Reconstruction occurred in the post-civil war period in the United States whereby Congress implemented several acts and constitutional amendments to ensure the equality of freedmen between 1865 and 1877 (White, 2017). Scholarship associated with the Reconstruction era has developed from historians, such as Eric Foner, who often state that Reconstruction did fail, yet rarely explicitly suggest why. In this essay, I will identify the interlinking factors that contributed to the failure of reconstruction. However, this question assumes that Reconstruction was entirely ineffective, but in my argument I shall admit that Reconstruction was partially successful for a few years, due to the Reconstruction acts and amendments. Contrarily, I shall then discuss that the rulings of the Supreme Court, the impairment of the Freedmen’s Bureau by President Johnson, and the ‘Black Codes’ perpetuated by the federalist system, undermined Reconstruction efforts in the United States. Furthering this argument by explaining that racism, African American disenfranchisement, and the 1873 financial crisis in themselves aided the failure of Reconstruction. However, I shall also mention how these incidences and electoral fraud contributed to the Compromise of 1877 which physically terminated Reconstruction endeavours. Then, I will state that Reconstruction never entirely intended to protect black civil rights as it only applied to freedmen, hence it could not fail if it did not meet its goals by its own will. Thus, I aim to conclude that Reconstruction was slightly successful for a brief period, however there were numerous institutional factors at play, and the nature of Reconstruction itself, led to the ultimate failure of Reconstruction.
Just a month before President Lincoln’s assassination and the end of the civil war, in March 1865, the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Land (henceforth Freedmen’s Bureau) was established. It was a government agency aimed at protecting the interests and rights of black Americans; providing healthcare, education and such to freedmen (Williams, 2017). Following this, in December 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified and this legally abolished slavery in the United States, thus signalling the beginning of the Reconstruction era, freeing 4 million black slaves (Smith, 2017). Two other constitutional amendments followed in subsequent years. The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, extending citizenship to all persons born in the United States, providing rights and equal protection under the laws, and gave government the power to reduce the apportionment of congressional representation of a state if they denied the vote to any male above the age of twenty-one who had not participated in crime. Former Confederate states had to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as a necessary means for consideration of readmission to the Union (Lucas, 2017). The Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in 1870, prohibiting states from withholding the vote from individuals based on their race (Vile, 2017).
To support these ‘Reconstruction amendments’, various civil rights statutes were also passed between 1866 and 1875 to protect fundamental rights of freedmen. The Civil Rights Act 1871 was also known as the ‘Ku Klux Klan Act’, because it directly related to the prosecution of Klansmen for violating the civil rights of freedmen (Williams, 2017). Further sustained by the ‘Reconstruction acts’ in 1867 and 1868. These acts divided the former Confederate states into five military districts, whereby the army protected black Americans from violence and promoted enfranchisement of freedmen. Resulting from this, 80.5 percent of black adult males were registered to vote in 1868, compared with 0.5 percent in 1866 (White, 2017). There were over 1500 black Americans now in office, and there were even twelve black-operated newspapers in the South (Ross, 2016; Valley, 2004). Therefore, there is evidence that Reconstruction was working. However, theoretically it should’ve been a lot stronger than it was in practice; one reason for this was the lack of support from the Supreme Court.
The first major instance of the Supreme Court ruling against the Reconstruction amendments and acts was in the 1873 Slaughterhouse decision. Louisiana state legislature established a central slaughterhouse in New Orleans, to be used by New Orleans butchers, as the dispersion of slaughterhouses was a health risk resulting in water contamination and cholera outbreaks. However, the butchers claimed that the city were attempting to develop a monopoly, breaching their right to pursue an occupation, as protected under the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, thus they sued. The case was crucial in understanding the authority of the federal government to defend rights that could be jeopardised by state operations (White, 2017). Foner recognised that “Justice Samuel F. Miller observed that the history of the times was so close that everyone understood what the Fourteenth Amendment meant.” Yet regardless “he proceeded, of course, to interpret that Amendment in so narrow a manner that his decision evoked cries of protest from many who had drafted and voted on it” (2012: 1593). Miller argued that the Supreme Court would become endless censors of all state legislation if they interpreted the Privileges or Immunities Clause to encompass the butcher’s economic rights. Therefore, narrow interpretation of the Clause excluded the butcher’s economic rights from the privileges or immunities of citizenship. Subsequently, many believed that the Court deliberately wished to, and systematically did, undermine Reconstruction efforts and I agree (Ross, 2016). This is because it was not an isolated incident, and such narrow reading of the Reconstruction legislature persisted, in part due to the longstanding Dunning School thought; the historiographical school of thought throughout the Reconstruction era, characterised by support for southern conservatism (Foner, 2012).
The 1876 U.S. versus Cruikshank case attempted to convict several whites accused of conspiring to deny constitutional rights to others during the Colfax Massacre, discussed further later, under the 1870 Enforcement Act. However, the Court argued that the Reconstruction amendments only allowed for state prosecution of individuals; the federal government could only prosecute states. Therefore, the convictions were overturned and allowed the continuation of terrorism against black Americans where local officials were reluctant to enforce the law (Foner, 1990.) Furthermore, the 1875 Civil Rights Act declaring that all citizens were entitled to equal use of public accommodations, regardless of race, was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Civil Rights Cases of 1883. In the Civil Rights Cases, black Americans had been denied access to various public spaces. The Court concluded that Congress did not have the power to pass the 1875 Civil Rights Act; only states had the power to pass such a law, due to the Fourteenth Amendment (Ross, 2016). This shows that the Supreme Court continuously undermined the Reconstruction amendments and acts, thus providing legal legitimacy and cause for its demise, even though it took place in the later and post-Reconstruction years.
Another legal structure that resulted in the demise of Reconstruction was the Freedmen’s Bureau. As previously mentioned, the Bureau was created as a federal agency to protect freedmen. In theory, it was a powerful agency with the morality, authority and legality to implement the legislature successfully. In reality, it was under-financed and under-staffed, hence unable to meet its goals. Freedmen’s Bureau officials were often attacked by whites, and the employment contracts that were provided to black Americans were still not independent from the command of whites. Furthermore, the land that was promised to former slaves was rarely granted. Such failure of the Freedmen’s Bureau was largely down to President Johnson; a former Democrat fighting against a Radical Republican Congress. Johnson did not approve of the agency and frequently replaced Republican officials with conservative Southerners, thus allowing the internal deterioration of the Bureau (White, 2017). On one occasion in July 1865, General Howard issued an order for his assistant commissioners to commence land division for African Americans, yet by mid-September, Johnson mandated Howard to withdraw the order and the land was reassigned to its previous owners. From this, it was clear that Johnson wished to somewhat restore the social order of servitude of African Americans (Valelly, 2004). George Fitzhugh, a leading Southern intellectual, attacked the Bureau by describing it as a “Negro Nursery” and stated that he told Republicans “the darkeys were but grown-up children that needed guardians, like all children.” Therefore, he believed that black Americans were incapable of looking after themselves in freedom, as did others (White, 2017: 78). Johnson and other conservatives hampering of the Freedmen’s Bureau resulted in the programmes unfortunate abandonment in 1872, consequently aiding the de-construction of Reconstruction (Du Bois, 1901). Johnson also attempted to veto various Reconstruction legislature, underhandedly promoting the anti-civil rights laws of Southern states.
The anti-civil rights laws in question were known as the ‘Black Codes’. The Black Codes were the way in which Southern state governments took advantage of the leniency of President Johnson, and they also elected many ex-confederate leaders to office. Reconstruction in the South was continuously opposed by racists using the argument of ‘white supremacy’ whereby they believed African Americans were an inferior race, and the Black Codes in 1865 allowed whites to treat them as such (Fredrickson, 1971). The codes defined the new rights of black Americans and they varied between States; some authorised freedmen to own property, marry and so forth, but these provisions were insignificant as the central focus of the codes were labour agreements enforced in the pursuit of stabilising the African American workforce and imposing limits upon their economic opportunities. Subsequently, those who rejected contracts were punished. The first to enact Black Codes were Mississippi and South Carolina in late 1865 (Foner, 1990). They forbade freedmen from renting land in urban areas, and vagrancy was punished by involuntary plantation labour or fines. Yet vagrancy was a criminal offence defined by simply being viewed as idle or for misspending earnings. Other punishable crimes were ‘insulting’ language or gestures, and gospel preaching without a license. In South Carolina, freedmen were required to pay a tax of $10 to $100 annually if they chose an occupation outside of farming or being a servant. Furthermore, orphaned black children were ordered by Court to become ‘apprentices’, in which they worked for plantation owners without pay. These codes demonstrate that the South wished to maintain the order of servitude, though they did it ‘legally’; and Johnson allowed this to continue as he himself was racist and was interested only in the political ascendancy of poor whites now the slaveocracy had collapsed (Foner, 1990). Moreover, Southern state courts forbade testimony by African American witnesses, therefore crimes against freedmen were essentially impossible to validate. This was all possible due to two factors: President Johnson and federalism. In the system of federalism, private affairs within states, rather than state affairs themselves, are not the responsibility of the federal government; as shown by the U.S. versus Cruikshank case and Civil Rights Cases.
The codes did what they aimed to; they restored antebellum racial and economic order, and the President did not mind (Ross, 2016). The Black Codes undermined Reconstruction in its infancy, and although they were abolished once Radical Reconstruction began, the racist ideology behind it prevailed.
Racism thrived in the United States during this era; it had been both a justification for and product of slavery. In most cases, racism in this era resulted in violence, but even today structural and violent racism still exists in the United States. For example, after the shooting of Trayvon Martin, journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates stated:
“When you have a society that takes at its founding the hatred and degradation of a people, when that society inscribes that degradation in its most hallowed document, and continues to inscribe hatred in its laws and policies, it is fantastic to believe that its citizens will derive no ill messaging. It is painful to say this: Trayvon Martin is not a miscarriage of justice, but American justice itself. This is not our system malfunctioning. It is our system working as intended” (Coates, 2013)
Such racial violence has its origins in slavery, as mentioned by Coates, and Reconstruction strengthened racist views and such violence. White Southerners wanted the existing racial hierarchy to persist, and enacted the Black Codes to do this, but it would not have been as effective without racially aggravated violence, particularly once the Black Codes had been abolished (Valelly, 2004). White people believed that post-slavery, African Americans “were ‘retrogressing’ (their word) to their natural state of savagery”, therefore they psychologically repressed freedmen through violence to generate an atmosphere of fear to supposedly protect themselves from such ‘savage’ behaviours (Williamson, 1997:1236). The demobilized army were unable to suppress the violence, and so it continued. Soldiers were shot, and terrorist organisations sprang up commencing arson of freedmen-owned buildings, and rape and murder of African Americans. In most cases, it was not that law enforcement could not stop it, it is that they did not want to (White, 2017; Francis, 2014). The most notorious terrorist organization was the Ku Klux Klan, founded in Tennessee in 1866. In Bossier Parish, Louisiana, a ‘negro hunt’ led to 162 murders of black Americans (White, 2017). This ongoing racial violence shows that Reconstruction possibly didn’t fail at all, as it was never accepted in the South in the first place and was met sometimes with more brutality than had existed during slavery. Furthermore, it is well known in Western history that lynching’s occurred post-Reconstruction, and it is estimated that there were 2400 lynching’s of black American men between 1883 and 1966. Whilst to modern Americans lynching appears barbaric, in the Reconstruction era, such extremities of violence were seemingly banal and a frequent occurrence; particularly around election time (Kato, 2016).
In 1866, ex-confederates had won local elections in Louisiana. Radical Republicans in New Orleans organized a convention with the intention of enfranchising freedmen. However, the police and a mob of white men attacked the convention, resulting in 37 Radicals dead; 34 of them black. Yet President Johnson defended the authorities. Two years later one of the most violent elections in American history took place, because freedmen had been given the right to vote. In Camilla, North Carolina, 150 freedmen arrived for a Republican rally, and half were armed with various old guns and pistols, though they had no ammunition. It was ordered that they could not enter Camilla bearing arms; after refusing, authorities shot towards the crowd. Fleeing survivors were chased down, and almost 50 died. In St Landry, Louisiana, 200 African Americans were murdered during the campaign. An investigation later established that 1081 were killed during the 1868 election; it was clear that black Republicans had to decide between being murdered or voting Democrat in the South (White, 2017). President Johnson, however, was replaced in this election by Ulysses S. Grant, who had close affiliations with Radicals. Additionally, after the 1872 elections, Radicals were in control of the Colfax courthouse, Louisiana. In April 1873, 140 well-armed white men marched through the town. They killed African Americans on their way to the courthouse, then torched the building and shot, hung and slit throats of black men; the total number murdered was estimated to be up to 165. Again, in the 1874 election, intimidation and violent tactics were pursued by white supremacists to disenfranchise freedmen so Democrats could win the elections; the more Democrats in office, the more Reconstruction would be dismantled (White, 2017).
The violent disenfranchisement of African Americans, which allowed for Democratic gains, was aided by electoral fraud. This is evident as data estimates showed that there was considerable pro-Democratic voting among freedmen. For example, 52 out of 100 black men voted in Alabama in 1882. However, only 16 were allocated to the Republican candidate, as there were intended to be. The remaining 36 were fraudulently counted for the Democratic candidate to ensure their victory (Valelly, 2004). Regardless of this occurring post-Reconstruction, I believe it is guaranteed that it also happened during Reconstruction, as between 1860 and 1874, congressional seats held by Republicans decreased from 61 percent to 46 percent. Furthermore, post-Reconstruction, poll taxes, literacy tests, and other restricted measures were introduced into elections to legalise disenfranchisement of freedmen, and in my opinion it cannot be rejected that such measures may have been underhandedly pursued during Reconstruction, given the reduction of Republican congressman alongside the violent intimidation (Valelly, 2004). In the later years of Reconstruction, Republicans were becoming weaker in Congress, due to such racism, disenfranchisement, and electoral fraud, but also due to the 1873 financial crisis.
The financial crisis occurred in the United States in Autumn 1873, triggered by the Vienna stock exchange crash. American railroad bonded debt in 1867 was $416 million, but by 1874 it had increased to $2.23 billion. The railroads were weak and left the bankers who financed them very vulnerable, such as Jay Cooke & Company (Foner, 1990). In mid-September 1873, Jay Cooke & Company failed. Around half of railroad companies went into receivership by 1876, and 25 percent of labourers in New York City were unemployed. Over 5000 business filed for bankruptcy in 1873, but by 1878, the last year of the depression, there were almost 10,500 bankrupt companies. Consequently, the 70 percent majority Republican Congress were blamed, ergo they were defeated in the 1874 elections, resulting in a 37 percent minority. The Democrats purposefully pushed the crisis as the fault of Republicans, and it encouraged a revival of white supremacy that had been decimated by the Enforcement Acts, ie Ku Klux Klan Act. However, defeat of Republicans and Reconstruction was not absolute yet as President Grant remained (White, 2017).
The total defeat arrived at the disputed election of 1876. Democratic gains had resulted from the situations aforementioned over the Reconstruction years, and the contested returns in 1876 from Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana finally gave the Democrats ample opportunity to destroy Reconstruction efforts (Polakoff, 1973). An independent commission was created to determine the disputed returns of whether the Republican candidate, Hayes, or the Democratic candidate had won. The commission narrowly awarded Hayes the debated votes. However, Democrats demanded that troops, who had been protecting the Reconstruction efforts, be removed from Southern states, in order for them to support Hayes’ presidency (Perman, 1991). This was the compromise of 1877, and Hayes agreed. Subsequently, Southern states no longer acknowledged Reconstruction Amendments and Acts, thus began legal disenfranchisement, lynching, segregation and so forth; violating the civil rights of freedmen that Reconstruction had fought so hard for (King, 2007).
The Compromise of 1877 is often regarded as the historical point in which Reconstruction ended. However, it can be argued that Reconstruction never existed in its entirety, as it was hypocritical for only extending such liberties and rights to freedmen. Reconstruction simply ignored the existence of half the black population. There was never any consideration of independence for freedwomen. Reconstruction was a highly gendered issue, and black men defended their masculinity through the ‘ownership’ of wives, in the same fashion as their white counterparts. Married freedwomen were declared as property, and labour contracts could only be made by their husbands. This was not freedom, it was further dependence, just dependence on a different man. Reconstruction advocated for freedom and deracialized civil rights, but it continued to promote the patriarchy and subordination of freedwomen, retracting their independence (White, 2017). Therefore, I regard Reconstruction as a deceptive façade that never truly intended on giving full and equal rights to all African Americans. Reconstruction failed itself from the beginning.
In conclusion, I have discovered that Reconstruction intended to successfully protect the civil rights of black Americans through various constitutional amendments and acts, and that through legal and military enforcement this did work for a limited period of time. However, they were always resisted by white supremacists in the South, and authorities who cared little to prevent such opposition. These white supremacists undermined the Freedmen’s Bureau and they introduced the Black Codes, assisted by President Johnson. Following this, such racism resulted in extreme violence, black disenfranchisement and electoral fraud which pushed Republicans and their Reconstruction efforts out of Congress. This was furthered by the financial crisis of 1873, and concluded in the compromise of 1877 which ultimately collapsed Reconstruction efforts. Yet still, Reconstruction was hypocritical and chose to only apply such civil rights to black men, keeping black women in subordination. Henceforth, going by Reconstruction’s ideology, it never wholly happened. Moreover, it was continually rejected in the South. Therefore, it cannot be considered to have failed if it did not happen in the first instance.