After Lincoln was assassinated, his vice president, Andrew Johnson, modified the Wade-Davis plan by issuing amnesty to anyone who took an oath to be loyal to the Union in the future. Johnson required that the states ratify the 13th Amendment (which freed the slaves), abolish slavery in their own state constitutions, repudiate debts incurred while in rebellion, and declare secession null and void. By the end of 1865, all of the secessionist states, except for Texas, had complied.
Congress, however, was not satisfied with Johnson’s program, which, Congress feared, restored power to the very individuals who had brought rebellion. Moreover, the readmitted states persisted in keeping former slaves in subservience. To correct this problem, Congress passed in 1866 the Freedman’s Bureau Act and the Civil Rights Act, both intended to ensure African-American equality before the law. When Johnson vetoed these acts, Republicans responded by refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the Southern states and overrode the veto.
Republicans also introduced the 14th Amendment, declaring African-Americans to be citizens and prohibiting states from discriminating against any class of citizen. When the Southern state governments created under Johnson’s plan refused to ratify the 14th Amendment, Congress passed a series of Reconstruction Acts in 1867, effectively placing the South under military occupation. African-Americans were quickly enfranchised, and Congress forced acceptance of the 14th Amendment by refusing to recognize new state governments until those governments had ratified it. Recognized Confederate leaders were specifically barred from participating in the creation of the new governments.
Articles of Impeachment
In defiance of Congress, Johnson deliberately interfered with the enforcement of the reconstruction laws. When, at last, in 1868, Johnson dismissed Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton in a bid to gain complete control of the army, House Republicans charged a violation of the Tenure of Office Act. Passed in 1867, this act barred a president from removing, without the Senate’s approval, any officeholder appointed with the Senate’s consent. The House impeached Johnson, but after a trial spanning March through May 1868, the Senate acquitted him by a single vote.
His Fraudulency
With Andrew Johnson neutralized, the radical Republicans visited a harsh reconstruction program on the South. African-Americans were given equal rights, state-supported free public school systems were established, labor laws were made fairer to employees, and tax laws were more generally equitable; however, radical reconstruction also exacted a heavy tax burden and led to widespread, ruinous corruption. In many places, uneducated former slaves were thrust into high-level government positions for which they were inadequately prepared. In response, whites set up shadow governments and established the Ku Klux Klan and other vigilante- type groups.
Radical reconstruction was born of mixed motives—a desire to bring equality to African-Americans and to establish governments loyal to the Union, but also to keep Democrats out of Congress and punish the South. These efforts created much bitterness, crippled the Southern economy for generations, and ultimately deepened the gulf of understanding separating the races.
During the early 1870s, white resistance to reconstruction often turned violent. In this tumultuous atmosphere, the presidential election of 1876 resulted in a majority of popular votes going to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. However, the Republicans reversed the electoral vote tally in the three Southern states they still controlled under Reconstruction legislation. The Republicans effectively stole the election from Tilden and gave it to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. After months of wrangling, both sides agreed to send the votes to a special commission. It ruled Hayes the winner—though only after he secretly agreed to stop using federal troops to enforce Reconstruction. In effect, this agreement ended Reconstruction, in its positive as well as negative aspects. Dubbed “Your Fraudulency,” Hayes served a single term as best he could but remained one of the nation’s least popular presidents.
The Least You Need to Know
Victory in the Civil War was the result of numbers: The North had more men, money, and manufacturing capacity than the South.
Lincoln’s assassination deprived the South—as well as the North—Of a wise and compassionate leader. Without Lincoln, the process of reconstruction was bitter, divisive, and deeply damaging to the nation.
Stats
Of 88,289 Union troops engaged at Gettysburg, 3,155 died oft the field, 14,529 were wounded (many of these subsequently died), and 5,365 were listed as “missing.” Confederate figures are less reliable. Of approximately 75,000 troops engaged, 3,903 were killed outright, 18,735 were wounded (a large percentage mortally), and 5,425 were missing.
Voice from the Past
On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg to dedicate a national cemetery on the battlefield. Some did not find his brief speech adequate to the solemn occasion. Others were moved by its straightforward eloquence as a definition of what was at stake in the Civil War. Today the speech is universally regarded as one the greatest public utterances in history:
“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these is rather for us honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
