Editing Reconstruction era (section)

===Suffrage===
[[File:Grand Army of the Republic by Swatjester.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|Monument in honor of the Grand Army of the Republic, organized after the war]]
Congress had to consider how to restore to full status and representation within the Union those Southern states that had declared their independence from the United States and had withdrawn their representation. [[Suffrage]] for former Confederates was one of two main concerns. A decision needed to be made whether to allow just some or all former Confederates to vote (and to hold office). The moderates in Congress wanted virtually all of them to vote, but the Radicals resisted. They repeatedly imposed the Ironclad Oath, which would effectively have allowed no former Confederates to vote. Historian [[Harold Hyman]] says that in 1866 congressmen "described the oath as the last bulwark against the return of ex-rebels to power, the barrier behind which [[Southern Unionists]] and Negroes protected themselves".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hyman |first=Harold |title=To Try Men's Souls: Loyalty Tests in American History |publisher=University of California Press |year=1959 |location=Berkeley |pages=93 |doi=10.2307/jj.8306230 |jstor=jj.8306230 |isbn=978-0-520-34566-9 |s2cid=265454373 |oclc=421583}}</ref>

Radical Republican leader [[Thaddeus Stevens]] proposed, unsuccessfully, that all former Confederates lose the right to vote for five years. The compromise that was reached disenfranchised many Confederate civil and military leaders. No one knows how many temporarily lost the vote, but one estimate placed the number as high as 10,000 to 15,000.{{sfnp|Foner|1988|pp=273–276}} However, Radical politicians took up the task at the state level. In Tennessee alone, over 80,000 former Confederates were disenfranchised.<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Severance |first=Benjamin Horton |title=Tennessee's Radical Army: The State Guard and Its Role in Reconstruction |date=2002 |degree=PhD |publisher=University of Tennessee |url=https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/6305|page=59}}</ref>

Second, and closely related, was the issue of whether the 4&nbsp;million freedmen were to be received as citizens: Would they be able to vote? If they were to be fully counted as citizens, some sort of representation for apportionment of seats in Congress had to be determined. Before the war, the population of slaves had been counted as [[Three-Fifths Compromise|three-fifths]] of a corresponding number of free Whites. By having 4&nbsp;million freedmen counted as full citizens, the South would gain additional seats in Congress. If Blacks were denied the vote and the right to hold office, then only Whites would represent them. Many, including most White Southerners, [[Northern Democratic Party|Northern Democrats]], and some Northern Republicans, opposed voting rights for African-Americans. The small fraction of Republican voters opposed to Black suffrage contributed to the defeats of several suffrage measures voted on in most Northern states.{{sfn|Foner|1988|p=223}} Some Northern states that had [[referendum]]s on the subject limited the ability of their own small populations of Blacks to vote.

Lincoln had supported a middle position: to allow some Black men to vote, especially [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] veterans. Johnson also believed that such service should be rewarded with citizenship. Lincoln proposed giving the vote to "the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gienapp |first=William |title=Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America: a biography |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2002 |isbn=9780195150995 |location=New York |pages=155}}</ref> In 1864, Governor Johnson said: "The better class of them will go to work and sustain themselves, and that class ought to be allowed to vote, on the ground that a loyal Negro is more worthy than a disloyal White man."{{sfnp|Patton|1934|p=126}}

As president in 1865, Johnson wrote to the man he appointed as governor of Mississippi, recommending: "If you could extend the elective franchise to all persons of color who can read the Constitution in English and write their names, and to all persons of color who own real estate valued at least two hundred and fifty dollars, and pay taxes thereon, you would completely disarm the adversary [Radicals in Congress], and set an example the other states will follow."<ref>Johnson to Gov. William L. Sharkey, August 1865; quoted in {{harvp|Franklin|1961|p=42}}.</ref>

[[File:FreedmenVotingInNewOrleans1867.jpeg|thumb|upright=1.15|Freedmen voting in New Orleans, 1867]]

Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, leaders of the Radical Republicans, were initially hesitant to enfranchise the largely illiterate freedmen. Sumner preferred at first impartial requirements that would have imposed literacy restrictions on Blacks and Whites. He believed that he would not succeed in passing legislation to disenfranchise illiterate Whites who already had the vote.<ref name="Donald">{{cite book|last=Donald|first=David Herbert|title=Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man|year=1970|publisher=Knopf|isbn=9780394418995|page=201|location=New York|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qph2AAAAMAAJ|via=Google Books}}</ref>

In the South, many poor Whites were illiterate as there was almost no [[public education]] before the war. In 1880, for example, the White illiteracy rate was about 25% in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, South Carolina, and Georgia, and as high as 33% in North Carolina. This compares with the 9% national rate, and a Black rate of [[Literacy|illiteracy]] that was over 70% in the South.<ref name="Ayers">{{cite book |last=Ayers |first=Edward L. |url=https://archive.org/details/promiseofnewsout0000ayer_h6c1 |title=The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2007 |isbn=9780199724550 |edition=15th anniversary |page=418 |url-access=registration |via=Archive.org}}</ref> By 1900, however, with emphasis within the Black community on education, the majority of Blacks had achieved literacy.{{sfnp|Anderson|1988|pp=244–245}}

Sumner soon concluded that "there was no substantial protection for the freedman except in the franchise". This was necessary, he stated, "(1) For his own protection; (2) For the protection of the white Unionist; and (3) For the peace of the country. We put the musket in his hands because it was necessary; for the same reason we must give him the franchise." The support for voting rights was a compromise between moderate and Radical Republicans.{{sfnp|Randall|Donald|2016|p=581}}

The Republicans believed that the best way for men to get political experience was to be able to vote and to participate in the political system. They passed laws allowing all male freedmen to vote. In 1867, Black men voted for the first time. Over the course of Reconstruction, more than 1,500 African Americans held public office in the South; some of them were men who had escaped to the North and gained educations, and returned to the South. They did not hold office in numbers representative of their proportion in the population, but often elected Whites to represent them.<ref>{{cite book |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=Freedom's lawmakers: a directory of Black officeholders during Reconstruction |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1993 |isbn=9780195074062 |location=New York}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=February 2024}} The question of [[women's suffrage]] was also debated but was rejected.<ref>{{Cite book |last=DuBois |first=Ellen |title=Feminism and suffrage: The emergence of an independent women's movement in America, 1848–1869 |publisher=Cornell University Press |year=1978 |isbn=9780801410437 |location=Ithaca |jstor=10.7591/j.ctvv411tt }}</ref>{{Page needed|date=February 2024}} Women eventually gained the right to vote with the [[Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution]] in 1920.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-09-21 |title=19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women's Right to Vote (1920) |url=https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/19th-amendment |access-date=2025-02-18 |website=National Archives |language=en}}</ref>

From 1890 to 1908, Southern states passed new state constitutions and laws that disenfranchised most Blacks and tens of thousands of poor Whites with new voter registration and electoral rules. When establishing new requirements such as subjectively administered [[literacy test]]s, in some states, they used "[[grandfather clause]]s" to enable illiterate Whites to vote.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Feldman |first=Glenn |title=The Disfranchisement Myth: Poor Whites and Suffrage Restriction in Alabama |publisher=University of Georgia Press |year=2004 |isbn=9780820326153 |location=Athens |pages=136}}</ref>