Editing Reconstruction era (section)

==Restoring the South to the Union==
[[File:Lincoln and Johnsond.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|A [[political cartoon]] of [[Andrew Johnson]] and [[Abraham Lincoln]], 1865, entitled "The Rail Splitter At Work Repairing the Union". The caption reads (Johnson): "Take it quietly Uncle Abe and I will draw it closer than ever." (Lincoln): "A few more stitches Andy and the good old Union will be mended."]]

During the Civil War, the [[Radical Republicans|Radical Republican]] leaders argued that slavery and the [[Slave Power]] had to be permanently destroyed. Moderates said this could be easily accomplished as soon as the [[Confederate States Army]] surrendered and the Southern states repealed secession and accepted the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Thirteenth Amendment]]—most of which happened by December 1865.{{sfnp|Donald |Baker |Holt |2001|loc=ch. 26}}

Lincoln broke with the Radicals in 1864. The [[Wade–Davis Bill]] of 1864 passed in Congress by the Radicals was designed to permanently disfranchise the Confederate element in the South. The bill asked the government to grant African American men the right to vote and that anyone who willingly gave weapons to the fight against the United States should be denied the right to vote. The bill required voters, fifty-one percent of White males, to take the [[ironclad oath|Ironclad Oath]] swearing that they had never supported the Confederacy or been one of its soldiers. This oath also entailed having them to swear a loyalty to the Constitution and the Union before they could have state constitutional meetings. Lincoln blocked it. Pursuing a policy of "malice toward none" announced in his second inaugural address,<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=September 1999 |title=The Second Inaugural Address |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/99sep/9909lincaddress.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516193457/http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99sep/9909lincaddress.htm |archive-date=May 16, 2008 |access-date=March 11, 2017 |magazine=[[The Atlantic Monthly]] |page=60 |pages= |volume=284 |issue=3}}</ref> Lincoln asked voters only to support the Union in the future, regardless of the past.{{sfnp|Harris|1997|p={{page needed|date=October 2021}}}} Lincoln [[pocket veto]]ed the Wade–Davis Bill, which was much more strict than the ten percent plan.

Following Lincoln's veto, the Radicals lost support but regained strength after [[Assassination of Abraham Lincoln|Lincoln's assassination]] in April 1865.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}

=== 1865 ===
Upon President [[Abraham Lincoln assassination|Lincoln's assassination]] in April 1865, Vice President [[Andrew Johnson]] became president. Radicals considered Johnson to be an ally, but upon becoming president, he rejected the Radical program of Reconstruction. He was on good terms with ex-Confederates in the South and ex-[[Copperheads (politics)|Copperheads]] in the North. He appointed his own governors and tried to close the Reconstruction process by the end of 1865. [[Thaddeus Stevens]] vehemently opposed Johnson's plans for an abrupt end to Reconstruction, insisting that Reconstruction must "revolutionize Southern institutions, habits, and manners&nbsp;.... The foundations of their institutions&nbsp;... must be broken up and relaid, or all our blood and treasure have been spent in vain."{{sfnp|McPherson|1992|p=6}} Johnson broke decisively with the Republicans in Congress when he vetoed the [[Civil Rights Act of 1866|Civil Rights Act]] on March 27, 1866. While Democrats celebrated, the Republicans rallied, passed the bill again, and overrode Johnson's repeat veto.<ref name="Alexander Rucker">{{cite book |last1=Alexander |first1=Leslie M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uivtCqOlpTsC&pg=PA699 |title=Encyclopedia of African American History |last2=Rucker |first2=Walter C. |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-85109-774-6 |location=Santa Barbara |page=699}}</ref> Full-scale political warfare now existed between Johnson (now allied with the Democrats) and the Radical Republicans.{{sfnp|Donald |Baker |Holt |2001|loc={{page needed|date=October 2021}}}}{{sfnp|Trefousse|1989|p={{page needed|date=October 2021}}}}

Since the war had ended, Congress rejected Johnson's argument that he had the war power to decide what to do. Congress decided it had the primary authority to decide how Reconstruction should proceed, because the Constitution stated the United States had to guarantee each state a [[Republicanism in the United States|republican form of government]]. The Radicals insisted that meant Congress decided how Reconstruction should be achieved. The issues were multiple: Who should decide, Congress or the president? How should republicanism operate in the South? What was the status of the former Confederate states? What was the citizenship status of the leaders of the Confederacy? What was the citizenship and suffrage status of freedmen?{{sfnp|Donald |Baker |Holt |2001|loc=ch. 26–27}}

After the war ended, President Andrew Johnson gave back most of the land to the former White slave owners.<ref>{{Cite web |title=President Johnson's Amnesty Proclamation |url=https://www.andrewjohnson.com/04AJFirstYear/ii-1.htm |access-date=2025-03-07 |website=www.andrewjohnson.com}}</ref>

=== 1866 ===
By 1866, the faction of [[Radical Republicans]] led by Representative [[Thaddeus Stevens]] and Senator [[Charles Sumner]] was convinced that Johnson's Southern appointees were disloyal to the Union, hostile to loyal Unionists, and enemies of the Freedmen. Radicals used as evidence outbreaks of [[mob violence]] against Black people, such as the [[Memphis riots of 1866]] and the [[New Orleans massacre of 1866]]. Radical Republicans demanded a prompt and strong federal response to protect freedmen and curb Southern racism.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Conklin |first=Forrest |date=1993 |title='Wiping Out' Andy" Johnson's Moccasin Tracks: The Canvass of Northern States By Southern Radicals, 1866 |journal=[[Tennessee Historical Quarterly]] |volume=52 |issue=2 |pages=122–133 |jstor=42627061 |oclc=9973918681}}</ref>

Stevens and his followers viewed secession as having left the states in a status like new territories. Sumner argued that [[Secession in the United States|secession]] had destroyed statehood but the Constitution still extended its authority and its protection over individuals, as in [[Organized incorporated territories of the United States|existing U.S. territories]]. The Republicans sought to prevent Johnson's Southern politicians from "restoring the historical subordination of Negroes". Since slavery was abolished, the [[Three-fifths Compromise]] no longer applied to counting the population of Blacks. After the 1870 Census, the South would gain numerous additional representatives in Congress, based on the full population of freedmen.<ref group="lower-roman">All Blacks would be counted in 1870, whether or not they were citizens.</ref> One Illinois Republican expressed a common fear that if the South were allowed to simply restore its previous established powers, that the "reward of treason will be an increased representation".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Valelly |first=Richard M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V4__EYITWk4C |title=The Two Reconstructions: The Struggle for Black Enfranchisement |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-226-84530-2 |page=29 |via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Trefousse |first=Hans L. |title=The Radical Republicans |publisher=Louisiana State University Press |year=1975 |isbn=9780807101698 |location=Baton Rouge}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=February 2024}}

The election of 1866 decisively changed the balance of power, giving the Republicans two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress, and enough votes to overcome Johnson's vetoes. They moved to [[Impeachment of Andrew Johnson|impeach Johnson]] because of his constant attempts to thwart Radical Reconstruction measures, by using the [[Tenure of Office Act (1867)|''Tenure of Office Act'']]. Johnson was acquitted by one vote, but he lost the influence to shape Reconstruction policy.{{sfnp|Donald |Baker |Holt |2001|loc=ch. 28–29}}

=== 1867 ===
In 1867, Congress passed the [[Reconstruction Acts]] of 1867 which outlined the terms in which the rebel states would be readmitted to the Union. Under these acts Republican Congress established [[Reconstruction military districts|military districts]] in the South and used [[United States Army|Army]] personnel to administer the region until new governments loyal to the Union—that accepted the Fourteenth Amendment and the right of freedmen to vote—could be established. Congress temporarily suspended the ability to vote of approximately 10,000 to 15,000 former Confederate officials and senior officers, while constitutional amendments gave full citizenship to all African Americans, and suffrage to the adult men.{{sfnp|Donald |Baker |Holt |2001|loc=ch. 29}} With the power to vote, freedmen began participating in politics. While many enslaved people were illiterate, educated Blacks (including [[Fugitive slaves in the United States|fugitive slaves]]) moved down from the North to aid them, and natural leaders also stepped forward. They elected White and Black men to represent them in constitutional conventions. A Republican coalition of freedmen, Southerners supportive of the Union (derisively called "[[scalawag]]s" by White Democrats), and Northerners who had migrated to the South (derisively called "[[carpetbagger]]s")—some of whom were returning natives, but were mostly Union veterans—organized to create constitutional conventions. They created new state constitutions to set new directions for Southern states.{{sfnp|Donald |Baker |Holt |2001|loc=ch. 30}}

===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>

===Southern Treaty Commission===
The [[Five Civilized Tribes]] that had been relocated to [[Indian Territory]] (now part of [[Oklahoma]]) held Black slaves and signed treaties supporting the Confederacy. During the war, a war among pro-Union and anti-Union Native Americans had raged. Congress passed a statute that gave the president the authority to suspend the appropriations of any tribe if the tribe is "in a state of actual hostility to the government of the United States&nbsp;... and, by proclamation, to declare all treaties with such tribe to be abrogated by such tribe".<ref>25 [[United States Code|U.S.C.]] Sec. 72.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/25C3.txt |title=Act of Congress, R.S. Sec. 2080 derived from act July 5, 1862, ch. 135, Sec. 1, 12 Stat. 528. |via=USCode.House.gov |publisher=[[United States House of Representatives]] |access-date=February 7, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120317074540/http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/25C3.txt |archive-date=March 17, 2012}}</ref>

As a component of Reconstruction, the [[United States Department of the Interior|Interior Department]] ordered a meeting of representatives from all [[Tribe (Native American)|Indian tribes]] who had affiliated with the Confederacy.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Chronicles/v014/v014p022.html |last=Perry |first=Dan W. |title=Oklahoma, A Foreordained Commonwealth |journal=Chronicles of Oklahoma |volume=14 |issue=1 |date=March 1936 |page=30 |publisher=Oklahoma Historical Society |access-date=February 8, 2012 |archive-date=February 14, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120214095157/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/chronicles/v014/v014p022.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> The council, the [[Reconstruction Treaties|Southern Treaty Commission]], was first held in [[Fort Smith, Arkansas]] in September 1865, and was attended by hundreds of Native Americans representing dozens of tribes. Over the next several years the commission negotiated treaties with tribes that resulted in additional re-locations to [[Indian Territory]] and the ''[[de facto]]'' creation (initially by treaty) of an unorganized [[Oklahoma Territory]].{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}