Reconstruction Roots of Republican Party in the early stages of America, while trying to side step “equality” to benefit essentially an oligarchy instead of Every American.
Timestamp 4:40 :Under Abraham Lincoln, government was by the people for the people. Even though this now included African Americans, it didn’t include Chinese Americans, Mexican Americans, and women. After the Civil War had ended, it was believed that the war would bankrupt the country. Contraily, industries blossomed because they created goods for the War. Agriculture blossomed due to helping abroad. The country became more powerful overall.
Timestamp 7:36: In 1864 Lincoln was assassinated and replaced by a Democrat, Andrew Johnson. This all occurred while Congress was not in session, which means Andrew Johnson single handedly managed reconstruction. He sympathized with the south, which gave him bias of sorts.
Timestamp 10:20: He shortly thereafter offered a proclamation, offering confederates that apologized for their affiliation with the South and swore allegiance to the US Government. There were exceptions to this proclamation, most namely their worth. The war was caused by the rich, and fought by the poor. By doing this, they got a Presidential pardon, which prevented 1500 of the leading confederates to be tried on a federal level.
Timestamp 16:26: After the 13th Amendment was strongly backed by the President, the Southern states pushed back. Some states created the Black codes which limited what African Americans could do with correlated punishment, which could lead back to enslavement. These codes included congregation, ability to own guns, and ability to testify in court etc.
Timestamp 21:20: Once Congress is back in Session, President Andrew Johnson presents a message to congress that states he has successfully reconstructed the union in their absence. The condition was they had to elect some members of congress out of those 1500 pardons previously issued, who were senior members of the Confederacy. Northern Republicans are very against the idea, but Northern Democrats back the idea.
Timestamp 24:44: Congress Creates the Committee of 15, and gathers testimony from Southern African Americans. During this time, they create part of the Civil Rights act, which entitles them to exist within the law (suing, etc) and ability to hold property. They also create the Freedmen's Bureau act which allows them to testify. These are vetoed under the premise of the law “doesn’t represent white people” and the laws were being created without representation in congress. Another objection that was faced was everything they were requesting would have required tax paying dollars and a redistribution of wealth.
Timestamp 32:40: In the midterms of 1866 Republicans won Super Majority, which allows them to have the Southern states write new constitutions to protect Free Labor in the South. This creates the military Reconstruction act, stating that voting for these states are to be inclusive of both whites and African Americans. Southern democrats state they would prefer to be under military rule than deal with it. Affluent white men opposed the new state constitutions, which gave less power to them and more power to the general population. In an attempt to prevent people from voting, they dress up as dead confederate soldiers and cover themselves in sheets and go to homes that may vote in favor of getting this ratified. This is how the KKK adopted the covering of themselves with white sheets.
Timestamp 39:49 : As soon as the Military Reconstruction Act was passed, the Union League was created with mainly African Americans and Poor white people. They have quite liberal tendencies. This becomes important when the employees in the north who didn’t benefit financially from the Industrial uptick from the war, start experiencing unemployment, seeing interest on the war bonds and also suffer from inflation. These people have “radical” views of 8 hour work days and health insurance. This concerns people because immigrants tend to get industrial jobs, so handing power over to essentially immigrants and the uneducated concerned those in power.
Timestamp 48:00: Republicans don’t trust the Southerners having a say in making laws that affect the North, and going into the election of 1868 the Democrats said the Republicans are trying to create a one party state so Democrats can never have a say in anything ever again. The Articles of Impeachment are written to Impeach Andrew Johnson. They choose to Nominate Ulysses S Grant, as they need someone who is seen as a moderate. They underestimate his intelligence, but both African Americans and Poor White people vote for him. As the black vote essentially swung the election, the democrats say the republicans have placed a system of “Black Supremacy” since they are now permitted to vote they swing the southern states.
[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]
