Wartime Reconstruction

Setting an Agenda in Difficult Circumstances, 1861-1865

If you don’t read anythingelse…..

Basic Assumptions

• Reconstruction was limited by Republican beliefs about secession.

• Wartime Reconstruction arose from the chaotic outcomes of wartime; no initial programmatic approach.

• Initially, L. saw the war as a chance to insure control of southern states by loyal white men, whose states were shorn of secessionist sentiment and slavery. By April 1865, he seemed much more open to African American Civil Rights. The war experience had changed his views as well as removed conceptual and Constitutional impediments.

Military success created necessary experiments, hindered by politics, race,

and military setbacks.

Wartime Reconstruction Experiments

Initial Steps

• Recongnized Francis Pierpont in Va. and loyal state senators: John S. Carlisle and Waitman Willey.

• Worked with Tennessee Unionists like Oliver Temple, T. A. R. Nelson, and Andrew Johnson.

• “However slowly the cause of the Union might advance in the South, Lincoln held firmly to the idea that the restoration of civil government in the hands of Southern unionists should occur simultaneously with the armed suppression of rebellion.” (Harris, 32)

Francis Harrison Pierpont, 1814-1899

Initial Steps

• To hold the border, while remaking the region, L. endorsed compensated emancipation until border state opposition led him toward the 13th amendment.

• Andrew Johnson named Tn. Wartime governor in 1862.• L. abortively named Edward Stanley as Wartime

governor of eastern N. C.; L. hoped that western N. C. vote for Vance as governor represented Unionism.

• New Orleans out of war early.• Benjamin Flanders and Michael Hahn elected to

Congress and seated.• Creation of West Va. undermined support for Pierpont’s

government.

Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction

• 10% plan.

• Abortive “Reconstructions” in Texas, Florida, and North Alabama—all abortive because of military setbacks in those areas.

The “Tangled Skein” of La.

• Michael Hahn elected governor.

• L. wanted to enfranchise “intelligent” black men and black CW veterans.

• La. Legislators reject African American Franchise in fall 1864.

• Hahn and E. R. S. Canby feuded over relationship between civilian and military government.

Michael Hahn, 1830-1886

No Success

• L. vacillated over supporting a 10% plan government in Arkansas versus military control under General Steel.

• In Tn., Conservatives feared both resurgent planter power and African American voting under 10% plan.

• Hence, nothing really settled when L. went to see “Our American Cousin.”