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A DIFFICULT REUNION

Over 4 million slaves were freed after the Civil War. Former slave owners lost property worth

billions of dollars because of the emancipation. In both the North and the South, white

Americans refused to accept blacks as equals. The 13th

Amendment to the Constitution,approved in December 1865, did not make any difference. Few southern whites considered

blacks more than slaves; besides their generous behavior, blacks were thought to be seeking

revenge.

Former slaves were known as freedmen. Few freedmen were literate because teaching slaves

to read and write had been illegal in most states. They were good farmers, but they had neither

land, nor money to buy it. Impoverished by the war, few people could afford to hire them.

Congress set up the Freedman’s Bureau which provided medical care, clothing and food for

freed slaves and poor whites. Agents were sent to set up schools for blacks and find work forthem.

Even before the end of the war, President Lincoln found a way to bring the seceded states back

into the Union. He believed, the states had no right to secede from the Union. He considered

Confederacy to be only a group of individuals who were resisting federal authority, not states

that had seceded. Only he could defeat insurrections and restore the relations with the South.

Lincoln’s Plan. Lincoln had decided to reconstruct those areas of the South that had come

under Union control. He offered to forgive the Confederates if they would swear an oath to

support the Constitution and the Union. A confederate state would be readmitted to the Union

if it abolished slavery and 10% of its voters subscribed to the oath.

Lincoln believed that the Reconstruction should be gradual: “We shall sooner have the fowl by

hatching the egg that by smashing it.” Louisiana and Arkansas had followed Lincoln’s Plan. 

The Radicals’ Plan. A group of Republicans in Congress, the Radicals, rejected the president’s

plan as too lenient (too permissive). Other Republicans joined the Radicals to pass a rival

version of Reconstruction. The Wade-Davies Bill required that many white males had to take an

oath of allegiance before a state could be reorganized. In order to vote and take part in the new

government, they needed to swear they had never, by their will, supported the Confederacy.

They were also obliged to refuse to honour Confederate debts, to abolish slavery, and to cancel

their acts of secession. Lincoln refused to sign the bill.

After Lincoln’s assassination, Andrew Johnson became president. He was a Southern Democrat

and he angered the Radicals. Johnson continued Lincoln’s Plan by adding new requirements.

The Radicals had important reasons for opposing Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan. First, they

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argued that the seceded states had returned to the status of territories. Like new territories,

the Radicals insisted, the southern states should be “under the exclusive jurisdiction of 

Congress”, not of the President. 

The Radicals considered Johnson’s plan too lenient and they also had reasons for this harsh

policy toward the South. The South was sending Democrats in Congress, so the Republicans

risked losing their power. Other Republicans who fought for the blacks had higher reasons.

Unless the black Americans received their full rights as citizens, the war would have been

fought in vain.