Redefining Freedom After the Civil War

Redefining Freedom After the Civil War: Contested Meanings of Equality and Citizenship in the “New South” From Reconstruction to Plessy (Part I) *1865-1877 ● What are the important questions facing the nation after the Civil War? ○ Political/economical/social reintegration of the Confederate States ○ Redistribution of the state/federal governments, construction of federalism ● Framing Questions ○ How did various groups of Northerners and Southerners differ in their visions of the postwar South? ■ How did issues of race relations, in particular, factor into federal, state, and local political decisions, as well as feed into the continuing crisis of federalism after the Civil War? ○ How were concepts of “equality” and “freedom” defined following the Civil War? Were there competing definitions and meanings of these concepts in this period? If so, how did these understandings change or evolve over the course of the late 19th century? ■ For African Americans, how did this period transform their relationships with the South and with the nation? What were the limits of these transformations? ○ How did former slaves shape their own lives during these decades? ○ Over the course of these decades, what important political, economical, and social developments influenced changing race relations and understandings of equality for African Americans? ● Impacts of the Civil War on the South ○ Political, physical, economic, and social impacts of the war ■ Economic loss of capital in the South, 200 million of capital investments lost ■ Lack of emancipated individuals to economically sustain themselves ○ What would emancipation and freedom look like in the postwar period? ● The Roots of Reconstruction ○ Ten Percent Plan *1863 -- Proposed by Lincoln, would allow former confederate states to reintegrate once they had 10% voting to pledge allegiance to the union ○ Wade-Davis Bill *1863 -- Congress, vetoed by Lincoln, required the majority of citizens in former confederate states to pledge allegiance before reintegration ○ Freedmen’s Bureau *1865-1869 ■ Coordinated relief efforts for those formerly enslaved ■ Distributed rations, sponsored schools, negotiated labor contracts, and legalized marriages of former slaves ● Presidential Reconstruction *1865-1867 ○ Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency after Lincoln’s assassination ○ Johnson’s Postwar Racial Political and Agenda ■ Champion of economically disadvantaged white populations ■ More of an advocate for the contingent attachment of freedmen to white land owners economically and in practice ■ Under Johnson, pardons are granted to confederate leaders and wealthy planters -- invitations to the White House to show loyalty to the Union in exchange for a pardon ○ Reconstruction of the Union ● The Legacies of Presidential Reconstruction ○ Former Confederate leaders and southern elites return to power ○ Division between President Johnson and congressional Republicans ○ Vetoed potential legislation for black civil rights ○ “Hands off” approach led to the Black Codes ■ State laws which limited the rights and actions of freed people ■ Intended to return southern society to its antebellum structure ■ The penalties for violating the black codes usually involved imprisonment and/or forced labor ● How might southern leaders and elites try to limit the effects of emancipation through the Black Codes? ○ Vagrancy laws -- forced into debtor systems and employment in which sharecroppers exist ○ Denied suffrage and the right to serve on juries ● Divisions Among Congressional Republicans ○ How strong would the federal measures enacted to protect the as-yet-undefined rights of former slaves be? ■ Emphasis on freed people’s economic independence and civil rights ■ Denounced the Black Codes and the return of confederates to Congress ● More Limits on Black Civil Rights ○ During the period of Presidential Reconstruction *1866, Johnson vetoed: ■ Extension and expansion of the Freedmen’s Bureau beyond the initial year ■ Civil Rights Bill -- first-time USG backs individual rights in a state context ■ Fourteenth Amendment ● What did Equality mean to Freed Blacks? ○ Political/social/economic freedom: ■ Suffrage, political representation, land ownership, education, religion, migration, family life, etc. ■ Full citizenship -- suffrage, education, land ownership all denied ■ Assistance and protection through the federal government ● Limits of the Freedmen’s Bureau ○ Temporary, understaffed, underfunded, isolated benefits, unequal contract negotiations, and a failure to redistribute land