Editing Confederate States of America (section)

==Legacy and assessment==
{{See also|Lost Cause of the Confederacy}}

===Amnesty and treason issue===
{{Main|Pardons for ex-Confederates}}

When the war ended over 14,000 Confederates petitioned President Johnson for a pardon; he was generous in giving them out.<ref>{{cite journal |first=J. T. |last=Dorris |title=Pardoning the Leaders of the Confederacy |journal=Mississippi Valley Historical Review |year=1928 |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=3–21 |jstor=1891664 |doi=10.2307/1891664 }}</ref> He issued a general amnesty to all Confederate participants in the "late Civil War" in 1868.<ref>Johnson, Andrew. [http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=72360 "Proclamation 179 – Granting full pardon and amnesty for the offense of treason against the United States during the late Civil War"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171122185727/http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=72360 |date=November 22, 2017 }}, December 25, 1868. Accessed July 18, 2014.</ref> Congress passed additional Amnesty Acts in May 1866 with restrictions on office holding, and the [[Amnesty Act]] in May 1872 lifting those restrictions. There was a great deal of discussion in 1865 about bringing treason trials, especially against Jefferson Davis. There was no consensus in President Johnson's cabinet, and no one was charged with treason. An acquittal of Davis would have been humiliating for the government.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Roy Franklin |last=Nichols |title=United States vs. Jefferson Davis, 1865–1869 |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_american-historical-review_1926-01_31_2/page/266 |journal=[[American Historical Review]] |year=1926 |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=266–284 |jstor=1838262 |doi=10.2307/1838262 }}</ref>

Davis was indicted for treason but never tried; he was released from prison on bail in May 1867. The amnesty of December 25, 1868, eliminated any possibility of Davis standing trial for treason.<ref>{{cite book|author=Jefferson Davis|title=The Papers of Jefferson Davis: June 1865 – December 1870|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tCFFUrkgy60C&pg=PA96|year=2008|publisher=Louisiana State UP|page=96|isbn=978-0807133415}}</ref><ref>Nichols, "United States vs. Jefferson Davis, 1865–1869".</ref><ref>
* {{cite journal |jstor = 25723506|title = United States v. Jefferson Davis: Constitutional Issues in the Trial for Treason|journal = American Bar Association Journal|volume = 52|issue = 2|pages = 139–145|last1 = Deutsch|first1 = Eberhard P.|year = 1966}}
* {{cite journal |jstor = 25723552|title = United States v. Jefferson Davis: Constitutional Issues in the Trial for Treason|journal = American Bar Association Journal|volume = 52|issue = 3|pages = 263–268|last1 = Deutsch|first1 = Eberhard P.|year = 1966}}</ref>

[[Henry Wirz]], the [[commandant]] of a notorious [[prisoner-of-war]] camp near [[Andersonville, Georgia]], was convicted by a military court of charges related to cruelty and conspiracy, and executed on November 10, 1865.

The U.S. government began a decade-long process known as [[Reconstruction Era|Reconstruction]] which attempted to resolve the political and constitutional issues of the Civil War. The priorities were: to guarantee that Confederate nationalism and slavery were ended, to ratify and enforce the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Thirteenth Amendment]] which outlawed slavery; the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth]] which guaranteed dual U.S. and state citizenship to all native-born residents, regardless of race; the [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth]], which made it illegal to deny the right to vote because of race; and repeal each state's ordinance of secession.<ref>John David Smith, ed. ''Interpreting American History: Reconstruction'' (Kent State University Press, 2016).</ref>
By 1877, the [[Compromise of 1877]] ended Reconstruction in the former Confederate states. Federal troops were withdrawn. The war left the entire region economically devastated by military action, ruined infrastructure, and exhausted resources. Still dependent on an agricultural economy and resisting investment in infrastructure, it remained dominated by the planter elite into the next century. Democrat-dominated legislatures passed new constitutions and amendments [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|to exclude]] most blacks and many poor whites. This exclusion and a weakened Republican Party remained the norm until the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]]. The [[Solid South]] of the early 20th century did not achieve national levels of prosperity until long after [[World War II]].<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Cooper|first1=William J.|author-link1 = William J. Cooper, Jr.|last2=Terrill|first2=Tom E.|title=The American South: a history|year=2009|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=978-0-7425-6095-6|page=xix}}</ref>
===Supreme Court rulings===
In ''[[Texas v. White]]'' (1869), the Supreme Court ruled by a 5–3 majority that Texas had remained a state ever since it first joined the Union, despite claims that it joined the Confederate States of America. The Court held that the Constitution did not permit [[United States states|a state]] to unilaterally secede.<ref>{{cite book |last=Murray |first=Robert Bruce |title=Legal Cases of the Civil War |url=https://archive.org/details/legalcasesofcivi0000murr |year=2003 |publisher=Stackpole Books |isbn=0-8117-0059-3 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/legalcasesofcivi0000murr/page/155 155]–159 }}</ref> In declaring that no state could leave the Union, "except through revolution or through consent of the States", it was "explicitly repudiating the position of the Confederate states that the United States was a voluntary compact between sovereign states".<ref>{{cite book |last=Zuczek |first=Richard |title=Encyclopedia of the Reconstruction Era |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H80eQweo0V4C&pg=PA649 |chapter=Texas v. White (1869) |year=2006 |isbn=0-313-33073-5 |page=649 |publisher=Bloomsbury }}</ref> In ''Sprott v. United States'' (1874), the Supreme Court ruled 8–1 to reaffirm its conclusion in ''White'' and held that the Confederacy's "foundation was treason" and its "single purpose, so long as it lasted, was to make that treason successful."<ref>[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/87/459/ ''Sprott v. United States'', 87 U.S. 459, 464 (1874)]</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Treason Clause: Doctrine and Practice |url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-3/section-3/clause-1/treason-clause-doctrine-and-practice |access-date=2024-06-18 |website=LII / Legal Information Institute |language=en}}</ref>

===Theories regarding downfall===

Historian [[Frank Lawrence Owsley]] argued that the Confederacy "died of states' rights".<ref name="Frank L. Owsley 1925">{{cite book |first=Frank L. |last=Owsley |title=State Rights in the Confederacy |location=Chicago |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |year=1925 }}</ref><ref>"Thomas1979" p. 155</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Owsley |title=Local Defense and the Overthrow of the Confederacy |journal=Mississippi Valley Historical Review |volume=11 |issue=4 |year=1925 |pages=492–525 |jstor=1895910 |doi=10.2307/1895910 }}</ref> The central government was denied requisitioned soldiers and money by governors and state legislatures because they feared that Richmond would encroach on the rights of the states. Georgia's governor [[Joseph E. Brown|Joseph Brown]] warned of a secret conspiracy by Jefferson Davis to destroy states' rights and individual liberty. The first conscription act in North America, authorizing Davis to draft soldiers, was said to be the "essence of military despotism".<ref>Rable (1994) 257. For a detailed criticism of Owsley's argument see {{cite book |first1=Richard E. |last1=Beringer |first2=William N. Jr. |last2=Still |first3=Archer |last3=Jones |first4=Herman |last4=Hattaway |title=Why the South Lost the Civil War |publisher=University of Georgia Press |year=1986 |pages=443–457 }} Brown declaimed against Davis Administration policies: "Almost every act of usurpation of power, or of bad faith, has been conceived, brought forth and nurtured in secret session."</ref><ref>See also {{cite book |first=Richard |last=Beringer |display-authors=etal |title=Why the South Lost the Civil War |publisher=University of Georgia Press |year=1986 |pages=64–83, 424–457 }}</ref> [[Roger Lowenstein]] argued that the Confederacy's failure to raise adequate revenue led to [[hyperinflation]] and being unable to win a [[war of attrition]], despite the prowess of its military leadership such as [[Robert E. Lee]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Foner |first=Eric |date=March 8, 2022 |title=The Hidden Story of the North's Victory in the Civil War |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/books/review/ways-and-means-roger-lowenstein.html}} Review of Lowenstein, Roger, ''Ways and Means: Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War''. New York: Penguin Press, 2022.</ref>

Though political differences were within the Confederacy, no national political parties were formed because they were seen as illegitimate. "Anti-partyism became an article of political faith."<ref>Cooper (2000) p. 462. Rable (1994) pp. 2–3. Rable wrote, "But despite heated arguments and no little friction between the competing political cultures of unity and liberty, antiparty and broader fears about politics in general shaped civic life. These beliefs could obviously not eliminate partisanship or prevent Confederates from holding on to and exploiting old political prejudices ... Even the most bitter foes of the Confederate government, however, refused to form an opposition party, and the Georgia dissidents, to cite the most prominent example, avoided many traditional political activities. Only in North Carolina did there develop anything resembling a party system, and there the central values of the Confederacy's two political cultures had a far more powerful influence on political debate than did organizational maneuvering."</ref> Without a system of political parties building alternate sets of national leaders, electoral protests tended to be narrowly state-based, "negative, carping and petty". The [[1863 Confederate States House of Representatives elections|1863 mid-term elections]] became mere expressions of futile and frustrated dissatisfaction. According to historian David M. Potter, the lack of a functioning two-party system caused "real and direct damage" to the Confederate war effort since it prevented the formulation of any effective alternatives to the conduct of the war by the Davis administration.<ref>{{cite book |editor-first=David Herbert |editor-last=Donald |title=Why the North Won the Civil War |year=1996 |pages=112–113 }} Potter wrote in his contribution to this book, "Where parties do not exist, criticism of the administration is likely to remain purely an individual matter; therefore the tone of the criticism is likely to be negative, carping, and petty, as it certainly was in the Confederacy. But where there are parties, the opposition group is strongly impelled to formulate real alternative policies and to press for the adoption of these policies on a constructive basis.&nbsp;... But the absence of a two-party system meant the absence of any available alternative leadership, and the protest votes which were cast in the [1863 Confederate mid-term] election became more expressions of futile and frustrated dissatisfaction rather than implements of a decision to adopt new and different policies for the Confederacy."</ref>

The enemies of President Davis proposed that the Confederacy "died of Davis". He was unfavorably compared to [[George Washington]] by critics such as [[Edward Alfred Pollard]], editor of the most influential newspaper in the Confederacy, the ''[[Richmond Examiner|Daily Richmond Examiner]]''. Beyond the early honeymoon period, Davis was never popular.<ref name="Coulter pp 105-06">Coulter, ''The Confederate States of America'', pp. 105–106</ref> [[E. Merton Coulter|Ellis Merton Coulter]], viewed by historians as a [[Lost Cause of the Confederacy|Confederate apologist]],<ref name="Bailey, 2001">Fred A. Bailey, "E. Merton Coulter", in ''Reading Southern History: Essays on Interpreters and Interpretations'', ed. Glenn Feldman (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001, p. 46).</ref><ref>Eric Foner, ''Freedom's Lawmakers: A Directory Of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction'', New York: Oxford University Press, 1993; Revised, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996, p. xii</ref><ref>Foner, ''Freedom's Lawmakers'', p. xii</ref><ref>Eric Foner, ''Black Legislators'', pp. 119–20, 180</ref> argues that Davis was unable to mobilize Confederate nationalism in support of his government effectively, and especially failed to appeal to the small farmers who made up the bulk of the population. Davis failed to build a network of supporters who would speak up when he came under criticism, and he repeatedly alienated governors and other state-based leaders by demanding centralized control of the war effort.<ref>{{cite book |first=Paul |last=Escott |title=After Secession: Jefferson Davis and the Failure of Confederate Nationalism |publisher=Louisiana State University Press |year=1992 |isbn=0-8071-1807-9 }}</ref>