Presidential Reconstruction

1865-1867

Presidential Terms

• Rags to Riches Story; then from Poster Boy to Pariah• “Treason must be made odious, and traitors must be

punished and impoverished.”• May 29, 1865 Proclamation of Amnesty and Restitution:

oath of allegiance available to all, save high CSA officials and those w/ $20,000 worth of property.

• Southern Con. Cons. To abolish slavery, nullify secession ordinances, repudiate CW state debts.

• Consider enfranchising literate blacks as sop to radicals.• CT., WI.,MN. rejected Af. Am. enfranchisement too.

Land/Labor/Race in South

• O. O. Howard and Freedman’s Bureau

• Southern Homestead Act (21 June 1866)

• Black Codes

• Race Riots

• Southern Congressmen and Senators

“All freedmen, free Negroes, and mulattoes in this state over the age of eighteen years found on the second Monday in January 1966, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business, or found unlawfully assembling themselves together either in the day or nighttime, and all white persons so assembling with freedmen, free Negroes, or mulattoes, or usually associating with freedmen, free Negroes, or mulattoes on terms of equality, or living in adultery or fornication with a freedwoman, free Negro, or mulatto, shall be deemed vagrants; and, on conviction thereof, shall be fined in the sum of not exceeding, in the case of a freedman, free Negro, or mulatto, 150, and a white man, $200, and imprisoned at the discretion of the court, the free Negro not exceeding ten days, and the white man not exceeding six months.”

“no freedman, free Negro, or mulatto not in the military service of the United States government, and not licensed so to do by the board of police of his or her county, shall keep or carry firearms of any kind, or any ammunition, dirk, or Bowie knife.”

Mississippi’s Black Code, 1866

Memphis Race Riot, May 1-2, 1866

• Triggered by establishment of African American Shanty Town and report that African American soldiers at Fort Pickering had slain white policemen who were attempting to arrest an African American Soldier

• 46 African Americans and 2 whites died • 75 persons injured• 100 persons robbed• 5 women raped• 91homes burned• 4 churches and 8 schools burned and destroyed• $17,000 in federal property destroyed• Hundreds of blacks were jailed, and almost all other

freedmen fled town until the disturbance ended.

New Orleans Race Riot, July 30, 1866

• Constitutional Convention was to discuss Enfranchising Blacks.

• Whites aided by governmental officials broke up the Convention, killing 34 African Americans and 3 whites.

• President Johnson sided with the city officials, implying that they had simply broken up an unlawful assembly—the La. Constitutional Convention.

Emperor Johnson does nothing to quell the New Orleans Race RiotImage ran in Harper’s Weekly

Congress Responds

• Refused to seat Southern Representatives• Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Dec. 13,

1865• Reauthorized the Freedman’s Bureau—Johnson

vetoed• Passed Civil Rights Act of 1866 over Johnson’s

Veto (Senate: 33:15;House: 182:41)• Proposed Language of 14th Amendment• 1866 Congressional Election: Swing Around the

Circuit

William Pitt Fessenden (1806-1869) chaired Joint Committee on Reconstruction

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding.Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State or Territory to the deprivation of any right secured or protected by this act, or to different punishment, pains, or penalties on account of such person having at any time been held in a condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, or by reason of his color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of white persons, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, shall be punished by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, in the discretion of the court. --Civil Rights Act of 1866

Lyman Trumball (1813-1896), authored 13th and 14th Amendments; introduced CRA (1866)

Party Total seats (change) Seat percentage

Republican Party 173 +37 77.2%

Democratic Party 47 +9 21.0%

Independents 2 +1 0.9%

Conservatives 2 +2 0.9%

Totals 224 +31 100.0

1866 Congressional Election Returns