Week 12 Blog Post

Week 12 Blog Post

Comments on Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction Documents and Essays:

Chapter 10 on “Northern Republicans and Reconstruction Policy” made the point that the Republican Party as a whole was much divided upon how the former Confederate states should be readmitted to the Union.

Richard Dana, Jr., Presents His “Grasp of War” Theory, June 1865: Dana insisted that the states of the Confederacy should be held in the “grasp of war” until the Union can be certain that they will not try to rebel again. (P & T, 325-326) As the document indicated, he received a lot of applause during his speech. Dana compared the Civil War to a man attacked fighting for his life. Once you get him down are you going to let him up to fight again? I do not feel that his analogy was appropriate considering the extent of devastation throughout the South due to the actual fighting and the destruction caused by Sherman’s marches. The South was not about to mount a new Civil War. Then Dana continued by saying that it was sufficient that the Union had destroyed the central government of the Confederacy so that the Union did not have to assume sovereignty over the individual states; however, he supported the idea of the former Confederate states making new constitutions. In this sense, the two parts of his speech do not really connect, but the audience did not seem to mind. His “grasp of war” rhetoric was political posturing.

Senator Lyman Trumball of Illinois Explains His Civil Rights Bill, January and April 1866: Trumball while first explaining his Civil Rights Bill in the Senate was naively downplaying the effect it would have (at least as intended) by saying, “It will have no operation in any State where the laws are equal, where all persons have the same civil rights without regard to color or race.” (P & T, 325-326) Since there were not any southern states that met that qualification in practice in 1866, the bill would obviously affect them all. In April, Trumball was correct that his bill was necessary to secure, by specifying in the Constitution, the rights of the freedmen. The former Confederate states did not want nor intend to recognize black civil rights solely on account of the 13^th Amendment banning slavery. It was for this reason that the Civil Rights Bill which became the 14^th Amendment in 1868 tied a state’s congressional representation to its observance.

Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania States His Terms, January 1867: Thaddeus Stevens was obviously one of the Radical Republicans since he advocated black suffrage. The reason he gave in his speech was that black suffrage would insure that ascendency of the Republican Party in formerly rebel states which was the effect upon passage of the 15^th Amendment granting black men that right to vote. Eric Foner in his essay, “The Radical Republicans,” states “Although Radicals insisted black suffrage must be part of Reconstruction, the vote was commonly considered a “privilege” rather than a right.” (P & T, 338) Stevens, in trying to make his position more palatable to his fellow representatives emphasized that equality before the law does not have to mean social equality with whites. “This doctrine does not mean that a negro shall sit on the same seat or eat at the same table with a white man.” (P & T, 329).

Senator John Sherman of Ohio Urges Caution and Moderation Toward the South, February 1867: Senator Sherman made a good point when he said, “I will not supersede one form of oligarchy in which the blacks were slaves by another in which the whites are disfranchised outcasts.” (P & T, 330) Sherman accused Senator Sumner of trying to defeat the Reconstruction Act even though it “yields all that the Senator has ever openly demanded in the Senate.” (P & T, 331) I am assuming that Sumner was objecting to southern whites being able to vote. Even though the Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to blacks but did not specify their right to vote, the Reconstruction Act did not exclude blacks from voting; it specifically enabled them. (P & T, 333)

Albion Tourgée in hindsight condemned both the blacks for being ignorant of politics and Congress for allowing the “white people of the South” to elect their own representatives to their state legislatures and ultimately to be readmitted to Congress. (P & T, 334-335)

Eric Foner, “The Radical Republicans”: Foner’s essay is an excellent commentary on the Radical Republican position. (P & T, 335-343) He asserts that the Radicals were driven by a “utopian vision of a nation whose citizens enjoyed equality of civil and political rights.” (P & T, 337) It was this “utopian vision” that made abolitionist Charles Sumner unable to compromise. This inability of Sumner was so well known that he was not chosen for Congress’ joint Reconstruction committee (McPherson & Hogue, 556), but “ordinary blacks” loved him for it (P & T, 337). As I mentioned above, even Radical Republicans did not equate legal and political equality with social equality. The Radicals seemed to mistake the Constitution’s clause “guaranteeing to each state a republican form of government” (republican without capitalization) for rule by their Political Party. Foner points out that some Radical Republican businessman extended the meaning of republicanism to mean laissez-faire economics, but most focused on Reconstruction. Even Sumner who advocated full political and legal equality for blacks allowed for class stratification. (P & T, 342)

Michael Les Benedict, “The Conservative Basis of Radical Reconstruction”: Benedict asserts that Reconstruction failed due in large part to Congressional conservatism. (P & T, 343-353) I find it understandable that Congress as a whole would be reluctant to adopt measures that could be interpreted as violating the Constitution. During the war, Lincoln was careful to justify his actions by framing it within Constitution theory, albeit Unionist theory. As noted then, the Constitution was intended by our forefathers to be just vague enough to be malleable in interpretation. The state of war justified emergency powers. After the war, these emergency powers became Reconstruction.

Written by Molly Kettler