The Reconstruction era was the period after the American Civil War. During this time, the South was in political, social and economic turmoil, and eleven Confederate states had seceded from the Union during the wartime unrest. In response, the Union implemented a controversial reconstruction plan to regain order in the Confederate states.
The Freedmen’s Bureau
One of the first attempts to establish order in the South was the creation of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, also known as the Freedmen’s Bureau. It was created on March 3, 1865, just one month prior to the official end of the Civil War. The purpose of the organization was to assist freed slaves with food, medical care, resettlement, and it was charged with establishing schools.The bureau was also responsible for dispersing land according to General Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15. The order, issued on January 16, 1865, gave freed slaves 400,000 acres of abandoned rice land on Georgia’s Sea Islands and on the coast of South Carolina. The land was divided into forty-acre plots, and later the army was ordered to provide mules to the freedmen. This arrangement became known as “forty acres and a mule”.
Black Codes
While the Freedmen’s Bureau worked to help southern blacks, opposition to their new freedom was mounting. After the Civil War ended on April 9, 1865, several southern states passed legislation creating Black Codes. Depending upon the state, these laws generally restricted the right to own property, controlled where blacks were allowed to live, established a curfew, and forced blacks to work as agricultural laborers or as domestics.
Andrew Johnson’s Presidential Reconstruction
To make matters worse for newly freed slaves, Abraham Lincoln’s successor, Democratic President Andrew Johnson, had reneged on his promise to implement Lincoln’s reconstruction plan. Not only was he unsupportive of the Freedmen’s Bureau but he supported southern white rule over local governments.Johnson implemented Presidential Reconstruction. Under this plan, Johnson issued pardons to former Confederates and urged Confederate states to form new governments. Wealthy planters and Confederate leaders, however, faced harsher requirements. They were required to write a personal letter to the president and beg for clemency. If they were not pardoned, they faced losing the right to vote, the right to hold office, and their property would remain confiscated.
Johnson, though, faced opposition. A small group of Congressional Republicans, known as Radicals, were led by long-time abolitionist and Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens. They wanted rights for blacks, and had supported arming black troops and the Emancipation Proclamation. Their new demands included a longer reconstruction plan and the right to vote for black men. Not all Republicans agreed with the radicals: most moderates, concerned about their Northern white constituency, were unsupportive of the Radicals’ agenda; instead, they wanted limited civil rights for blacks.
During the fall of 1865, Johnson reconsidered his earlier conditions placed on wealthy Confederate planters. He disliked the idea of blacks governing themselves more than he disliked wealthy planters. He loosened his policy on planters and granted hundreds of pardons to planters each day. Although many blacks had taken possession of the abandoned lands, including land issued under Sherman’s Order No. 15, Johnson returned the land to the planters. Blacks, consequently, were forced to give back the land or remain on the land after signing a labor contract that imposed conditions much like slavery.
Sharecropping
Some of these labor contracts became known as a form of land tenancy called sharecropping. Sharecropping entitled freedmen to use a portion of a landowner’s property to grow crops. The typical arrangement provided that the freedman was responsible for producing the crop and paid for the tenancy with a portion of it at the end of the season. This system, however, was ultimately unfair. Many plantations hosted stores where freedmen bought supplies, such as seed, fertilizer, tools, and even food, clothing, and medicine, on credit. At the end of harvest season, the freedmen’s crop was used to offset what was owed. Quite often, after all expenses were settled, the freedmen walked away with nothing or a deficit.
Radical Reconstruction
In December 1865, when Congress finally reconvened for the first time since the Civil War, chaos erupted. More than sixty former Confederates returned to Congress, but their presence remained unrecognized during roll call and they were denied their elected seats. The chaos reflected the spilt on what to do about the South. Northern Democrats sided with Johnson’s desire for the South to govern themselves independently without interference from the federal government. Democrats considered themselves the party of the “white man” and wanted to protect the rights of whites. When moderate Republicans realized that Johnson had no intent on protecting freemen from the increased violence in the South, they joined with the Radicals instead of northern Democrats.In March 1866, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. Although Johnson vetoed the bill, the unity of the Republican Party led to its passage. The legislation gave blacks the rights and privileges of full citizenship and Black Codes were eliminated. Although most Black Codes were abolished, some state legislatures revised and implemented less severe codes.
The Republicans continued to gain strength in Congress. During the fall elections of 1866, they won three-fourths of the seats in both houses—that meant that they could override Johnson’s vetoes. With the Radicals at the center of the Republican Party, in March 1867, the Radical’s reconstruction plan was passed after overriding Johnson’s veto. The plan divided the Confederate states into five military districts with each commanded by a Union general with the power to enforce the law; provided that southern states could not be readmitted to the Union until ratifying the 14th Amendment; required approval from Congress of state constitutions; and black men would have the right to vote.
