Reconstruction Essay, Research Paper

Andrea DeRoeck 9-05-00 Part 1

From 1861 to 1865 presiden Lincoln led the United States through the civil war,

preserving the Union and in the process ending slavery. After the civil war the largest subject at

hand, was that of Reconstruction. Reconstruction raised three major questions. Can the U.S. be

truly united, can blacks and whites live together, and who will run the country? Shortly after the

war, and even more shortly after the process of reconstruction had begun, Lincoln was

assasinated. He had started a very vague plan which included, appointing provisional state

represenatives and government to the states of Lousiana, North Carolina, and Tennessee, the

respect of private property rights (except in the case of slaves), and The Proclamation of

Amnesty of Reconstruction, a.k.a., The Pledge of Allegance. He also indicated that in time, all

formal leaders would be granted pardon. His death, in April of 1865, left Johnson, his vice

president, and the only Southern Democrat loyal to the Union, to take over the job of president,

and reconstruction.

During the summer of 1865, Johnson proceeded in carrying out Lincolns Reconstruction

plan, with only minor changes. These modifications included, appointing a governor for each

state that had seceeded and restoring political rights to a majority of southern citizens through

pardons. Conventions were held in each of the former Confederate states to repeal the

ordinances of secession, discuss the war debt, and draw up new state constitutions. In time, the

citizens of each state were able to elect their own governor and state legislature. When the

legislatue of state ratified the thirteenth amendment, which stated: “No slavery or involunatry

servitude except for punishment,” the new sate government would then be recognized and the

state would then be admitted back into the Union.

The process, with only a few exceptions, had almost been completed at the end of 1865.

However, the states that had seceeded were not yet completely as they had been before the war,

because Congress still refused to seat their Senators and Represenatives. Both Lincoln and

Johnson had know that Congress would have the right to refuse the southerns legislatures seats,

under the clause of the Constitution that states: “Each house shall be the judge of qualifications

of its own members.” Under the leadership of Thaddeus Stevens, the congressmen who still

wanted to punish the south, refuesed to seat its elected southern legisltors. Within the next few

months, they proceeded to work out their own reconstrustion plan which strayed drastically from

the original version.

The group of officials responsible for this new plan were called the Radical Republicans.

The political viewpoints of these “radiclas” came in many varying degrees and they often

disagreed about important national issues, they were united however in that, from the 1866

elections on, a Radical Republican was any member of congress who was committed to

destroying the institution of slavery and for granting civil rights to African Americans.

In February of 1866 they made a bill to extend the Freedman Bureau. If a former slave had a

grievance with a plantation owner he could take them to court. In March, they came up with the

Civil Rights Act of 1866. Both bills were veteoed by Johnson. His resistance made the

“radicals” fight even harder against him. This started the move to the fourteenth amendment

which states that: “No state shall deprive an individual of life, liberty or property without due

cause.” They also stated that the southerners could only count slaves in their censuses if they

gave them the right to vote. The southerners did not accept the new policies, so in order to

manipulate the southern electric 3/4ths of the states had to ratify to pass new amendments, so

military people were sent in to enforce all these acts.

Johnson was an obstacle to their new form of reconstruction, and hated by all, so they set

him up using the Tenure of Office Act which stated that: “A member could not be removed until

the senate had named a successor. He, of course violated this act, and was impeached, however,

we was acquitted by one vote, because of the precedent that it would create.

All of the above, bills and amendments were eventually passed, however, Reconstruction

proved to be short-lived. It took another century for the nation to begin to live up to the promise

of equality for all its citizens.