Did anyone else watch this last night? It talked about the ways the people in the south used such things as peonage, indentured servitude and sharecropping to keep a sort of slavery going after the Civil War, but in ways, it was much worse than slavery. Very powerful and moving. I highly recommend it.
Read the book, have met the author and was hoping this special would do it justice. Did not disappoint! Wonderful production.
I haven’t watched it yet but plan to, and mention for the benefit of anyone else that the full show is available online at pbs.org.
I recorded it and watched it yesterday.
Made me wonder why the north gave up on reconstruction so soon after the war?
It was because Lincoln was assassinated and Johnson took over, wasn’t it? That was my 8th grade history understanding that I’ve carried with my all my life. I wouldn’t be surprised if in reality it was more complicated.
That’s my understanding. Lincoln truly wanted to put the country back together. Johnson wanted to make the South pay for the war. In my opinion, he’s lucky that it wasn’t a mistake on par with the Treaty of Versailles. Besides, you have to remember that only the most hardened abolitionists actually believe that blacks deserved anything like equality. Most of the country thought that they were inferior human beings; human enough for it to be wrong to enslave them, but not human enough to really get full human rights.
Andrew Johnson’s policies during Reconstruction were extremely, 100% pro-Southern-white.
But that isn’t why Reconstruction failed. Republicans had a two-thirds majority in Congress during the Johnson administration, and were able to pass laws over his veto. Reconstruction failed later, because Northerners lost interest in the issue as other problems arose during the 1870’s.
You’ve got it backwards. Johnson was a southerner who wanted to go easy on the readmitted states. It was the Radical Republican contingent in Congress that really wanted to punish the south and Johnson’s vetoes of the harsh measures passed by Congress are what got him impeached.
In the south there was an ongoing terrorist insurgency resisting giving black people full status as citizens. They eventually wore down the Republicans, and the party split. By 1877, southern Democrats were in control of Congress again.
There were many issues involved here, not least that the Republicans had a massive problem with corruption and incompetence, a recession in 1873, a split in the party.
And then you have the disputed election of 1876, in which southerners struck a deal allowing Hayes to become president even though he had lost the popular vote, on condition that the Republicans end Reconstruction.
If anyone is interested, here is an earlier thread from when the book came out, with some comments from yours truly on convict leasing.
Because America didn’t care about black people.
Blacks weren’t seen as people that should be treated equally, but people who need to be dealt with. That’s one of the reasons why black units in World War 2 were led mostly by Southerners, because people from the South “knew how to handle” African-Americans.
So to the extent that the Civil War was about slavery it was slavery in it strictest sense.
Apparently once it was legally outlawed that was enough for the vast majority.
I’m dubious on that one. The West Point graduates were more evenly distributed because the cadets were appointed by state representatives. But overall, the officer corps and career non-coms were overwhelmingly from the South because there were fewer job opportunities for young men from there. Chances were you’d have a Southerner in charge of you, no matter your race.
Besides West Point, there were military academies in the North, such as Western Military Academy in Illinois, and most universities had ROTC programs. But the South had more by proportion and prestige (you’ve probably heard of VMI and the Citadel, but possibly not Western Military Academy before you read this paragraph).
That said, Black units were treated worse. They were subject to harsher discipline, and, based on racial claptrap, Regular Army Black outfits were kept in the Philippines in WWI (the Harlem Hellfighters, etc. were ad-hoc volunteer outfits) because they were a tropical species. If anything, their officers hated this, because combat is a great career-builder.
The Election of 1876 really needs to be emphasized for the actual agreement that ended Reconstruction prematurely. Questionable voting in Florida (& elsewhere) often leads to bad solutions…
Even then, the only way Lincoln could sell emancipation was convincing them that freeing the slaves was the best way to defeat the South.
About other race issues:
Citation: Willbanks, James H. Editor. America’s Heroes: Medal of Honor Recipients from the Civil War to Afghanistan. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. 2011 6-7.
By the time of the election of 1876, Reconstruction was already winding down and had effectively failed. The key turning points were the elections of 1874 in Alabama and 1875 in Mississippi–two incredibly brutal campaigns which were more like guerrilla war than politics, in which white Democrats violently “redeemed” (regained control of) both states without an effective Northern response.
By 1876 Republicans remained in control in only three of 11 former Confederate states (LA, SC, and FL), and it was obvious that the same tactics which worked in AL and MS would work in those states as well. Republicans fought a holding action by having returning boards in the three states certify Republican victory in the presidential election, but there was no way they could retain control of the state governments. White Democrats had the guns, and they weren’t afraid to use them. The Compromise of 1877 pretty much recognized a fait accompli.