Reconstruction: Rebuilding America
The United States was founded on the belief that every man has certain inalienable Rights.” However, it wasn’t until ninety years later, when slavery was abolished, that the United States actually offered these “Rights” to all of its citizens. The 19th century was a turbulent time of stress and change for America. One of the most controversial dilemmas during this period was the issue of slavery. Slavery was considered by many to be morally wrong and undermined America’s most valued beliefs.
Despite its inconsistency, slavery was still widely supported and permitted in the South out of economic necessity. Slavery divided the nation in half, with the South’s economy primarily based on agricultural production on plantations, making slavery vital to its state. In contrast, the North’s economy was primarily industrial, eliminating the dependency on slavery much earlier. Due to these vastly different economic bases, their cultures and views of the world began to shift apart.
On top of economic dissimilarities, conflict between the North and South grew due to cultural and political differences. The election of the first openly anti-slavery president, Abraham Lincoln, led to the South seceding from the Union, launching the American Civil War. The South fought for independence while the North fought to reunite the nation. Eventually, due to its significantly larger population, more supplies, and superior logistics, the North emerged victorious and forced the South back into the Union. However, both sides suffered greatly during this war with a substantial loss of people and resources.
The South was left in a state of total destruction, ranging from lawlessness to austere military regimes, which forced it into economic hardship. The transition from slavery to free labor was far from smooth. The goal of Reconstruction was to restore the southern economy and government, as well as give equal rights under the law to Blacks. While Reconstruction may not have been as successful as many would have hoped, the question remains: in hindsight, based on the economic and cultural conditions of the 19th century, could Reconstruction have been handled more successfully?
Reconstruction did very little for the people of the South. The economy remained in poor shape, and racism and violence increased dramatically. Despite being legally free, the standard of living for Blacks was not any better than before. Given the circumstances of the time, there was no feasible way that Reconstruction could have been significantly improved. The actual course of Reconstruction was complex and far from easy. After being forced back into the Union, the South had no political power.
All of the slaves were now free as a result of the Emancipation Proclamation. Former Confederates could no longer vote or run for political office. The victorious North then had to decide under what terms the South would rejoin the Union. Would plantations stay with their original owners or be divided up among southerners? What would be the new role of Blacks in this society, and how much power and rights will they have? Lincoln’s plan was to give full amnesty and restoration of all rights, except as to slaves.” This meant that former Confederates should receive all their former belongings and rights except for their former slaves, who were now considered free.
Lincoln believed that befriending the former Confederates was the best approach to eliminate hostilities. He famously said, Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?” However, Lincoln’s plan was deemed too lenient by the Republican Congress. As a result, a compromise known as the “ten percent plan” was implemented. This plan required ten percent of the southern population to swear an oath of loyalty to the Union before all their rights could be restored.
By the time each former Confederate state had passed the “ten percent” quota, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments had already been passed by a Congress without southern representation. It is clear that the North and federal government still held most of the power over the South. The most recalcitrant Confederate states underwent radical reconstruction enforced by a military regime. After Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, his Vice President Andrew Johnson replaced him.
Johnson, a southerner, shared Lincoln’s ideas on leniency when it came to reconstructing the South. He wanted minimal demands. At first, Radical Republicans were unwilling to spread national power and felt that maintaining their authority was necessary for proper reconstruction of the South. However, the centralization of power did not last long as violence grew in southern states and as the desire to preserve the federal system’s pre-war balance weighed heavily on leading Republicans’ minds. Republican Senator James W. Grimes once said in a letter, We are gradually surrendering all rights of the states,” illustrating that the Union intended to transfer power back to southern states.
Despite the turmoil caused during Reconstruction, there were substantial accomplishments. The Thirteenth Amendment was the first of the “Reconstruction Amendments.” This Amendment made slavery illegal in every part of the United States. The next was the Fourteenth Amendment, which made Blacks citizens and prohibited any state from interfering with the “inalienable rights” of citizens. Lastly, and possibly most importantly, was the Fifteenth Amendment which gave Blacks and any male citizen of the United States the right to vote.
Without the three amendments to the U.S. Constitution, Black people might still be enslaved today and considered legally inferior to white people. Reconstruction also brought a significant benefit: public education became available to Black people for the first time in the South. Although Black access to education was underfunded and inferior compared to that of white people, it was still a significant step forward. Black people had a tenacity to learn because they were deprived of that privilege for so long.
In 1850, the literacy rate among Blacks ranged from ten to twenty percent. However, after 1890, when the public education system included Blacks, their literacy rate jumped to over eighty percent. During a period of time after the war ended, Blacks were able to vote while former Confederates could not. As a result, Blacks gained some political power in many southern states that had both large black and Confederate populations. The southern economy began to industrialize by taking advantage of local coal, oil, cheap labor and steel; although it never became as productive or powerful as it was in the North.
As the New South” began to develop and industrialize, it also began to take better care of its newly freed black workers in order to prevent them from unionizing. The South provided these workers with schools, hospitals, recreational facilities, housing, and even offered scholarships for Blacks to attend Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee College. Although the rationale behind providing these benefits was to prevent unionization, they were still significant achievements towards Reconstruction. From a purely legal standpoint, Reconstruction accomplished most of its goals; however, it was not without significant faults.
Even though Blacks obtained their rights under the law, the southern government was rebuilt, and the southern economy was redirected, most of those changes were short-lived. The swift and radical Reconstruction efforts occurred during a brief period when Blacks voted in the absence of white Confederates. However, white Confederates soon regained power and by 1901, Blacks found themselves in the same basic position as before Reconstruction.
According to Wendell Phillips, a lawyer and abolitionist, the Emancipation Proclamation and Reconstruction Amendments only freed the slaves” but ignored “the negro.” Almost nothing was achieved in terms of improving the quality of life for freed Blacks. Despite their once insatiable desire for freedom and education, years of oppression made them fearful and submissive to whites. This prevented them from pursuing their goals or becoming independent from whites.
Although they had legal power due to surplus workers and few jobs available to them under law enforcement that was limited by insidious racism. As a result, they had no real power. Furthermore, terror groups promoting white supremacy often blocked Black people from voting.
The emergence of industrialization in the South was economically beneficial, but it created a gap between workers and the elite. This gap caused former southern ideas of paternalism towards Blacks to deteriorate slowly. As compassion decreased, working conditions became extremely harsh, similar to those in the North. These factory conditions were often referred to as “wage slavery” and were almost as horrendous as those under slavery. Sharecropping was also a significant part of the transition from free to paid labor.
Large plantation owners rented out small tracts of land to several workers who would use the land to produce crops. These laborers were then given a percentage of the crop that they grew. However, this type of farming was barely more beneficial than slavery, as workers were hardly given enough food to feed themselves after working a full day. Not only were Black people still stuck in poverty with living conditions that rivaled those of slavery, but they were also subjected to an exponential growth of race-related violence. After the Emancipation Proclamation, the war effort became more about freeing slaves than anything else.
Whites in both the North and South developed a deep hatred for Blacks, which escalated into irrational acts of violence and prejudice. Before the war actually ended, many whites were thinking: “If we are going to be killed for negroes, then we will kill every [negro] in this town.” After the North won and the Reconstruction Amendments were passed, securing black rights and citizenship, many southern whites did everything they could to maintain social superiority. Radical political groups in former Confederate states resorted to complete guerilla warfare forming terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
These groups aimed to frighten Black people from achieving independence and to impede their progress. They prevented them from voting and limited their freedom by using threats of violence. The Maryland Convention Debates quote below exemplifies how little the government leaders, including Andrew Johnson, cared about the state of Black people. Johnson was more interested in seeking revenge than ensuring the welfare of newly freed slaves: “There has been no expression…of regard for the negro…” This disregard left Black people to fend for themselves.
Violence against Blacks also occurred in the North. With a surplus of workers and immigrants from Europe, many people in the North also developed hatred toward Blacks. As the following quote illustrates, the fear that Blacks would immigrate to the North and steal scarce jobs instilled a deep sense of loathing and caused serious outbursts of violence against Blacks even in cities like New York: The African race… were literally hunted like wild beasts.” This kept most Blacks in life-threatening fear of white violence and prevented them from advancing their social and economic status.
Even by the end of Reconstruction, freed slaves were still dependent on whites for their well-being and had little means of advancing or defending themselves. They were now slaves of fear and dependency. White hostility towards Blacks was not the only factor that stunted black advancement; the radical Democratic southern government also traumatized the black community. Towards the end of Reconstruction, the Democratic party regained power in government. Most of these politicians were anti-black and enforced rules that undermined legal and political gains made by Blacks.
During Reconstruction, the government established regulations such as Black Codes” to control black migration and limit job opportunities. They also played a role in implementing “separate but equal laws,” which resulted in Blacks being treated as second-class citizens with access to inferior education and public services, as seen in the Plessey vs Ferguson case. Additionally, there was insufficient investment in rebuilding the southern economy, despite some industrial growth and restoration of plantations. As a result, the economy never fully recovered its former strength and power.
Billions of dollars in slaves, Confederate money, and ruined property were wiped out without any financial compensation from the North. The Republicans’ retreat from Reconstruction in 1869 left the South in ruins and the freed slaves jobless. Afterward, they had little concern for the South and what happened to it. The overwhelming majority of federal funding was given to the North while less than ten percent was given to the South for Reconstruction. Other ways that the North took advantage of the South occurred in the Compromise of 1877.
This controversial “compromise,” also known as “The Great Betrayal,” required the South to acknowledge Hayes as the new president in return for economic help and railroad construction. However, the North did not follow through with either of its promises. Most Republicans seemed more focused on revenge and politics than on the actual course of Reconstruction or the well-being of freed slaves. Even Andrew Johnson exclaimed, “Damn the Negroes! I am fighting those traitorous aristocrats, their masters.” He was clearly more concerned with avenging the Union than with the welfare of Blacks or Reconstruction in the South.
From the beginning of Reconstruction, there was great ambivalence about how to proceed in rebuilding the South and repairing the country. Two black leaders emerged as advocates of reconstruction at the end of the Civil War, but their ideas and proposed methods were diametrically opposed. While both plans were good in theory, they were rooted in each black leader’s unique life experiences. These prominent black spokesmen were W. E. B Dubois and Booker T. Washington.
Dubois was a Radical for his time, believing that Blacks should reach for the same status as whites right away. He believed that Blacks should attend liberal art colleges, and that ten percent of this population should aspire to become professionals such as teachers, lawyers, doctors etc., which he referred to as the “Talented Tenth.” His thinking was that by securing power and prestige in society, Blacks would be able to better their situation using their own will and authority.
For example, before the Thirteenth Amendment was passed he argued with Booker T., stating:
Washington once said, The power of the ballot we need in self-defense else, what shall save us from a second slavery.” However, Booker T. Washington had a different perspective on how freed Blacks should approach their newfound freedom. He believed that they should start at the bottom with minimal rights and work their way up over generations. Booker suggested that Blacks should give up most of their political power and rights for now and focus on more attainable goals in technical careers like farming. He was convinced that with each generation of gradual change, Blacks would become more accepted by whites and rise up in society.
And becoming more economically independent was the key, as this quote demonstrates: “At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.” Booker was well-liked by both Blacks and whites and had many influential supporters, including Frederick Douglass who agreed with his stance on Reconstruction. As this quotation illustrates: “What shall we do with the negro… nothing.” As will be seen below, both Washington and Du Bois were products of their upbringing and life experiences.
Dubois was born into a financially stable family in the northern United States. He received a good education and is renowned as the first Black student to ever attend Harvard. On the other hand, Booker T. Washington was born a slave in the South and worked his way up by putting himself through school. These two vastly different life experiences are reflected in their respective views on avenues to Reconstruction. As it turned out, the actual course of Reconstruction resembled more of Washington’s plan than that of Dubois. Blacks obtained their freedom and legal rights but not much more than that.
Most Black individuals pursued technical skills, but with the rapid industrialization in the South, these skills became outdated quickly, leaving them without jobs. In my opinion, Dubois’s plan, while seeming preferential in hindsight, would have likely failed as well. With Dubois’s plan, only a small percentage of Blacks would have obtained prestigious jobs in 19th-century cultural circumstances. Additionally, attempting to do so would have enraged a much larger percentage of whites who held most of the authority and power.
This strategy would have only intensified the already horrendous violence inflicted against Blacks across the nation. In theory, a couple of strategies might have increased the success of Reconstruction. One such strategy would be to eliminate the “Ten Percent” plan and make it harder for the South to rejoin the Union. This would give the North a longer period of time to secure black rights and plan for legal protections against violence. Additionally, more generous and sustained financial support for repairing the southern economy might have gone a long way towards increasing economic independence among Blacks.
However, after the Civil War, both sides were exhausted financially, physically, and emotionally. This fatigue obviously caused a lack of energy for Reconstruction. Northerners were not directly affected by Reconstruction efforts in the South and had little to gain from it. The strategy of prolonging the Ten Percent” plan while allowing the North to lay more ground rules in the South to help control violence and prohibit things like the “Black Codes” would not have changed the racist culture and would only have intensified hostilities towards Blacks in the South.
In conclusion, considering the prevalent and deeply ingrained culture of racism in 19th century America, any attempts towards a rapid and immediate Reconstruction of the South were bound to face resistance. Despite this cultural and political context, as well as the unprecedented devastation caused by the Civil War, it is remarkable that Reconstruction was able to achieve as much success as it did.
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