AHG 504 A: Civil War and Reconstruction

Dawain M. Wheatley

AHG 504 A: Civil War and Reconstruction

Tuesday 3-6:30 MST

Focus: The 13th, 14th, & 15th Amendments

During Reconstruction after the Civil War, with the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, white Southerners limited the rights of African Americans. Actions by plantation owners, terrorist groups, local and state government officials (including law officers), judges, and the Democrat Party restricted constitutionally protected rights.

After the 13th Amendment passed the House of Representatives in January of 1865 and before it was adopted in December, Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau with the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill in March. It was the first time that government had assumed the responsibility for the social welfare of individuals, and abolitionists and members of the government’s Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission were encouraged that, “freedmen should be treated at once as any other free man.”[1] This statement reflected the intent of Congress which had made a constitutional change in how the freed black should be treated. Many people in the North, particularly abolitionists were hopeful of social change. However, legislation of morals is rarely immediately accepted even with a constitutional amendment, and white southerners balked at this idea. The fair treatment of new freed blacks never did meet this expected standard of equality as plantations owners and state legislators quickly established very severe limitations on them.

Southern white legislators passed black codes in direct challenge to the new federal amendment, and plantation owners used these codes to continue their exploitive control. The plantation owner-slave economic and social relationship was replaced by an eerily similar plantation owner-sharecropper relationship. In 1865 Mississippi passed laws that did make it legal for all freedmen to own property but that ownership of property had to be in an incorporated town or city. Since many freedmen had spent their entire life living on plantations as slave labor it was natural to remain on the exact same land, cultivating the same soil, now living in their own rented shack, responsible for 30-50 acres. The vast majority signed labor contracts that restricted the choice of leaving, and if they quit without good cause-the owners had the right to decide whether or not it was a good cause-they forfeited “wages for that year up to the time of quitting.”[2] The freedmen were coerced into quickly signing restrictive contracts to get the crops into the ground; they really had nowhere else to go if they were going to take care of their family. Conditions of the freed blacks worsened over time as the plantation owners retained much of the same dominance over the land as before the passage of the 13th amendment. There were very few opportunities “for the laborer to develop new skills, acquire his own land, or seek other kinds of work outside of agriculture.”[3] Not much had changed for the former slave, although under this system they did have some degree of autonomy. However, worse things happened as more limitations were in store.

As black codes began to appear in southern states, congress took action to further the protections of the freed blacks. Legislative acts and the sending of the military to southern states were parts of the reconstruction policies. Congress often received horrific news of the mistreatment and degradation that freed blacks received at the hands of white southerners. In May of 1865 a particularly brutal account of race riots in Tennessee, the home of the original KKK organization, illustrated vividly why a constitutional amendment was needed to protect the rights of blacks. Local white police of Memphis had hated the nearness of black troops during the war. Now that the blacks had been mustered out, the police had many opportunities to bother the former troops. Most times it was considered no big deal. However, several days of random killing ensued as a result of a riot, and even civil authorities such as the city recorder, John C. Creighton, “councilled [sic] and urged the whites to arm and kill every Negro.”[4] This led to citizens as well as the police to attack men, women, and even children, killing many of them. In the Freedmen’s Bureau Report of the Memphis riots the sheer callousness of southern behavior is expressed: “All crimes imaginable were committed from simple larceny to rape and murder. Several women and children were shot in bed.”[5] Reports such as these led to the adoption of the 14th Amendment in 1868 that does not legally allow for any state to “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”[6] The rights expected from the 14th Amendment were not realized by freed blacks to the extent of its intention during the period.

During Ulysses S. Grant’s administration, Grant was a proponent of Abraham Lincoln’s view of the Declaration of Independence’s ideal on the equality of man. He had to deal with terrorist behavior but now had the 14th Amendment on his side. In Hamburg, South Carolina in the summer of 1872, the local militia, made up of blacks, was drilling, and a group of white men without any authority demanded them to stop. After the militia was attacked and captured by the whites, five of the prisoners were deliberately shot to death in clear violation of equal protection. In Grant’s letter to the governor of South Carolina he recognized “The scene at Hamburg, as cruel, blood-thirsty, wanton, unprovoked, and uncalled for”[7] and encouraged Governor Chamberlain to afford the blacks of his state the protections of the amendment. Grant also understood the importance of Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution in allowing Chamberlain to deal with the situation. President Grant issued a warning to the governor in the letter, “[Too] long denial of guaranteed rights is sure to lead to revolution-bloody revolution,”[8] and the warning of violence and blood played out over and over again during this time, blacks again being limited in their expected rights.

Thomas Nast’s political cartoon, “Worse than Slavery”[9] illustrated the lengths to which terrorists, under the guise of White League and KKK organizations, went to limit the right of voting to blacks, afforded by the 15th Amendment passed in 1870. Nowhere was this war of terror more brutal than the upper reaches of the Red River in Northwest Louisiana and the terrorist war was waged by white southern Democrats supported by the judicial system. A power struggle ensued over control of the government in which Republicans in power – made up of a black electorate, former union soldiers staying in the south after the war, northern carpetbaggers, and a few southern whites – are being systematically terrorized by the White League. The racist Democrats unofficial use of organization to obliterate the Republicans and take control proved to be very effective. The Colfax massacre in 1873 left

“fifty-nine dead bodies found, some charred remains of dead bodies were discovered near the court-house. Six dead bodies were found under a warehouse, all shot in the head,”[10]

and left the message to Republican Governor William P. Kellogg that his legally recognized state government would not last long.

Another incident, a year later in Red River Parish near Shreveport, would have the same chilling message from the Democrats. Marshall Twitchell, former union officer married to a southern women, and several family members and friends from the north, started the town of Coushatta. They were the political leaders of the community. The democrats and White League again used terrorist tactics to send the message of white rule and black subordination. “Six of them were seized and carried away from their homes and murdered in cold blood. No one has been punished.”[11] The southern court system supported these actions often with no convictions and at times not even court hearings. Ulysses S. Grant reported to Congress about these and other situations and used his authority of Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution to send troops to Louisiana to quell the abuses. His commitment to using legal means for actions of the federal government was certainly not reciprocated by Louisiana and other southern states. Blacks continued in their struggle for equal rights in society.

Culture cannot change simply by legislation. It takes time. There needs to be a clear understanding of what the Declaration of Independence means by “All men are created Equal,”[12] a clear understanding of how the United States Constitution protects this, and a clear understanding by the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government to systematically enforce the ideas for thirty years or several generations.[13] There was not enough time during the Reconstruction period for the freed blacks to enjoy the intended constitutional protections. Thomas Nast captured the despair felt by blacks in his political cartoons at the tragic way Reconstruction had ended with, “Is this a Republican Form of Government?”[14] Reconstruction allowed a brief glimpse of rights, but white Southerners, again severely limited constitutional gains.

1

[1] Michael Perman, Emancipation and Reconstruction, (Chicago: Harlan Davidson, 2003), 24.

[2] “Black Codes of Mississippi,1865,” in AHG 504 A: Civil War and Reconstruction Course Packet, ed. S. Tootle, (Ashland, Ashland University, 2012), 586.

[3] Michael Perman, Emancipation and Reconstruction, (Chicago: Harlan Davidson, 2003), 34.

[4] T. W. Gilbreth, “The Freedmen’s Bureau Report on the Memphis Race Riots of 1866,” in AHG 504 A: Civil War and Reconstruction Course Packet, ed. S. Tootle, (Ashland, Ashland University, 2012), 595.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Declaration of Independence – Constitution of the United States of America, (Ashland: John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, Ashland University), 34.

[7] Ulysses S. Grant, “Letter to D. H. Chamberlain, Governor of South Carolina,” in AHG 504 A: Civil War and Reconstruction Course Packet, ed. S. Tootle, (Ashland, Ashland University, 2012), 600.

[8] Ulysses S. Grant, “Letter to D. H. Chamberlain, Governor of South Carolina,” in AHG 504 A: Civil War and Reconstruction Course Packet, ed. S. Tootle, (Ashland, Ashland University, 2012), 601.

[9] “Worse Than Slavery,” Advanced Placement Examination, United States History, (New York: The College Board, 1996), 19.

[10] Ulysses S. Grant, “Message to the Senate on Colfax” in AHG 504 A: Civil War and Reconstruction Course Packet, ed. S. Tootle, (Ashland, Ashland University, 2012), 681.

[11] Ulysses S. Grant, “Message to the Senate on Colfax” in AHG 504 A: Civil War and Reconstruction Course Packet, ed. S. Tootle, (Ashland, Ashland University, 2012), 685.

[12] Declaration of Independence – Constitution of the United States of America, (Ashland: John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, Ashland University), 3.

[13] Stephen Tootle, “AHG 504A: Civil War and Reconstruction” (lecture, Ashland University, Ashland, December 4, 2012).

[14] David M. Kennedy, Lizabeth Cohen, Thomas A. Bailey, The American Pageant, 14th Edition, (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010), 533.