Summary: Presidential Reconstruction after the American Civil War, based on the question of who gets to participate in Democracy. During the War, the Republicans created the income tax and what will eventually turn into the IRS. The Relationship between the government and it’s citizens are questioned during this time, as well as Minorities and the government.
Timestamp 6:53: In 1865, many people who usually don’t have a say in Government were contributors in their decisions (African Americans, Indigenous people, Women, etc), but they aren’t yet able to participate in it. Although there is a conflict in the West between the American Indians wanting to maintain their lands, and the settlers wanting to acquire it, All eyes turn to the South. Both the North and the South want to control the West.
Timestamp 13:05: After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth goes into hiding. The assassination of Lincoln occurs when the worse of the war had passed, and Americans got a sense of the light at the end of the tunnell. Upon his death, people who were his competitors were in his cabinet. The person who takes the Presidency is Andrew Johnson, who favors the beliefs of Southerners.
Timestamp 17:54: Congress adjourns immediately after President Lincoln’s inauguration. During this time, Congressmen need to travel wherever their home state is. This results in the early steps of reconstruction not being managed by Congress, but solely by Andrew Johnson. Andrew Johnson shortly thereafter presents former Confederates with an opportunity to re-join the Union and hold office by giving Presidential pardons. Andrew Johnson essentially creates a group of people who are more powerful after the civil war than before it, because of the Census that was happening as well, which influenced the amount of representation for African American heavy states.
Timestamp 25:11: The Southerner freed slaves are having issues finding food as it was in between crops. Congress Countered the proposed idea of helping provide freed slaves with food as White men were also experiencing food Scarcity. As a compromise, The Bureau of Refugees, Freedman, and Abandoned Lands was created as a subdivision of the War Department. This will Help get people through the War transition period.
Timestamp 31:52: As African Americans become free, but not equal, members of Society, their lives change. They try to rebuild their families, push to be legally married through officiation, and places of Worship, and experiment with different economic models to support the African American community. Due to this change, African American women often resort to selling food and other goods streetside, which is where the image of the Lazy African American man is born, even though they were toiling in the fields.
Timestamp 34:32: Once African Americans gravitate back towards field labor, as they are now considered equal, they are entitled to being paid. During this time, their employers often don’t pay them, but they have no recourse as they don’t have Civil Rights to testify or sue yet.
Timestamp 37:58: Johnson appoints Provisional Governors to keep the states on track during reconstruction, and these Governors are tasked with re-writing the state constitutions. When re-writing the constitution, the focus points are ratification of the 13th amendment, nullifying the ordinance of secession, and essentially declaring bankruptcy on the Confederate War Debts. This is paired with the “black laws” which mimics Slavery in some ways.
Timestamp 44:04: Upon the return of Congress into session, Republicans particularly are enraged at all of the changes. They offer assistance with Reconstruction, and Johnson refuses. Johnson instead sends his annual message to Congress, where he announces Reconstruction was completed in their absence and in turn protected the Republican Government within the United States. He proceeds to focus on “Southerners” where he conveniently omits African American Southerners.
Timestamp 48:24: There is some backlash regarding the Federal Government spending, specifically regarding the popular spending of Tariffs, Department of Agriculture, Land Grants, Railroads, etc. They claim these programs are hurting the economy, and believe if you shrink the reach of the federal government, they will be able to revert back to pre Civil War. This leads Northerners to feel as if they won the war but lost the Peace.
[From wikipedia] Richardson’s first book, The Greatest Nation of the Earth (1997), stemmed from her dissertation at Harvard University. Inspired by Eric Foner’s work on pre-Civil War Republican ideology, Richardson analyzed Republican economic policies during the war. She contended that their efforts to create an activist Federal Government during the Civil War marked a continuation of Republican free labor ideology. These policies, such as war bonds and greenbacks or the Land Grant College Act and the Homestead Act, revolutionized the role of the Federal Government in the U.S. economy. At the same time, these actions laid the groundwork for the Republican Party’s shift to Big Business after the Civil War.
In this 2001 book, Richardson "focused on the “Northern abandonment of Reconstruction.” Building on the earlier work of C. Vann Woodward, she argued that a more complete understanding of the period required appreciation of class, not only race. As Reconstruction continued into the 1870s and especially the 1880s, Republicans began to view African Americans in the South more from a class perspective and less from the perspective of race that had driven their earlier humanitarianism. In the midst of the labor struggles of the Gilded Age, Republicans came to compare “the demands of the ex-slaves for land, social services, and civil rights” to the demands of white laborers in the North. This ideological shift was the key to Republican abandonment of Reconstruction, as they chose the protection of their economic and business interests over their desire for racial equality." [From wikipedia]
In this 2007 book, "Richardson presented Reconstruction as a national event that impacted all Americans, not just those in the South. She incorporated the West into the discussion of Reconstruction as no predecessor had. Between 1865 and 1900, Americans re-imagined the role of the federal government, calling upon it to promote the well-being of its citizens. However, racism, sexism, and greed divided Americans, and the same people who increasingly benefited from government intervention—white, middle-class Americans—actively excluded African-Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, and organized laborers from the newfound bounties of their reconstructed nation." [from wikipedia]
In this book, published in 2010, Richardson "focused on the U.S. Army’s slaughter of Native Americans in South Dakota in 1890. She argued that party politics and opportunism led to Wounded Knee. After a bruising midterm election, President Benjamin Harrison needed to shore up his support. To do so, he turned to The Dakotas, where he replaced seasoned Indian agents with unqualified political allies, who incorrectly assumed that the Ghost Dance Movement presaged war. The Army responded by sending one third of its force in order to avoid spending cuts from Congress. After the event, Republicans tried to paint the massacre as a heroic battle to stifle the resurgent Democrats." [wikipedia]
In this 2014 book, Richardson "extended her study of the Republican Party into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book studied the entire life of the GOP, from its inception in the 1850s through the presidency of George W. Bush. The party’s founders united against the “slave power,” a small group of wealthy white men who controlled all three branches of government. These Republicans articulated a new vision of an America in which all hardworking men could rise. But after the Civil War, Republicans began to emulate what they originally opposed. They tied themselves to powerful bankers and industrialists, sacrificing the well-being of ordinary Americans. A similar process took place after World War II, when Republicans sought to dismantle successful New Deal policies and prop up the wealthy. However, in both cases, reformers within the party were able to return the GOP to its founding vision of equality of opportunity, first Theodore Roosevelt during the Progressive Era, and then Dwight D. Eisenhower, who enforced integration and maintained the New Deal. The Nixon and Reagan administrations have represented yet another fall from the GOP’s founding purpose. It's ironic, Richardson points out, that Republicans treated Barack Obama with an unprecedented level of disrespect, as Obama's rise from humble beginnings to the highest office in the nation embodied the vision of the original Republicans." [wikipedia]
In her most recent publication, Richardson argues "that America was founded with contradicting ideals, with the ideas of liberty, equality, and opportunity on one hand, and slavery and hierarchy on the other. United States victory in the American Civil War should have settled that tension forever, but at the same time that the Civil War was fought, Americans also started moving into the West. In the West, Americans found and expanded upon deep racial hierarchies, meaning that hierarchical values survived in American politics and culture despite the crushing defeat of the pro-slavery Confederacy. Those traditions--a rejection of democracy, an embrace of entrenched wealth, the marginalization of women and people of color--have found a home in modern conservative politics, leaving the tremendous promise of America unfulfilled." [wikipedia]
