History 101: Week 15 (Professor Messer-Kruse)

History 101: Week 15 (Professor Messer-Kruse)

May 8, 1995: War, Reconstruction and Industrialization

I. War and the federal government: Because of southern secession, for all practical purposes (and in spite of the strong challenges posed by the Democrats) party and state became one for the duration of the war.

A. During the war the federal government rapidly expanded its size, power, and scope. Partly this was done out of military neccesity, but much of this expansion also reflected the unmediated rule of the Republican party and the fulmiment of its partisan agenda.

B. In terms of political economy, the Republican party rested upon two premises: 1. Nationalism 2. Expansion of central state power so as to remove all regional barriers to the development of an integrated national capitalist marketplace and so as to provide direct subsidies to infrastructural improvement.

II. Finance:

1. Budget - US budget (which had usually run in the black) now went heavily into debt. The annual budget went from 63 million in 1861 to 1.3 billion in 1865. By 1865 the national debt stood at 2 billion. a. But here debt served three purposes: (1) it raised and provisioned the army. (2) But it also cemented the loyalty of the financiers, both American and European. It tied the future politics of the government more closely to the agenda of an industrial elite and: (3) Helped prevent foreign powers from recognizing the Confederacy.

2. Currency - US had operated on a specie basis only, now printed paper currency ("greenbacks"). 400 million worth printed to finance the war. a. This was the primary cause of wartime inflation that was of such great hardship to workers.

3. Taxes - Prior to the war the government raised funds through western land sales and the tariff. These were sufficient when the federal budget was but 2% of the GNP. But with the needs of war, more revenues were required and a new federal tax was instituted (primarily a sales tax, thus falling most heavily on workers) . 4. Banking - After Jackson's defeat of the bank of the US, banks were exclusively chartered and regulated by the various states. During the war, the federal government issued charters to banks. Thus the currency was effectively nationalized as well.

III. Expansion of the scope of the federal role:

A. Military pensions. By the end of the 19c., outlays for federal military pensions neared 40% [check] of the federal budget. B. Railroad subsidies: Between 1862 and 1872, Congress handed to RR corporations over 100 million acres of federal lands and many millions of dollars of direct subsidies.

IV. Technological Innovation:

1. Farming - War greatly stimulated the innovation of mechanization to make the remaining labor more productive. This was most apparent in farming where the existing, but marginally employed, technologies of mowers and reapers spread rapidly to replace absent farm workers.

2. The war also stimulated other industries to become more efficient, especially railroads.

V. Economic Growth - Between 1865-1873: A. industrial production shot up 75%. B. 3 million immigrants arrived. C. 35,000 miles of RR built. (Equal to all the track existing in 1860).

VI. The Railroad proved the engine of overall economic growth: A. doubled the demand/production of iron and steel. B. opened vast areas to commercial farming. C. expanded western cities. D. spurred the growth and modernization of the capital market (Wall Street). E. integrated the national marketplace. F. led to the emergence of the first large consolidated corporations and new forms of control and management.

VII. The Civil War did not begin as a crusade to end slavery. Lincoln's firing of Fremont illustrated that. Emancipation progressed as a military neccesity as the war dragged on. As late as December of 1862, Lincoln still hoped to arrange for a compensated and gradual emancipation (slave-owners to be compensated with US bonds and slaves to remain in bondage until 1900).

A. Then when the Emancipation Declaration was released in January of 1863, it applied only to slaves in Confederate areas and not to the border states and captured lands actually under federal control.

VIII. From the perspective of the ruling Republican party, reconstruction was a project of reuniting the country while maintaining their own partisan supremacy. The Republicans were not prepared to sacrifice their political economic gains in the interest of national unity or civil rights. What gains occurred in civil rights were measures taken in the interest of political hegemony, not soley in pursuit of democracy or justice.

A. In December of 1863, Lincoln announced his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, his plan to reintegrate the southern states into the Union. Lincoln's "10% Plan" allowed for the recreation of state governments as soon as 10% of the population had taken an oath of loyalty (that included support for emancipation).

B. Lincoln assasinated April 1865. Andrew Johnson began "reconstructing" the Union on his own after Lincoln's death before Congress could convene. 1. Johnson released his own plan at the end of May, allowing all adult males who swore an oath to be restored to full privileges (except former Confederate political and military leaders, and those worth over $20,000). 2. But Johnson did not object when some southern states insisted upon policing themselves rather than having the federal troops patrol them, or when some refused to ratify the 13th Amendment, or when others (Miss and SC) enacted Black Codes. He also ordered siezed plantations (now divided and farmed by freedmen in many areas) restored to their previous owners. (The Republicans, however, backed Johnson up on this point when they reconveyned.) a. Clearly, Johnson was more concerned with restoring the union as a political entity than destroying the basis of slavery.

C. Dec. 1865, Congress refused to seat Southern delegations pardoned by Johnson.

D. Civil Rights Act and other Reconstruction Acts vetoed by Johnson in 1866.

E. Fourteenth Amendment (which offered the south the option of rejoining the union without providing meaningful civil rights to blacks) rejected by the south. This set the stage for the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) and for military occupation of the south in 1867, (but this was a light occupation indeed - only 20,000 troops over ten states and these mostly confined to barracks).

May 10, 1995: The Struggle for Emancipation

I. Emancipation was not effected by a proclamation. Proclamations and laws are just so many words without the actions of individuals to enforce them. In this sense, the enslaved African-Americans of the south were not emancipated, but took advantage of the war and the destruction of southern institutions to effect their own emancipation.

A. The flight of slaves toward Union lines. B. The enlistment and fighting of hundreds of thousands of black men in the Union army.

II. Emancipation had two sides, political (the achievement of legal and political equality) and social (the achievement of economic independence and the destruction of the repressive racial caste system). The success of black peoples efforts to achieve these varied in time and place.

III. Emancipation meant different things to different people. But all freed people acted quickly to express and realize some aspect of freedom: A. many adopted new names; wore different clothes; B. In Richmond, black people held meetings without asking permission of the authorities and strolled through Capitol square, an area previously reserved for whites only. C. For many, emancipation meant having the freedom to travel in search of ones loved ones. Many wandered over hundreds of miles searching for family members. D. Many freed couples formalized their marriages and children who had lost their parents were legally adopted by friends and relatives. E. Schooling became a passion: hundreds of school and education societies built across the south. The drive for education was very practical - some people wanted to be able to read the Bible first hand; others wanted to be conversant with writing and arithmetic so as to be able to conduct business or avoid being cheated in employment. F. Churches established independent of white control. Church buildings erected, black congregations often purged white ministers and seperated from white congregations. G. Women resisted field labor as a step towards gaining equality with white women and to concentrate on improving the conditions of the home.

IV. Rehearsal for reconstruction took place in Louisiana, the first large plantation region occupied by Union forces. In the spring and summer of 1862, Gen. Benjamin Butler's army seized New Orleans and much of the rich delta lands of Louisiana.

1. In late 1862, the black people of occupied Louisiana refused to harvest cotton unless the Union army established schools for their communities. By 1865, their resistance had achieved the building of 120 federal schools that taught 13,000 students. 2. But Gen. Banks (who replaced Butler) worried that the economic foundation of the region would be lost if the plantation system was allowed to crumble, so he established a contract-labor system that mirrored slavery in all but name. (Banks also abolished corporal punishment of workers but regularly used federal troops to enforce discipline and ensure black workers compliance to their ex-master "employers".)

A. The Union occupation of Louisiana revealed the central conflict that would characterize the entire period of Reconstruction. Both northern politicians and southern leaders were committed to rebuilding the southern cotton economy. But to do so required the exploitation of black labor. Freed people themselves demanded land to grow their own crops. Indeed, they knew that one essential element of freedom, economic independence, required that they own and cultivate their own lands. 1. The north moved to return siezed lands to their former planter owners. The freedmen's bureau cooperated with southern planters by coercing black people to sign year-long plantation labor contracts. 2. The south moved to control black labor through discriminatory legislation. "Black Codes" contained provisions making it illegal not to have "lawful employment" - in practice, any black person who refused to work for the planter's stipulated wage, would be arrested and imprisoned or sentanced to work for a planter. Other codes restricted African-Americans to domestic and agricultural labor. a. anti-"enticement" laws b. cities closed to freedmen c. "apprenticeship" laws d. criminalization of collective action to raise wages and the breaking of labor contracts e. access to economic resources curtailed through laws against hunting and fishing.

V. By 1866, Congresses conflict with Pres. Johnson over his vetoes of the Civil Rights Act and the extension of the Freedmen's Bureau brought moderates and radicals together on a program of establishing political equality for African-Americans. The result of their efforts was the 14th. Amendment. A. Established once and for all that black people were citizens. (Thus overturned Dred Scott.) B. Attempted to establish the federal government as the supervisor of civil liberties - mandated that states provide "equal protection of the laws". (Though this would later be undermined by the Supreme Court.) C. But the basis for the Republicans weak interest in the enfranchisement of African-Americans was evident in the amendements procedure for reducing Southern representation if voting rights were denied. The ruling party's primary interest was in maintaining their rule (preferably in cooperation with victorious southern Republican parties) and it mattered not whether this this were to be accomplished through enfranchisement of black men or by reducing the southern representation in Congress.

VI. Election of 1866 gave the Radicals a stronger hand for a time. (Radicals won votes after the outrages of Memphis, May 1, 1866 (46 blacks, many Union soldiers murdered) and New Orleans, July 30, 1866, 34 blacks and 2 white radicals murdered)) Radicals pushed through the Reconstruction Act of 1867: 1. Confederate states divided into 5 military districts and supervised by federal troops. 2. New southern constitutional conventions to be held under the protection of federal troops. a. The conventions had to include provisions for black suffrage in their constitutions and the new state legislatures had to ratify the 14th amendment to regain entry into Congress.

VII. Black Reconstruction: A. With the arrival of federal troops and the calling of new state conventions, blacks organized, lobbied, and protested to a degree they could not before. 1. Rapid growth of the Union League. 2. Fall state convention election of 1867 brought between 70 and 90 percent of the eligable black male voters to the polls. Across the south 265 African-Americans were elected as delegates. They helped to mold some of the most progressive state constitutions in the nation.

VIII. When the first state legislatures were elected under these constitutions, over 600 seats were won by African-Americans. Over the next nine years, 14 black men would be seated in the House of Representatives, 2 black men would be elected US Senators, and 6 blacks would serve as lieutenant governors. (Contrary to the pervasive racist mythology about this period, the great majority of these men were educated and about a quarter of them were free before the war.) Thousands of other African- Americans held local offices as sheriffs, mayors, aldermen, school board members, etc. (Most of these came from the ranks of freedmen.)

A. The success of the Republican party during this time was built on three constituencies. Primarily African-Americans of all classes; but also former southern Whigs and poor yeoman farmers. 20% of the southern Republican vote came from these two later groups.

B. The political achievements of these Republican governments in 1867 were remarkable:

a. public schools (1) By 1876 nearly half of all southern children were in school. b. social-welfare agencies c. reform of criminal code d. progressive taxation e. guarantee of equal political and civil rights (1) AK, MS, LA, FL, SC all banned discrimination in public accomodations. (Though on the books, much of this legislation was not well enforced.) f. universal male suffrage g. labor legislation (1) lien laws (2) SC instituted a public Land Commission that had authority to purchase and redistribute lands. By 1876, this commission had settled 14,000 African-American families (1/7 of the black population) on their own homesteads.

IX. As a result of these legal changes, black workers found themselves in a far better bargaining position and eliminated a number of onerous provisions from their labor contracts, industrial workers increased their wages, and sharecroppers increased their share of the crop from 1/10 to 1/3 and 1/2.

X. But the southern republican coalition soon began to break apart as state budgets swelled and the tax base (now that slaves, the major form of southern property were freed) drastically declined. In spite of the more progressive levying of taxes, a the taxes laid upon poor whites increased and they gradually drifted into the Democratic party. Urban whigs, interested in industrializing the south abandoned the coalition as the rising state indebtedness foreclosed the near term possibility of shaking economic subsidies and internal improvements out of the state budgets. Democrats assisted the breakup by playing the race card and by the end of 1867, some southern state governments fell back into the hands of the old planter aristocracy.

XI. The committment to social reconstruction, what there was of it, began to falter in the North after 1867:

A. Congress failed to pass Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner's confiscation proposals (that would have seized large plantations and distributed their lands) giving a boost to southern Democrats. Stevens argued: "No people will ever be republican in spirit and practice where a few own immense manors and the masses are landless. Small independent landholders are the support and guardians of republican liberty." Why didn't the north opt for redistribution? 1. Entrepenurial ideology 2. Northern business fears of end of cotton production (cotton still the nation's #1 foriegn export).

B. U.S. Grant, candidate of the "stalwart" faction of the Republican party, elected President in 1868. C. Large numbers of troops withdrawn from the South.

XII. The decline of social protections for African-Americans undermined their political power: A. landlords and employers now demanded political loyalty as a condition of employment (however, most blacks resisted such coercion): 1. one landlord's contract read: "Said Laborers shall not attach themselves, belong to, or in any way perform any of the obligations required of what is known as the `Loyal League Society,' or attend elections or political meetings without the consent of the employer."

B. lack of federal troops allowed for violent intimidation of black communities. Rise of the Ku Klux Klan. (KKK acted not only to prevent blacks from voting or holding office through a campaign of terror; they also attacked black people who had succeeded in attaining a degree of econonmic independence.) 1. Campaign of terror accelerated in the spring of 1868.

XIII. Provoked by the rise of white terrorism, Congress enacted the 15th. Amendment - a move that ran counter to the general retreat from Reconstruction that northern politicians were undertaking. A. Outrages continued, especially the massacre in Meridian, Miss. B. 1871, Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act making certain offenses against citizen's rights actionable under federal law. C. Grant also declared martial law in SC and sent federal troops to quell the violence.

D. But white terrorism continued in areas unpatrolled by federal troops and Congress stood idly by and let it happen.

XIV. Final blows to Congressional reconstruction A. Panic of 1873 1. increased the political leverage of landlords and employers over workers in the south. 2. prompted northern businessmen to abandon the vestiges of Reconstruction.

B. 1875 Mississippi Democrats retake state government through intimidation and violence against both whites and blacks. The Democrats bloody success there encouraged imitation throughout the south. 1. 35 black deputies killed in a shootout in Vicksburg in 1874.

C. 1874 Democrats gain control of the House of Representatives. D. Presidential election of 1876. Samuel J. Tilden (Democratic reform Gov. of NY) won more votes, but Republicans controlled the count in three southern states. A deal was struck where Rutherford B. Hayes would take the presidency and all federal troops would be removed from the South. April of 1877, Hayes pulled out the remaining troops from LA and SC.

E. Southern Democratic immediately recriminalized the violation of labor contracts. Landownership on the part of blacks was lost and sharecropping became far more exploitative. 1. Democratic regimes steadily disenfranchised the black electorate over the next twenty years. Disenfranchisement was finally complete in 1900.

[Friday May 12, 1995 was a review session, no lecture was given.].

ID: NOTES-101.15.

Generated by goweb.build, 12-22-1999 17:1:12