TheAmericanPromise

CARPETBAGA carpetbag was a nineteenth-century suitcase made from carpet, often brightlycolored. Applied first to wildcat bankers on the western fron-tier, "carpetbagger" was a derogatory name for rootless and penniless adventurers'who could carry everything they owned in a single carpetbag. Critics of Republican ad-ministrations in the South hurled the name" carpetbaggers" at white Northerners whomoved South during reconstruction and became active in politics. According to whiteSoutherners, carpetbaggers exploited gullible ex-slaves to gain power and wealth. Infact. many Northerners who came to the South joined with blacks and some southernwhites to form Republican state and local governments that were among the mostprogressive anywhere in the nineteenth century.Private Collection I Picture Research Consultants & Archives.

CHAPTER

Reconstruction1863-1877

" YORK DISAPPEAREDon yesterday morning," David Golightly Harrisnoted in his journal on June 6, 1865. "I suppose that he has gone tothe yankey. I wish they would give him a good whipping & hasten

him back." York, a black field hand, had once belonged to Harris, a whiteslaveholder in Spartanburg District, South Carolina. When York disappeared,the war had been over for two months, and York was a free man. In Harris'smind, however, simply declaring York free did not make him so. In July,Harris noted that another field hand, Old Will, had left" to try to enjoy thefreedom the Yankey's have promised the negroes." Two weeks later, blackfreedom still seemed in doubt. "There is much talk about freeing the negroes.Some are said already to have freed them," Harris declared. But Harris hadnot freed anyone. He did not inform his former slaves of their freedom untilfederal military authorities forced him to. "Freed the Negroes," he declaredon August 16, four months after Appomattox and more than two and a halfyears after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Like many ex-slaveholders, Harris had trouble coming to grips withemancipation. "Family well, Horses well, Cattle well, Hogs well & every-thing else are well so far as I know, if it was not for the free negroes," Harrisdeclared on September 17. "On their account everything is turned upsidedown. So much so that we do not know what to do with our land, nor who tohire if we want it worked .... We are in the midst of troublesome times & donot know what will turn up." Harris had owned ten slaves, and now he facedwhat seemed to him an insoluble problem. He needed blacks to cultivate hisfarm, but like most whites he did not believe that African Americans wouldwork much when free. Some kind of compulsion would be needed, but slav-ery was gone, leaving the South upside down. White men in Harris's neigh-borhood sought to set it straight again. "In this district several negroes havebeen badly whipped & several have been hung by some unknown persons,"he noted in November. "This has a tendency to keep them in their properbounds & make them more humble." But the violence did not keep ex-slavesfrom acting like free people. On Christmas Day 1865, Harris recorded, "Thenegroes leave today to hunt themselves a new home while we will be left towait upon ourselves."

Across the South, ex-masters predicted that emancipation would meaneconomic collapse and social anarchy. Carl Schurz, a Union general whoundertook a fact-finding mission to the former Confederate states in the sum-mer of 1865, encountered this dire prediction often enough to conclude that theCivil War was a "revolution but half accomplished." Northern victory hadfreed the slaves, but it had not changed former slaveholders' minds about theneed for slavery. Left to themselves, Schurz believed, whites would "introduce

16• Wartime Reconstruction 400

"To Bind Up the Nation'sWounds" 401Land and Labor 401The African American Quest forAutonomy 402

• Presidential Reconstruction 403Johnson's Program ofReconciliation 403White Southern Resistance and BlackCodes 406Expansion of Federal Authority andBlack Rights 407

• CongressionalReconstruction 408The Fourteenth Amendmentand Escalating Violence 408Radical Reconstruction andMilitary Rule 409Impeaching a President 410The Fifteenth Amendment andWomen's Demands 411

• The Struggle in the South 412Freedmen, Yankees, and Yeomen 412Republican Rule 413White Landlords, BlackSharecroppers 415

• Reconstruction Collapses 416Grant's Troubled Presidency 417Northern Resolve Withers 419White Supremacy Triumphs 420An Election and a Compromise 421

• Conclusion: "A Revolution ButHalf Accomplished" 422

some new system of forced labor, not perhapsexactly slavery in its old form but somethingsimilar to it." To defend their freedom, blackswould need federal protection, land of theirown, and voting rights, Schurz concluded. Untilwhites" cut loose from the past, it will be a dan-gerous experiment to put Southern society uponits own legs." Schurz discovered that the end ofthe war did not mean the beginning of peace.Instead, the nation entered one of its mostchaotic and violent eras-Reconstruction, an erathat would define the status of the defeatedSouth within the Union and the meaning of free-dom for ex-slaves.

The status of the South and the contours ofblack freedom were determined in the nation'scapital, where the federal government played anactive role, but also in the state legislatures andcounty seats of the South. Moreover, on farmsand plantations from Virginia to Texas, ex-slaveslike York and Old Will, who were determined tobecome free people, battled with whites likeDavid Golightly Harris, who clung to the OldSouth. In the midst of the racial flux and chaos, asmall band of crusading women sought toachieve gender equality. The years of reconstruc-tion witnessed an enormous struggle to deter-mine the consequences of Confederate defeatand emancipation. Although white Southernersprevailed, their New South was a very differentSouth from the one to which whites like DavidGolightly Harris wished to return.

Reconstruction did not wait for the end of war.As the odds of a northern victory increased,thinking about reunification quickened. Im-mediately, a question arose: Who had authorityto devise a plan for reconstructing the Union?Lincoln believed firmly that reconstruction was amatter of executive responsibility. Congress justas firmly asserted its jurisdiction. Fueling theargument about who had authority to set theterms of reconstruction were significant differ-ences about the terms themselves. Lincoln'sprimary aim was the restoration of national unity,which he sought through a program of speedy,forgiving political reconciliation. Congress fearedthat the president's program amounted to restor-ing the old southern ruling class to power. Itwanted greater assurances of white loyalty andgreater guarantees of black rights.

Black Woman in Cotton Fields, Thomasville,GeorgiaFew images of everyday black women during the Recon-struction era survive. This photograph was taken in 1895,but it nevertheless goes to the heart of the labor struggleafter the Civil War. Before emancipation black womenworked in the fields, and after emancipation white land-lords wanted them to continue working there. Freedomallowed some women to escape field labor, but not thisGeorgian, who probably worked to survive. The photo-graph reveals a strong person with a clear sense of whoshe is. Though worn to protect her head and body fromthe fierce heat, her intricately wrapped headdress dramati-cally expresses her individuality. Her bare feet also revealsomething about her life.Courtesy, Georgia Department of Archives and History, Atlanta, Georgia.

In their eagerness to formulate a plan forpolitical reunification, neither Lincoln norCongress gave much attention to the South'sland and labor problems. But as the war rapidlyeroded slavery and traditional plantation agri-culture, Yankee military commanders in the

Union-occupied areas of the Confederacy had nochoice but to oversee the emergence of a newlabor system.

liTo Bind Up the Nation's Wounds"

On March 4, 1865, President Abraham Lincolndelivered his second inaugural address. He sur-veyed the history of the long, deadly war andthen looked ahead to peace. "With malicetoward none; with charity for all; with firmnessin the right, as God gives us to see the right,"Lincoln said, "let us strive on to finish the workwe are in; to bind up the nation's wounds ... todo all which may achieve and cherish a just, anda lasting peace." Lincoln had contemplated re-union for nearly two years. While deep compas-sion for the enemy guided his thinking aboutpeace, his plan for reconstruction aimed primar-ily at shortening the war and ending slavery.

In his Proclamation of Amnesty andReconstruction, issued in December 1863,Lincoln offered a full pardon to rebels willing torenounce secession and to accept emancipation.(Pardons were valuable because they restored allproperty, except slaves, and full political rights.)When merely 10 percent of a state's voting pop-ulation had taken an oath of allegiance, the statecould organize a new government. Lincoln'splan did not require ex-rebels to extend social orpolitical rights to ex-slaves, nor did it anticipatea program of long-term federal assistance tofreedmen. Clearly, the president looked forwardto the speedy restoration of the broken Union.

Lincoln's easy terms enraged abolitionistslike Bostonian Wendell Phillips, who chargedthat the president" makes the negro's freedom amere sham." He "is willing that the negro shouldbe free but seeks nothing else for him," Phillipsdeclared. Phillips and other northern radicalscalled instead for a thorough overhaul of south-ern society. Their ideas proved to be too drasticfor most Republicans during the war years, butCongress agreed that Lincoln's plan was inade-quate. In July 1864, Congress put forward a planof its own.

Congressman Henry Winter Davis ofMaryland and Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohiojointly sponsored a bill that demanded that atleast half of the voters in a conquered rebel statetake the oath of allegiance before reconstructioncould begin. Moreover, the Wade-Davis billbanned ex-Confederates from participating inthe drafting of new state constitutions. Finally,the bill guaranteed the equality of freedmen

before the law. When Lincoln exercised his rightnot to sign the bill and let it die instead, Wadeand Davis published a manifesto charging thepresident with usurpation of power. Theywarned Lincoln to confine himself to "his execu-tive duties-to obey and execute, not make thelaws-to suppress by arms armed rebellion, andleave political organization to Congress."

Undeterred, Lincoln continued to nurturethe formation of loyal state governments underhis own plan. Four states- Louisiana, Arkansas,Tennessee, and Virginia-fulfilled the presi-dent's requirements, but Congress refused toseat representatives from the "Lincoln states." Inhis last public address in April 1865, Lincolndefended his plan but for the first time expressedpublicly his endorsement of suffrage for south-ern blacks, at least "the very intelligent, and ...those who serve our cause as soldiers." Theannouncement demonstrated that Lincoln'sthinking about reconstruction was still evolving.Four days later, he was dead.

Of all the problems raised by the North's victoryin the war, none proved more critical than theSouth's transition from slavery to free labor. Asfederal armies invaded and occupied theConfederacy, hundreds of thousands of slavesbecame free workers. Union armies controlledvast territories in the South where legal title toland had become unclear. The wartime Con-fiscation Acts punished "traitors" by taking awaytheir property. The question of what to do withfederally occupied land and how to organizelabor on it engaged former slaves, former slave-holders, Union military commanders, and federalgovernment officials long before the war ended.

Up and down the Mississippi valley, occupy-ing federal troops announced a new labor code.The code required slaveholders to sign contractswith ex-slaves and to pay wages. It obligated em-ployers to provide food, housing, and medicalcare. It outlawed whipping, but it reserved to thearmy the right to discipline blacks who refused towork. The code required black laborers to enterinto contracts, work diligently, and remain subor-dinate and obedient. Military leaders clearly hadno intention of promoting a social or economicrevolution. Instead, they sought to restore planta-tion agriculture with wage labor. The effort re-sulted in a hybrid system that one contemporarycalled "compulsory free labor," something thatsatisfied no one.

Planters complained because the new sys-tem fell short of slavery. Blacks could not be"transformed by proclamation," a Louisianasugar planter warned. Yet under the new system,blacks" are expected to perform their new obli-gations without coercion, & without the fear ofpunishment which is essential to stimulate theidle and correct the vicious." Without the right towhip, he concluded, the new labor system didnot have a chance.

African Americans found the new regimetoo reminiscent of slavery to be called free labor,and they lamented its failure to provide themland of their own. "What's the use of being freeif you don't own land enough to be buried in?"one man asked. Freedmen believed they had amoral right to land because they and their ances-tors had worked it without compensation formore than two centuries. Moreover, severalwartime developments led them to believe thatthe federal government planned to undergirdblack freedom with landownership.

In January 1865, General William TecumsehSherman set aside part of the coast south ofCharleston for black settlement. By June 1865,some 40,000 freedmen sat on 400,000 acres of"Sherman land." In addition, in March 1865,Congress passed a bill establishing the Bureau ofRefugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands.The Freedmen's Bureau, as it was called, distrib-uted food and clothing to destitute Southernersand eased the transition of blacks from slaves tofree persons. Congress also authorized theagency to divide abandoned and confiscatedland into 40-acre plots, to rent them to freedmen,and eventually to sell them "with such title asthe United States can convey." By June 1865, thebureau had situated nearly 10,000 black familieson a half million acres abandoned by fleeingplanters. Hundreds of thousands of other ex-slaves eagerly anticipated farms of their own.

Despite the flurry of activity, wartime recon-struction failed to produce agreement aboutwhether the president or Congress had theauthority to devise and direct policy or whatproper policy should be. As Lincoln anticipated,the nation faced postwar dilemmas almost astrying as those of the war.

The African American Questfor Autonomy

Ex-slaves never had any doubt about what theywanted from freedom. They had only to contem-plate what they had been denied as slaves. (See

"Documenting the American Promise," page404.) Slaves had to remain on their plantations;freedom allowed blacks to go wherever theypleased. Thus, in the first heady weeks afteremancipation, freedmen often abandoned theirplantations just to see what was on the other sideof the hill. Slaves had to be at work in the fieldsby dawn; freedom permitted blacks to taste theformerly forbidden pleasure of sleeping througha sumise. Freedmen also tested the etiquette ofracial subordination. "Lizzie's maid passed metoday when I was coming from church withoutspeaking to me," huffed one plantation mistress.

To whites, emancipation looked like pureanarchy. Blacks, they said, had reverted to theirnatural condition: lazy, irresponsible, and wild.Actually, these former slaves were experiment-ing with freedom, but they could not long affordto roam the countryside, neglect work, and casu-ally provoke whites. Soon, most were back atwork in the kitchens and fields.

But other items on ex-slaves' agenda of free-dom endured. They dreamed of land of their own."The way we can best take care of ourselves is tohave land," an ex-slave declared in 1865, "andturn it and till it by our own labor." Anotherexplained that he wanted land, "not a Master orowner[,] Neither a driver with his Whip." In addi-tion, freedmen wanted to learn to read and write."I wishes the Childern all in School," a blackUnion army veteran asserted. "It is beter for themthen to be their Surveing a mistes [mistress]."

Another persistent black aspiration wassecure and complete families. Thousands of blackmen and women took to the roads in 1865 to lookfor kin who had been sold away or to free thosewho were being held illegally as slaves. A blacksoldier from Missouri wrote his daughters thathe was coming for them. "I will have you if it costme my life," he declared. "Your Miss Kitty saidthat I tried to steal you," he told them. "But I'll lether know that god never intended for a man tosteal his own flesh and blood." And he swore that"if she meets me with ten thousand soldiers, she[will] meet her enemy."

Another hunger was for independent wor-ship. Blacks greeted freedomwith a mass exodus fromwhite churches. Some joinedthe newly established south-ern branches of all-blacknorthern churches, such asthe African MethodistEpiscopal Church. Othersformed black versions of

the major southern denominations, Baptists andMethodists. Freedmen interpreted the events ofthe Civil War and reconstruction as Christianpeople. One black woman thanked Lincoln forthe Emancipation Proclamation, declaring,"When you are dead and in Heaven, in a thou-sand years that action of yours will make theAngels sing your praises I know it."

REV IE W Why did Congress object to Lincoln'swartime plan for reconstruction?

Abraham Lincoln died on April 15, 1865, justhours after John Wilkes Booth shot him at aWashington, D.C., theater. Chief Justice SalmonP. Chase immediately administered the oath ofoffice to Vice President Andrew Johnson ofTennessee. Congress had adjourned in March,which meant that legislators were away fromWashington when Lincoln was killed. Theywould not reconvene until December.Throughout the summer and fall, therefore, the"accidental president" made critical decisionsabout the future of the South without congres-sional input. Like Lincoln, Johnson believed thatresponsibility for restoring the Union lay withthe president. With dizzying speed, he drew upand executed a plan of reconstruction.

Congress returned to the capital in Decemberto find that, as far as the president and formerConfederates were concerned, reconstruction wasalready decided. Most Republicans, however,thought Johnson's modest demands of ex-rebelsmade a mockery of the sacrifice of Union soldiers.It appeared to them that Johnson had acted asmidwife to the rebirth of the Old South and thestillbirth of black liberty. To let his program stand,Republican legislators said, would mean that theNorth's dead had indeed died in vain. They pro-ceeded to dismantle it and substitute a programof their own, one that southern whites foundways to resist.

Johnson's Program ofReconciliation

Born in 1808 in Raleigh, North Carolina, AndrewJohnson was the son of illiterate parents. Self-educated and ambitious, Johnson moved toTennessee, where he worked as a tailor, accumu-

lated a fortune in land, acquired five slaves, andbuilt a career in politics championing the South'scommon white people and assailing its "illegiti-mate, swaggering, bastard, scrub aristocracy."The only senator from a Confederate state toremain loyal to the Union, Johnson held theplanter class responsible for secession. Less thantwo weeks before he became president, he madeit clear what he would do to planters if he everhad the chance: "I would arrest them-I wouldtry them - I would convict them and I wouldhang them."

Despite such statements, Johnson was nofriend of the Republicans. A southern Democratall his life, Johnson occupied the White Houseonly because the Republican Party in 1864 hadneeded a vice presidential candidate who wouldappeal to loyal, Union-supporting Democrats.Johnson favored traditional Democratic causes,vigorously defending states' rights (but notsecession) and opposing Republican efforts toexpand the power of the federal government. Asteadfast defender of slavery, Johnson hadowned slaves until 1862, when Tennessee rebels,angry at his Unionism, confiscated them. Heonly grudgingly accepted emancipation. Whenhe did, it was more because he hated plantersthan sympathized with slaves. "Damn the ne-groes," he said. "I am fighting those traitorousaristocrats, their masters." At a time when thenation confronted the future of black Americans,the new president harbored unshakable racistconvictions. Africans, Johnson said, were "infe-rior to the white man in point of intellect-bet-ter calculated in physical structure to undergodrudgery and hardship."

Like Lincoln, Johnson stressed reconcilia-tion between the Union and the defeatedConfederacy and rapid restoration of civil gov-ernment in the South. Like Lincoln, he promisedto pardon most, but not all, ex-rebels. Johnsonrecognized the state governments created byLincoln but set out his own requirements forrestoring the other rebel states to the Union. Allthat the citizens of a state had to do was torenounce the right of secession, deny that thedebts of the Confederacy were legal and bind-ing, and ratify the Thirteenth Amendment abol-ishing slavery, which became part of theConstitution in December 1865. Johnson's planignored Lincoln's acceptance near the end of hislife of some form of limited black voting.

Johnson's eagerness to restore relationswith southern states and his lack of sympathyfor blacks also led him to return to pardoned

DOCUMENTING THE AMERICAN PROMISE

The Meaning of Freedolll

On New Year's Day 1863, Presi-dent Abraham Lincoln issuedthe Emancipation Proclamation.

It states that "all persons held asslaves" within the states still in rebel-lion "are, and henceforward shall be,free." Although the Proclamation in andof itself did not free any slaves, it trans-formed the character of the war. Despiteoften intolerable conditions, black peoplefocused on the possibilities of freedom.

DOCUMENT 1Letter from John Q. A. Dennis

to Edwin M. Stanton, July 26, 1864

John Q. A. Dennis, formerly a slave inMaryland, wrote to ask Secretary of WarEdwin M. Stanton for help in reunitinghis family.

BostonDear Sir I am Glad that I have theHonour to Write you afew line I havebeen in troble for about four yars myDear wife was taken from me Nov19th 1859 and left me with threeChildren and I being a Slave At thetime Could Not do Anny thing forthe poor little Children for my masterit was took me Carry me some fortymile from them So I Could Not dofor them and the man that they livewith half feed them and half Cloththem & beat them like dogs & when Iwas admitted to go to see them it useto brake my heart & Now I say againI am Glad to have the honour towrite to you to see if you Can DoArmy thing for me or for my poorlittle Children I was keap in Slavyuntelliast Novr 1863. then the Good

lord sent the Cornel borne [federalColonel William Birney?] Down theirin Marland in worsester Co So as Ihave been recently freed I have butletle to live on but I am StriveingDear Sir but what I went too know ofyou Sir is it possible for me to go &take my Children from those menthat keep them in Savery if it is pos-sible will you pleas give me a permitfrom your hand then I think theywould let them go ....

Hon sir will you please excusemy Miserable writeing & answer meas soon as you can I want get thelittle Children out of Slavery, I beingCriple would like to know of youalso if I Cant be permited to rase aShoal Down there & on what turm ICould be admited to Do so No moreAt present Dear Hon Sir

SoURCE: Ira Berlin, Joseph P. Reidy, andLeslie S. Rowland, eds., Freedom:ADocumentanJ History of Emancipation,1861-1867, ser. t vol. t The Destructionof Slavery, 386. Copyright © 1985.Reprinted with the permission ofCambridge University Press.

DOCUMENT 2Report from Reverend

A. B. Randall, February 28, 1865

Freedom prompted ex-slaves to seek legalmarriages, which under slavery had beenimpossible. Writing from Little Rock,Arkansas, to the adjutant general of theUnion army, A. B. Randall, the whitechaplain of a black regiment, affirmedthe importance of marriage tofreedslaves and emphasized their convictionthat emancipation was only the first steptoward full freedom.

Weddings, just now, are very popu-lar, and abundant among theColored People. They have justlearned, of the Special Order No. 15.of Gen Thomas [Adjutant GeneralLorenzo Thomas] by which, theymay not only be lawfully married,but have their Marriage Certificates,Recorded; in a book furnished bythe Government. This is mostdesirable .... Those who were cap-tured ... at Ivy's Ford, on the 17thof January, by Col Brooks, had theirMarriage Certificates, taken fromthem; and destroyed; and then wereroundly cursed, for having such pa-pers in their posession. I have mar-ried, during the month, at this Post;Twenty five couples; mostly, those,who have families; & have been liv-ing together for years. I try to dis-suade single men, who are soldiers,from marrying, till their time of en-listment is out: as that course seemsto me, to be most judicious.

The Colord People here, gener-ally consider, this war not only; theirexodus, from bondage; but the road,to Responsibility; Competency; andan honorable Citizenship-Godgrant that their hopes and expecta-tions may be fully realized.

SoURCE: Ira Berlin, Joseph P. Reidy, andLeslie S. Rowland, eds., Freedom:ADocumentary History of Emancipation,1861-1867, ser. 2, vol. 1, The Black MilitaryExperience, 712. Copyright © 1982.Reprinted with the permission ofCambridge University Press.

DOCUMENT 3Petition "to the Union

Convention of TennesseeAssembled in the Capitol atNashville," January 9, 1865

Early efforts at political reconstructionprompted petitions from former slaves