Editing Reconstruction era (section)

==Johnson's presidential Reconstruction==
{{Main|Presidency of Andrew Johnson}}
{{further|Andrew Johnson and slavery}}
{{Andrew Johnson series}}

[[File:Collage of Andy Johnson cartoon depictions by Thomas Nast.jpg|thumb|''Harper's Weekly'' cartoonist [[Thomas Nast]] regularly skewered Andrew Johnson's reconstruction policies as dangerous and destructive; clockwise from top left: Johnson as a [[Medusa]]-headed [[Lady Justice]] in ''[[Southern Justice (political cartoon)|Southern Justice]]'', Johnson as [[Iago]] to a wounded soldier of the [[United States Colored Troops|U.S. Colored Troops]] as [[Othello (character)|Othello]], King Andy with "prime minister" [[William H. Seward|Seward]], and Johnson as [[Nero|Emperor Nero]] with Seward in ''[[Amphitheatrum Johnsonianum]]'' ]]
Northern anger over the assassination of Lincoln and the immense human cost of the war led to demands for punitive policies. Vice President [[Andrew Johnson]] had taken a hard line and spoke of hanging Confederates, but when he succeeded Lincoln as president, Johnson took a much softer position, pardoning many Confederate leaders and other former Confederates.{{sfnp|Trefousse|1989|p={{page needed|date=October 2021}}}} Former Confederate President [[Jefferson Davis]] was held in prison for two years, but other Confederate leaders were not. There were no trials on charges of treason. Only three people—Captain [[Henry Wirz]], the commandant of the [[Andersonville prison|prison camp]] in [[Andersonville, Georgia]], and guerilla leaders [[Champ Ferguson]] and [[Henry C. Magruder]]—were ever executed for war crimes. Andrew Johnson's racist view of Reconstruction did not include the involvement of blacks in government, and he refused to heed Northern concerns when Southern state legislatures implemented [[Black Codes (United States)|Black Codes]] that set the status of the freedmen much lower than that of white people.<ref name="Foner 2009"/>

Smith argues that "Johnson attempted to carry forward what he considered to be Lincoln's plans for Reconstruction."<ref>{{cite book |last=Smith |first=John David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TpInTOhPf1sC&pg=PT17 |title=A Just and Lasting Peace: A Documentary History of Reconstruction |publisher=Penguin |year=2013 |isbn=9781101617465 |page=17}}</ref> McKitrick says that in 1865 Johnson had strong support in the Republican Party, saying: "It was naturally from the great moderate sector of Unionist opinion in the North that Johnson could draw his greatest comfort."<ref>{{cite book |last=McKitrick |first=Eric L. |url=https://archive.org/details/andrewjohnsonrec00mcki |title=Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1988 |isbn=9780195057072 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/andrewjohnsonrec00mcki/page/172 172] |url-access=registration |via=Archive.org}}</ref> Ray Allen Billington says: "One faction, the [[Moderate Republicans (Reconstruction era)|moderate Republicans]] under the leadership of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, favored a mild policy toward the South."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Billington |first1=Ray Allen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X9FWZLCfi4gC&pg=PA3 |title=American History After 1865 |last2=Ridge |first2=Martin |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=1981 |isbn=9780822600275 |location=Totowa, NJ |page=3 |author2-link=Martin Ridge (historian)}}</ref> David A. Lincove, citing Lincoln biographers [[James G. Randall]] and [[Richard N. Current]], argued that:<ref>{{cite book |last=Lincove |first=David A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3EQcT7-Dpi0C&pg=PA80 |title=Reconstruction in the United States: An Annotated Bibliography |publisher=Greenwood |year=2000 |isbn=9780313291999 |location=Westport, Conn. |page=80}} citing {{Cite book |last1=Randall |first1=J. G. |title=Lincoln the President: Last Full Measure |last2=Current |first2=Richard N. |publisher=Dodd, Mead & Company |year=1955 |location=New York |oclc=5852442}}</ref>
{{blockquote|1=It is likely that had he lived, Lincoln would have followed a policy similar to Johnson's, that he would have clashed with congressional Radicals, that he would have produced a better result for the freedmen than occurred, and that his political skills would have helped him avoid Johnson's mistakes.}}

Historians generally agree that President Johnson was an inept politician who lost all his advantages by unskilled maneuvering. He broke with Congress in early 1866 and then became defiant and tried to block enforcement of Reconstruction laws passed by the U.S. Congress. He was in constant conflict constitutionally with the Radicals in Congress over the status of freedmen and whites in the defeated South.{{sfnp|McFeely|1974|p=125}} Although resigned to the abolition of slavery, many former Confederates were unwilling to accept both social changes and political domination by former slaves. In the words of [[Benjamin Franklin Perry]], President Johnson's choice as the provisional governor of South Carolina: "First, the Negro is to be invested with all political power, and then the antagonism of interest between capital and labor is to work out the result."{{sfnp|Barney|1987|p=245}}

However, the fears of the planter elite and other leading white citizens were partly assuaged by the actions of President Johnson, who ensured that a wholesale land redistribution from the planters to the freedmen did not occur. President Johnson ordered that confiscated or abandoned lands administered by the Freedmen's Bureau would not be redistributed to the freedmen but would be returned to pardoned owners. Land was returned that would have been forfeited under the Confiscation Acts passed by Congress in 1861 and 1862.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}} Johnson repudiated Sherman's Special Field Order Number 15, the source of the "[[Forty acres and a mule|40 acres and a mule]]" promise of reparations for former slaves.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lightweis-Goff |first=Jennie |title=Captive city: meditations on slavery in the urban south |date=2025 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-1-5128-2668-5 |location=Philadelphia |pages=117 |language=en-us}}</ref>

===Freedmen and the enactment of Black Codes===
{{Main|Black Codes (United States)}}
[[File:The Union as It Was.jpg|thumb|An October 24th, 1874 [[Harper's Magazine]] editorial cartoon by [[Thomas Nast]] denouncing KKK and White League murders of innocent Blacks]]

Southern state governments quickly enacted the restrictive "[[Black Codes (United States)|Black Codes]]". However, they were abolished in 1866 and seldom had effect, because the Freedmen's Bureau (not the local courts) handled the legal affairs of freedmen.

The Black Codes indicated the plans of the Southern whites for the former slaves.{{sfnp|Donald |Baker |Holt |2001|loc=ch. 31}} The freedmen would have more rights than did free Blacks before the war, but they would still have only second-class civil rights, no voting rights, and no citizenship. They could not own firearms, serve on a jury in a lawsuit involving whites, or move about without employment.{{sfnp|Oberholtzer|1917|pp=128–129}} The Black Codes outraged Northern opinion. They were overthrown by the [[Civil Rights Act of 1866]] that gave the freedmen more legal equality (although still without the right to vote).{{sfnp|Donald|Baker|Holt|2001|p=527}}

The freedmen, with the strong backing of the Freedmen's Bureau, rejected [[Gang system|gang labor]] work patterns that had been used in slavery. Instead of gang labor, freed people preferred family-based labor groups.{{sfnp|Hunter|1997|p=67}} They forced planters to bargain for their labor. Such bargaining soon led to the establishment of the system of [[sharecropping]], which gave the freedmen greater economic independence and social autonomy than gang labor. However, because they lacked capital and the planters continued to own the means of production (tools, draft animals, and land), the freedmen were forced into producing cash crops (mainly cotton) for the land-owners and merchants, and they entered into a [[crop-lien system]]. Widespread poverty, disruption to an agricultural economy too dependent on cotton, and the falling price of cotton, led within decades to the routine indebtedness of the majority of the freedmen, and the poverty of many planters.{{sfnp|Barney|1987|pp=251, 284–286}}

Northern officials gave varying reports on conditions for the freedmen in the South. One harsh assessment came from [[Carl Schurz]], who reported on the situation in the states along the Gulf Coast. His report documented dozens of [[extrajudicial killing]]s and claimed that hundreds or thousands more African Americans were killed:<ref name="Schurz 1865">{{cite report |first=Carl |last=Schurz |author-link=Carl Schurz |title=Report on the Condition of the South |date=December 1865 |id=U.S. Senate Exec. Doc. No. 2, 39th Congress, 1st session |url= http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/etext05/cnsth10.htm |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20071014083500/http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/etext05/cnsth10.htm |archive-date=October 14, 2007}}</ref>
{{blockquote|1=The number of murders and assaults perpetrated upon Negroes is very great; we can form only an approximative estimate of what is going on in those parts of the South which are not closely garrisoned, and from which no regular reports are received, by what occurs under the very eyes of our military authorities. As to my personal experience, I will only mention that during my two days sojourn at Atlanta, one Negro was stabbed with fatal effect on the street, and three were poisoned, one of whom died. While I was at Montgomery, one Negro was cut across the throat evidently with intent to kill, and another was shot, but both escaped with their lives. Several papers attached to this report give an account of the number of capital cases that occurred at certain places during a certain period of time. It is a sad fact that the perpetration of those acts is not confined to that class of people which might be called the rabble.}}

The report included sworn testimony from soldiers and officials of the Freedmen's Bureau. In [[Selma, Alabama]], Major J. P. Houston noted that whites who killed 12 African Americans in his district never came to trial. Many more killings never became official cases. Captain Poillon described white patrols in southwestern Alabama:<ref name="Schurz 1865" />
{{blockquote|1=who board some of the boats; after the boats leave they hang, shoot, or drown the victims they may find on them, and all those found on the roads or coming down the rivers are almost invariably murdered. The bewildered and terrified freedmen know not what to do—to leave is death; to remain is to suffer the increased burden imposed upon them by the cruel taskmaster, whose only interest is their labor, wrung from them by every device an inhuman ingenuity can devise; hence the lash and murder is resorted to intimidate those whom fear of an awful death alone cause to remain, while patrols, Negro dogs and spies, disguised as Yankees, keep constant guard over these unfortunate people.}}

Much of the violence that was perpetrated against African Americans was shaped by gender prejudices regarding African Americans. Black women were in a particularly vulnerable situation. To convict a white man of sexually assaulting Black women in this period was exceedingly difficult.{{sfnp|Hunter|1997}}{{Page needed|date=February 2024}} The South's judicial system had been wholly refigured to make one of its primary purposes the coercion of African Americans to comply with the social customs and labor demands of whites.{{explain|date=January 2021}}{{citation needed|date=January 2021}} Trials were discouraged and attorneys for Black misdemeanor defendants were difficult to find. The goal of county courts was a fast, uncomplicated trial with a resulting conviction. Most Blacks were unable to pay their fines or bail, and "the most common penalty was nine months to a year in a slave mine or lumber camp".<ref>{{cite book |last=Blackmon |first=Douglas A. |title=Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II |publisher=Anchor Books |year=2009 |isbn=9780385722704 |location=New York |page=16}}</ref> The South's judicial system was rigged to generate fees and claim bounties, not to ensure public protection. Black women were socially perceived as sexually avaricious and since they were portrayed as having little virtue, society held that they could not be raped.<ref name="Gendered Strife and Confusion p202">{{cite book |last=Edwards |first=Laura F. |title=Gendered Strife and Confusion: The Political Culture of Reconstruction |date=1997 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |location=Chicago |isbn=978-0-252-02297-5 |page=202}}</ref> One report indicates two freed women, Frances Thompson and Lucy Smith, described their violent sexual assault during the [[Memphis Riots of 1866]].<ref name="Freedwomen and the Freedmen's Bureau">{{cite book |last=Farmer-Kaiser |first=Mary |title=Freedwomen and the Freedmen's Bureau: Race, Gender, and Public Policy in the Age of Emancipation |publisher=Fordham University Press |year=2010 |isbn=9780823234943 |location=New York |page=160}}</ref> However, Black women were vulnerable even in times of relative normalcy. Sexual assaults on African-American women were so pervasive, particularly on the part of their white employers, that Black men sought to reduce the contact between white males and Black females by having the women in their family avoid doing work that was closely overseen by whites.{{sfnp|Jones|2010|p=70}} Black men were construed as being extremely sexually aggressive and their supposed or rumored threats to white women were often used as a pretext for [[lynching]] and castrations.{{sfnp|Hunter|1997|pp=21–73}}

===Moderate responses===
During fall 1865, out of response to the Black Codes and worrisome signs of Southern recalcitrance, the Radical Republicans blocked the readmission of the former rebellious states to the Congress. Johnson, however, was content with allowing former Confederate states into the Union as long as their state governments adopted the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. By December 6, 1865, the amendment was ratified and Johnson considered Reconstruction over. According to [[James Schouler]] writing in 1913, Johnson was following the moderate Lincoln presidential Reconstruction policy to get the states readmitted as soon as possible.<ref name="Schouler 1913 43–57" />

Congress, however, controlled by the Radicals, had other plans. The Radicals were led by [[Charles Sumner]] in the Senate and [[Thaddeus Stevens]] in the House of Representatives. Congress, on December 4, 1865, rejected Johnson's moderate presidential Reconstruction, and organized the [[Joint Committee on Reconstruction]], a 15-member panel to devise Reconstruction requirements for the Southern states to be restored to the Union.<ref name="Schouler 1913 43–57">{{Cite book |last=Schouler |first=James |url=https://archive.org/details/historyunitedst12schogoog |title=History of the United States of America under the Constitution |publisher=Kraus Reprints |year=1913 |edition=Revised |volume=7: The Reconstruction Period |location=New York |pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyunitedst12schogoog/page/n69 43]–57 |oclc=1540160 |access-date=July 3, 2010 |via=Archive.org}}</ref>

In January 1866, Congress renewed the Freedmen's Bureau; however, Johnson vetoed the Freedmen's Bureau Bill in February 1866. Although Johnson had sympathy for the plight of the freedmen,{{Citation needed|date=January 2024}} he was against federal assistance. An attempt to override the veto failed on February 20, 1866. This veto shocked the congressional Radicals. In response, both the Senate and House passed a joint resolution not to allow any senator or representative seat admittance until Congress decided when Reconstruction was finished.<ref name="Schouler 1913 43–57" />

Senator [[Lyman Trumbull]] of [[Illinois]], leader of the moderate Republicans, took affront to the Black Codes. He proposed the first [[Civil Rights Act of 1866|Civil Rights Act]], because the abolition of slavery was empty if:{{sfnp|Rhodes|1920|loc=v. 6: pp. 65–66}}
{{blockquote|1=laws are to be enacted and enforced depriving persons of African descent of privileges which are essential to freemen.... A law that does not allow a colored person to go from one county to another, and one that does not allow him to hold property, to teach, to preach, are certainly laws in violation of the rights of a freeman... The purpose of this bill is to destroy all these discriminations.}}

The key to the bill was the opening section:{{quote without source|date=October 2020}}
{{blockquote|1=All persons born in the United States&nbsp;... are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery&nbsp;... shall have the same right in every State&nbsp;... to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the Contrary notwithstanding.}}

The bill did not give freedmen the right to vote. Congress quickly passed the Civil Rights Bill; the Senate on February 2 voted 33–12; the House on March 13 voted 111–38.

===Johnson's vetoes===
[[File:Freedman's bureau.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|The debate over Reconstruction and the [[Freedmen's Bureau]] was nationwide. This 1866 Pennsylvania election poster alleged that the bureau kept the Negro in idleness at the expense of the hardworking white taxpayer. A racist [[caricature]] of an African American is depicted.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/reconstruction/section4/section4_11.html |work=America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War |title=The Freedman's Bureau, 1866 |at=image 11 of 40 |publisher=Digital History Project, University of Houston |access-date=October 11, 2006 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060924004559/http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/reconstruction/section4/section4_11.html |archive-date=September 24, 2006 |url-status=dead}}</ref>]]
[[File:Harper's Weekly cover 1865 July 29.jpg|thumb|''Harper's Weekly'' cover of July 29, 1865; the text in the planter's [[speech balloon]] reads "My boy, we've toiled and taken care of you long enough. Now you've got to work!"]]
Although strongly urged by moderates in Congress to sign the Civil Rights bill, Johnson broke decisively with them by vetoing it on March 27, 1866. His veto message objected to the measure because it conferred citizenship on the freedmen at a time when 11 out of 36 states were unrepresented and attempted to fix by federal law "a perfect equality of the white and black races in every state of the Union". Johnson said it was an invasion by federal authority of the rights of the states; it had no warrant in the Constitution and was contrary to all precedents. It was a "stride toward centralization and the concentration of all legislative power in the national government".{{sfnp|Rhodes|1920|loc=v. 6: p. 68}}

The Democratic Party, proclaiming itself the party of white men, North and South, supported Johnson.{{sfnp|Trefousse|1989|p={{page needed|date=October 2021}}}} However, the Republicans in Congress overrode his veto (the Senate by the close vote of 33–15, and the House by 122–41) and the [[Civil Rights Act of 1866|civil rights bill]] became law. Congress also passed a watered-down Freedmen's Bureau bill; Johnson quickly vetoed as he had done to the previous bill. Once again, however, Congress had enough support and overrode Johnson's veto.<ref name="Alexander Rucker"/>

The last moderate proposal was the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]], whose principal drafter was Representative [[John Bingham]]. It was designed to put the key provisions of the Civil Rights Act into the Constitution, but it went much further. It extended citizenship to everyone born in the United States (except [[Native Americans in the United States|Indians]] on reservations), penalized states that did not give the vote to freedmen, and most important, created new federal civil rights that could be protected by federal courts. It guaranteed the federal war debt would be paid (and promised the Confederate debt would never be paid). Johnson used his influence to block the amendment in the states since three-fourths of the states were required for ratification (the amendment was later ratified). The moderate effort to compromise with Johnson had failed, and a political fight broke out between the Republicans (both Radical and moderate) on one side, and on the other side, Johnson and his allies in the Democratic Party in the North, and the groupings (which used different names) in each Southern state.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}