Hey guys! It’s been a while since we looked at the events after the Civil War, so I thought that it would be a good idea to take a brief look. Reconstruction was a time of great upheaval in the United States. Black Americans were emancipated as slaves, yet still faced great challenges when trying to overturn racial prejudices in the social, economic, and political spheres.
1863
The Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln, declared that “all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.” It is important to note that it was limited in many ways (despite its expansive wording). It exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control, and the freedom that it promised depended on Union military victory.
1865
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (the Freedmen’s Bureau),was established on March 3, 1865. It provided assistance to tens of thousands of former slaves as well as impoverished whites in the Southern States and the District of Columbia. After the Civil War liberated nearly four million slaves and destroyed the region’s plantation-based economy, the Bureau was established in the War Department to undertake the relief effort and the unprecedented social reconstruction that would bring freedpeople to full citizenship.
On April 9. 1865, at the Battle of Appomattox, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. The Civil war effectively ended when he surrendered the last major Confederate Army at Appomattox Courthouse.
President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865, and Vice President Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat, assumes the presidency. Johnson implements his reconstruction plan in the summer of 1865. It offers general amnesty to those taking an oath of future loyalty and it also requires states to ratify the 13th Amendment, which prohibits slavery. The amendment is ratified in December.
1866
On April 9, 1866, congress enacts the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This mandated that “all persons born in the United States,” with the exception of Native Americans, were “hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.” The legislation granted all citizens the “full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property.” President Johnson vetoes the bill. Congress passes the bill; Johnson vetoes it again; Congress overrides his veto.
From May 1-3 of 1866, race riots erupt in Memphis. It began when a white police officer attempted to arrest a black ex-soldier and an estimated fifty blacks showed up to prevent the police from jailing him. Accounts vary as to who began the shooting, but the altercation that ensued quickly involved more and more of the city. By the end of the conflict, Memphis’s black community had been devastated. Forty-six blacks had been killed while only two whites died in the conflict, one as the result of an accident and another, a policeman, due to a self inflicted gunshot. Over one hundred houses and buildings burned down as a result of the riot and neglect of the firemen. There were no arrests made.
On July 30, 1866, the New Orleans Massacre, or the New Orleans Race Riot, galvanized national opposition to the moderate Reconstruction policies of President Johnson and ushered in more sweeping Congressional Reconstruction in the next years. The riot took place outside the Mechanics Institute in New Orleans as black and white delegates attended the Louisiana Constitutional Convention. The Convention had reconvened because Louisiana state legislature had recently passed the black codes and refused to extend voting rights to black men.
The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1866 and extended into almost every southern state by 1870. It was a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for blacks. Its members sought the restoration of white supremacy through intimidation and violence aimed at newly enfranchised black freedmen.
1867
Congress passes a series of Reconstruction Acts during 1867. The first Reconstruction Act divided the former Confederacy into five military districts under the direction of military officers, who are supported by federal troops. States have to enact new constitutions that grant voting rights to black men. States must ratify the 14th amendment, which attempts to give the citizenship clause of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 more legitimacy and permanency by incorporating int into the Constitution, in order to be represented in Congress. The second Reconstruction Act gives the military district commanders directions on holding state constitutional conventions. The third Reconstruction Act affirms the authority of the military commanders to remove state officials from the office. The fourth Reconstruction Act allows the proposed state constitutions to be ratified by a simple majority vote in each state.
1868
The House of Representatives impeaches President Andrew Johnson, who had angered Republicans by his interference and intransigence on reconstruction policies. The Senate votes to acquit him, and he remains in office, but is denied renomination by the Democratic party.
1869
“Redeemer” governments begin to be elected across the South, and majority white Southern voters replace the biracial Republican state governments that were created under Congressional reconstruction with white-only democratic state governments, which are sympathetic to the former Confederate cause and opposed to racial equality. Tennessee establishes the first “redeemer” government, with Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia following suit.
US Supreme Court announces its decision in Texas v. White, upholding the constitutionality of Congressional Reconstruction in a 5-3 decision. Chief Justice Salmon Chase declares that the Union is “composed of indestructible states,” thus making secession illegal; although Texas had never left the union, it no longer has a legitimate state government and Congress has the authority to restore a republican government to the state.
1870
The Fifteenth Amendment becomes a part of the US Constitution. It granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that the “right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Congress also enacts the first Enforcement Act to enforce the 14th and 15th Amendments, which makes the bribing, intimidation, or racial discrimination of voters into federal crimes.
1871
Congress passes the second Enforcement Act that authorizes federal supervision of Congressional elections in cities with populations of over 20.000. Congress enacts the third Enforcement Act, or the Ku Klux Klan Act in April 1871 that grants the federal government the authority to punish the denial of equal protection or privileges and immunities. It also gives the president the power to suspend habeas corpus and to use the military against anti-civil rights conspiracies.
1872
In the summer of 1872, Congress dismantled the Freedmen’s Bureau (partly in response to pressure from white Southerners).
1874
Democrats win control of both houses of Congress for the first time since before the Civil War, and redeemer governments win control in Arkansas and Alabama.
1875
The outgoing Republican Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1875 in response to civil rights violations to African Americans, “to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights.” It outlawed racial segregation in all public accommodations regulated by law, such as hotels, theaters, steamships, and railroads. (This was later ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in 1883).
1877
After his inauguration, President Rutherford B. Hayes effectively ends Reconstruction when he withdraws federal troops from South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana.
https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/freedmens-bureau
http://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1851-1900/The-Civil-Rights-Bill-of-1866/
http://www.blackpast.org/aah/memphis-riot-1866m
