Reconstruction

THE END OF the south's failed quest for independence, the destruction of its peculiar institution of slavery, and the death knell of secession as a viable political theory, resulted in the need to remake southern institutions and society. From the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and Abraham Lincoln's generous Ten Per Cent Plan in 1864 culminating in the outcome of the controversial election of 1876, the Republican Party struggled to build a two-party system, provide justice for the freedman, and unity to the nation. Despite their valiant efforts and modest successes, most historians view the Reconstruction as a failure. The issue of Reconstruction policy dominated the presidential campaigns of 1868 and 1872, and the presidential election of 1876 resulted in ending Reconstruction.

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865 dashed the hopes of many newly-freed slaves, and the ascension of Vice President Andrew Johnson, a southerner, and a man of extremely negative views toward African Americans, served to hinder their progress toward equality of opportunity. Johnson would prove to be an implacable enemy of the newly-emancipated people. Johnson, working under Lincoln's policy of generosity and leniency toward the former Confederates, outraged Radical Republicans in Congress by vetoing the renewal of the Freedman's Bureau and the Civil Rights Act of 1866; however, Johnson's tactless and public name calling of his opponents resulted in the overriding of his vetoes. To prevent the negation of basic civil rights for the freedman, Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, defining citizenship for all persons born in the United States, regardless of past servitude.

Johnson, fearing the loss of control by the Union Party (the new name of the wartime Republicans), decided to take his case to the people in the infamous “swing around the circle,” in which he traveled from Philadelphia to various cities as far as St. Louis, ending in Pittsburgh. In many cities, he faced well-placed hecklers, who taunted him and provoked him unmercifully, and the president, in turn, resorted to intemperate name-calling and return jibes. Johnson lost much support in the country and with Congress, and was impeached. He did was not nominationed to run again in 1868.

When the Republican Party met in convention in the summer of 1868, they nominated General Ulysses S. Grant of Illinois for president and Schyler Colfax of Indiana for vice president on a ticket based on a phrase within a letter written by Grant in which he pleaded to “let us have peace.” The convention, in the platform adopted, opened with congratulations to Congress for conducting Reconstruction policy, and promised to prevent the states formerly in rebellion from reverting to “anarchy and military rule.” The platform did not mention African Americans directly; however, the National Union Republicans promised that Congress would guarantee the equal suffrage of all loyal men of the south, but negated the hope of federal intervention by declaring “the question of equal suffrage in all the loyal States properly belongs to the people of those states.” Finally, convention delegates declared readiness to forgive the participants of the rebellion who were now serving as loyal citizens.

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