America After the Civil War
In the wake of the American Civil War, the president and Congress had several major problems in recreating union in 1865. First, the physical destruction caused by years of civil war needed to be repaired in order to restart industry and agriculture in the North and South. However, the Congress did not create a Marshall Plan for the South, instead relying largely on the long process of local and state funding for recovery. Along with an infrastructure, the nature of the new Union itself was a cause of concern among policy makers. The South needed to be readmitted to the Union, but on what terms? What status would freedmen have? On what economic basis would the South develop? Finally, who would control reconstruction? All of these questions were debated in 1865 to 1877, when Congress attempted to negotiate the proper terms and execution of Reconstruction.
Abraham Lincoln felt toward the end of the war that a moderate approach to Reconstruction was required in order to ease tensions between both sides. This would include minimal retribution for the North against the South including only requiring 10% of the population to take oaths of loyalty to the Union. However, Lincoln was in a minority within the Republican Party and Radical Republicans were in high numbers within Congress. The Radicals wanted a less benevolent approach to readmittance, including 50% loyalty, public admission of wrongdoing, and a reconstruction of economic structures in the South to reflect Northern interests. Lincoln’s assassination and the rise of a more Southern-friendly Andrew Johnson to the presidency meant that things would change quickly in the next decade.
The Southern reaction to the Radicals’ agenda was open hostility and anger. Southerners were openly hostile to the Union troops who presided over military governments, constitutional conventions in the Southern state did not repudiate the Confederacy, and the rights of freedmen were not guaranteed by any means among Southern communities. Andrew Johnson, a former Democrat and Tennessee politician, had struggles with the Radical Republicans who dominated Congress after the 1866 midterm elections. Holding more than 2/3 of the seats in Congress, Radicals were able to override Johnson’s vetoes and were able to push through military reconstruction, the protection of cabinet members by the Senate, and impeachment procedures against Johnson by a vengeful, aggressive Congress (which fell one vote short in the Senate of being passed).
Johnson’s exit from the White House brought eight years of corrupt, inept government by former general Ulysses Grant. Grant, whose military leadership did not lend well to executive leadership, did not have the political will to maintain the push by Radical Republicans for massive reconstruction. The Radical Republicans saw some progress by the amount of freedmen voting in elections, and increased participation in politics and education by freed blacks in the South. However, they were skittish about measures like “40 acres and a mule” because it involved the seizure of farm land and private property from members of the Union. They were incapable of establishing enough of an economic and educational structure to deal with a large, newly free population of illiterate farmers. As well, the Grant government became much more about reconciling and political expediency than standing by principals of ensuring constitutional freedoms. By the time the 1876 presidential election came along and Rutherford Hayes made a bargain to win the presidency, Reconstruction was little more than Union soldiers presiding over a corrupt Southern government rubber stamped by the Grant administration.
