalk about taking jefferson davis, the erasure of history. I want to see as many of these things as we can. That is all. Thank you all for coming. [applause] today on American History tv on cspan3, a look at two u. S. President s. John f. Kennedys life in photos from the smithsonian american art museum. The wonderful thing about the kennedys is they never pushed photographers or writers away. They did not care how they were photographed in they did not care whether the tie was fixed, whether the coat was on. They knew if they made themselves accessible to the