Presidential Reconstruction

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Presidential Reconstruction

• 1865-1867

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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.

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Land/Labor/Race in South

• O. O. Howard and Freedmans Bureau
• Southern Homestead Act (21 June 1866)
• Black Codes
• Race Riots
• Southern Congressmen and Senators

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Mississippis Black Code, 1866
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.
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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.

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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 assemblythe La. Constitutional
  Convention.

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Emperor Johnson does nothing to quell the New
Orleans Race Riot Image ran in Harpers Weekly
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Congress Responds

• Refused to seat Southern Representatives
• Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Dec. 13, 1865
• Reauthorized the Freedmans BureauJohnson vetoed
• Passed Civil Rights Act of 1866 over Johnsons
  Veto (Senate 3315House 18241)
• Proposed Language of 14th Amendment
• 1866 Congressional Election Swing Around the
  Circuit

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William Pitt Fessenden (1806-1869) chaired Joint
Committee on Reconstruction
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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
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Lyman Trumball (1813-1896), authored 13th and
14th Amendments introduced CRA (1866)
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1866 Congressional Election Returns
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