Editing Reconstruction era (section)

==Background==
In the [[American Civil War]], eleven Southern states, all of which permitted [[slavery]], seceded from the United States following the election of Lincoln to the presidency and formed the [[Confederate States of America]].{{Sfnp|Sinha|2024|pp=5–6}} Though Lincoln initially declared secession "legally void"<ref>[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln4/1:389?rgn=div1;sort=occur;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;q1=legally+void First Inaugural Address—Final Text, March 4, 1861]</ref> and declined to negotiate with Confederate delegates to Washington, following the [[Battle of Fort Sumter|Confederate assault]] on the Union garrison at [[Fort Sumter]], Lincoln declared that "an extraordinary occasion" existed in the South and raised an army to quell "combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings."<ref>[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln4/1:527?rgn=div1;sort=occur;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;q1=combinations+too+powerful+to+be+suppressed+by+the+ordinary+course+of+judicial+proceedings Proclamation Calling Militia and Convening Congress, April 15, 1861]</ref> Over the next four years, 237 named battles were fought between the Union and Confederate armies, resulting in the dissolution of the Confederate States in 1865. During the war, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that "all persons held as slaves" within the Confederate territory "are, and henceforward shall be free."<ref>[https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation/transcript.html Text of Emancipation Proclamation]</ref>

=== Abolition of slavery and social reform ===
The Civil War had immense social implications for the United States. Emancipation had altered the legal status of 3.5 million persons, threatened the end of the plantation economy of the South, and provoked questions regarding the legal and social inequality of the races in the United States. The end of the war was accompanied by a large migration of newly freed people to the cities,{{sfnp|Jones|2010|p=72}} where they were relegated to the lowest paying jobs, such as unskilled and service labor. Men worked as rail workers, rolling and lumber mills workers, and hotel workers. Black women were largely confined to domestic work employed as cooks, maids, and child nurses, or in hotels and laundries. The large population of slave artisans during the prewar period did not translate into a large number of free artisans during Reconstruction.{{sfnp|Hunter|1997|pp=21–73}} The dislocations had a severe negative impact on the Black population, with a large amount of sickness and death.{{sfnp|Downs|2012|p=41}}

During the war, Lincoln experimented with [[land reform]] by giving land to African-Americans in [[History of South Carolina#Reconstruction era (1865–1877)|South Carolina]]. Having lost their enormous investment in slaves, [[planter class|plantation owners]] had minimal capital to pay freedmen workers to bring in crops. As a result, a system of [[sharecropping]] was developed, in which landowners broke up large [[plantations in the American South|plantations]] and rented small lots to the freedmen and their families. Thus, the main structure of the Southern economy changed from an elite minority of landed gentry slaveholders into a [[tenant farming]] agriculture system.<ref name=":2">{{cite journal|first1=Claudia D.|last1=Goldin|authorlink1=Claudia Goldin|first2=Frank D.|last2=Lewis|date=June 1975|url=https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/2662305/Goldin_EconomicCost.pdf|title=The economic cost of the American Civil War: Estimates and implications|journal=[[The Journal of Economic History]]|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|location=Cambridge, England|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190412050216/https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/2662305/Goldin_EconomicCost.pdf|archive-date=April 12, 2019|volume=35|issue=2|pages=299–326|doi=10.1017/S0022050700075070 |jstor=2119410|s2cid=18760067 }}</ref>

Historian [[David W. Blight]] identified three visions of the social implications of Reconstruction:<ref>{{cite book |last=Blight |first=David W. |url=https://archive.org/details/racereunion00davi |title=Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory |publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |year=2001 |isbn=9780674022096 |location=Cambridge, Mass. |author-link=David W. Blight |url-access=registration}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=February 2024}}
* the ''reconciliationist'' vision, which focused on coping with the death and devastation the war had brought;
* the ''[[white supremacist]]'' vision, which demanded strict segregation of the races and the preservation of political and cultural domination of Blacks by Whites, opposed any right to vote by Blacks, and accepted intimidation and violence; and
* the ''[[emancipationist]]'' vision, which emphasized full freedom, citizenship, male [[suffrage]], and constitutional equality for [[African Americans]].

=== Economic devastation ===
The Civil War had a devastating economic and material impact on the South, where most combat occurred.

The enormous cost of the Confederate war effort took a high toll on the region's economic infrastructure. The direct costs in [[human capital]], government expenditures, and physical destruction totaled $3.3&nbsp;billion. By early 1865, the [[Confederate dollar]] had nearly zero value, and the Southern banking system was in collapse by the war's end. Where scarce Union dollars could not be obtained, residents resorted to a [[barter]] system.<ref name=":2" />

The Confederate States in 1861 had 297 towns and cities, with a total population of 835,000 people; of these, 162, with 681,000 people, were at some point occupied by Union forces. Eleven cities were destroyed or severely damaged by military action, including Atlanta, Charleston, Columbia, and Richmond, though the rate of damage in smaller towns was much lower.<ref name="Paskoff">{{Cite journal |last=Paskoff |first=Paul F. |date=2008 |title=Measures of War: A Quantitative Examination of the Civil War's Destructiveness in the Confederacy |journal=[[Civil War History]] |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=35–62 |doi=10.1353/cwh.2008.0007}}</ref> Farms were in disrepair, and the [[Antebellum South|prewar]] stock of horses, mules, and cattle was much depleted. Forty percent of Southern livestock had been killed.{{sfnp|McPherson|1992|p=38}} The South's farms were not highly mechanized, but the value of farm implements and machinery according to the [[1860 United States census|1860 Census]] was $81 million and was reduced by 40% by 1870.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hesseltine |first=William B. |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofthesout027909mbp/ |title=A History of the South, 1607–1936 |publisher=Prentice-Hall |year=1936 |location=New York |pages=573–574 |oclc=477679 |author-link=William B. Hesseltine |via=Archive.org}}</ref> The [[transportation]] [[infrastructure]] lay in ruins, with little railroad or [[riverboat]] service available to move crops and animals to market.<ref>Ezell, John Samuel. 1963. ''The South Since 1865''. pp. 27–28.</ref> Railroad mileage was located mostly in rural areas; over two-thirds of the South's rails, bridges, rail yards, repair shops, and rolling stock were in areas reached by Union armies, which systematically destroyed what they could. Even in untouched areas, the lack of maintenance and repair, the absence of new equipment, the heavy over-use, and the deliberate relocation of equipment by the Confederates from remote areas to the war zone ensured the system would be ruined at war's end.<ref name="Paskoff" /> Restoring the infrastructure—especially the railroad system—became a high priority for Reconstruction state governments.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lash |first=Jeffrey N. |date=1993 |title=Civil War Irony: Confederate Commanders and the Destruction of Southern Railways |journal=Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=35–47}}</ref>

Over a quarter of Southern White men of military age—the backbone of the White workforce—died during the war, leaving their families destitute,{{sfnp|McPherson|1992|p=38}} and per capita income for White Southerners declined from $125 in 1857 to a low of $80 in 1879. By the end of the 19th century and well into the 20th century, the South was locked into a system of poverty. How much of this failure was caused by the war and by previous reliance on slavery remains the subject of debate among economists and historians.<ref>{{cite web |last=Ransom |first=Roger L. |date=February 1, 2010 |title=The Economics of the Civil War |url=http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/ransom.civil.war.us |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111213062917/http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/ransom.civil.war.us |archive-date=December 13, 2011 |access-date=March 7, 2010 |website=Economic History Services}} Direct costs for the Confederacy are based on the value of the dollar in 1860.</ref> In both the North and South, modernization and industrialization were the focus of the post-war recovery, built on the growth of cities, railroads, factories, and banks and led by Radical Republicans and former Whigs.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Alexander |first=Thomas B. |date=August 1961 |title=Persistent Whiggery in the Confederate South, 1860–1877 |journal=[[Journal of Southern History]] |volume=27 |issue=3 |pages=305–329 |doi=10.2307/2205211 |jstor=2205211}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Trelease |first=Allen W. |date=August 1976 |title=Republican Reconstruction in North Carolina: A Roll-call Analysis of the State House of Representatives, 1866–1870 |journal=[[Journal of Southern History]] |volume=42 |issue=3 |pages=319–344 |doi=10.2307/2207155 |jstor=2207155}}</ref>
[[File:Wealth, per capita, in the United States, from 9th US Census (1872).jpg|left|thumb|The distribution of wealth per capita in 1872, illustrating the disparity between North and South in that period]]

=== Legal reconstruction ===
From its origins, questions existed as to the legal significance of the Civil War, whether secession had actually occurred, and what measures, if any, were necessary to restore the governments of the Confederate States. For example, throughout the conflict, the United States government recognized the legitimacy of a [[Restored Government of Virginia|unionist government in Virginia]] led by [[Francis Harrison Pierpont]] out of [[Wheeling, West Virginia|Wheeling]]. (This recognition was rendered moot when the Pierpont government separated the northwestern counties of the state and sought admission as [[West Virginia]].) As additional territory came under Union control, reconstructed governments were established in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Debates over ''legal reconstruction'' focused on whether secession was legally valid, the implications of secession for the nature of the seceded states, and the legitimate method of their readmission to the Union.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}

The first plan for legal reconstruction was introduced by Lincoln in his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, the so-called "[[ten percent plan]]" under which a loyal unionist state government would be established when ten percent of its 1860 voters pledged an oath of allegiance to the Union, with a complete pardon for those who pledged such an oath. By 1864, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas had established fully functioning Unionist governments under this plan. However, Congress passed the [[Wade–Davis Bill]] in opposition, which instead proposed that a ''majority'' of voters must pledge that they had ''never'' supported the Confederate government and disfranchised all those who had. Lincoln vetoed the Wade–Davis Bill, but it established a lasting conflict between the presidential and congressional visions of reconstruction.<ref name="Foner 2009">{{Cite journal |last=Foner |first=Eric |author-link=Eric Foner|date=Winter 2009 |title=If Lincoln hadn't died&nbsp;... |url=http://www.americanheritage.com/content/if-lincoln-hadn%E2%80%99t-died |url-status=live |journal=American Heritage Magazine |volume=58 |issue=6 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120616125206/http://www.americanheritage.com/content/if-lincoln-hadn%E2%80%99t-died |archive-date=June 16, 2012 |access-date=July 26, 2010}}</ref>{{sfnp|Harris|1997|p={{page needed|date=October 2021}}}}{{sfnp|Simpson|2009|p={{page needed|date=October 2021}}}}

In addition to the legal status of the seceded states, Congress debated the legal consequences for Confederate veterans and others who had engaged in "insurrection and rebellion" against the government and the legal rights of those freed from slavery. These debates resulted in the [[Reconstruction Amendments]] to the United States Constitution.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}