What is the significance of the election of 1866

Though the fact of their presence was dramatic and important, as the New York Times description above demonstrates, the few African American representatives and senators who served in Congress during Reconstruction represented only a tiny fraction of the many hundreds, possibly thousands, of blacks who served in a great number of capacities at the local and state levels.

The South during the early s brimmed with freed slaves and freeborn blacks serving as school board commissioners, county commissioners, clerks of court, board of education and city council members, justices of the peace, constables, coroners, magistrates, sheriffs, auditors, and registrars. This wave of local African American political activity contributed to and was accompanied by a new concern for the poor and disadvantaged in the South.

The southern Republican leadership did away with the hated black codes, undid the work of white supremacists, and worked to reduce obstacles confronting freed people. Reconstruction governments invested in infrastructure, paying special attention to the rehabilitation of the southern railroads. They set up public education systems that enrolled both white and black students.

They established or increased funding for hospitals, orphanages, and asylums for the insane. In some states, the state and local governments provided the poor with basic necessities like firewood and even bread. And to pay for these new services and subsidies, the governments levied taxes on land and property, an action that struck at the heart of the foundation of southern economic inequality.

Indeed, the land tax compounded the existing problems of white landowners, who were often cash-poor, and contributed to resentment of what southerners viewed as another northern attack on their way of life. White southerners reacted with outrage at the changes imposed upon them. The sight of once-enslaved blacks serving in positions of authority as sheriffs, congressmen, and city council members stimulated great resentment at the process of Reconstruction and its undermining of the traditional social and economic foundations of the South.

Unfortunately for the great many honest reformers, southerners did have a handful of real examples of corruption they could point to, such as legislators using state revenues to buy hams and perfumes or giving themselves inflated salaries. Such examples, however, were relatively few and largely comparable to nineteenth-century corruption across the country. The sense that the South had been unfairly sacrificed to northern vice and black vengeance, despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary, persisted for many decades.

So powerful and pervasive was this narrative that by the time D. Griffith released his motion picture, The Birth of a Nation , whites around the country were primed to accept the fallacy that white southerners were the frequent victims of violence and violation at the hands of unrestrained blacks.

The reality is that the opposite was true. White southerners orchestrated a sometimes violent and generally successful counterrevolution against Reconstruction policies in the South beginning in the s.

Those who worked to change and modernize the South typically did so under the stern gaze of exasperated whites and threats of violence. Black Republican officials in the South were frequently terrorized, assaulted, and even murdered with impunity by organizations like the Ku Klux Klan.

When not ignoring the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments altogether, white leaders often used trickery and fraud at the polls to get the results they wanted. As Reconstruction came to a close, these methods came to define southern life for African Americans for nearly a century afterward.

Though President Johnson declared Reconstruction complete less than a year after the Confederate surrender, members of Congress disagreed. Republicans in Congress began to implement their own plan of bringing law and order to the South through the use of military force and martial law. Radical Republicans who advocated for a more equal society pushed their program forward as well, leading to the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, which finally gave blacks the right to vote.

The new amendment empowered black voters, who made good use of the vote to elect black politicians. By the end of , all the southern states under Union military control had satisfied the requirements of Congress and been readmitted to the Union.

Union Leagues fraternal groups loyal to the Union and the Republican Party that became political and civic centers for blacks in former Confederate states.

Skip to main content. Chapter 1: The Era of Reconstruction, Search for:. Radical Reconstruction, — Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Explain the purpose of the second phase of Reconstruction and some of the key legislation put forward by Congress Describe the impeachment of President Johnson Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the Fifteenth Amendment.

Blair of Missouri. The Republicans bitterly attacked Johnson as a traitor to Lincoln and the nation in their convention in Chicago, nominating General Ulysses S. Running a "bloody shirt" campaign, which tagged the Democrats as the party of secession and treason, the Republicans swept to victory, winning 53 percent of the popular vote to Seymour's 47 percent. See Grant Biography, Campaigns and Elections section, for further details. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes James A.

Garfield Chester A. Roosevelt Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Bush Bill Clinton George W. Help inform the discussion Support the Miller Center. University of Virginia Miller Center. Andrew Johnson: Campaigns and Elections.

Breadcrumb U. The Republicans took their case to the people in the elections of and won a decisive victory. With their veto-proof majorities in both the House and the Senate, the Republicans sought to expand and deepen Reconstruction in the South with the aim of better securing civil rights and making race riots a thing of the past.

They acted so that rebels would have less of a place in the new order. They also extended the franchise to blacks in Washington D. Many other more extensive proposals were made. Still, Johnson would be the one to implement any laws and his heart was clearly not in it. Something had to be done about his dogged opposition to Reconstruction, or so Republicans thought. For now, Charles Sumner Republican Senator of Massachusetts, long one of the chief advocates in the Senate for emancipation, extended his criticisms of Johnson in a speech to the people of Boston in the fall of It is now more than a year since I last had the honor of addressing my fellow-citizens of Massachusetts.

On that occasion, I dwelt on what seemed to be the proper policy towards the States recently in rebellion — insisting that it was our duty. During the intervening months, the country has been agitated by this question, which was perplexed by an unexpected difference between the President and Congress. The President insists upon installing ex-rebels in political power, and sets at naught the claim of guarantees and the idea of security for the future, while he denies to Congress any control over this question, and takes it all to himself.

Congress has asserted its control, and has endeavored to shut out ex-rebels from political power and to establish guarantees, to the end that there might be security for the future.

Meanwhile, the States recently in rebellion, with the exception of Tennessee, are without representation in Congress. Thus stands the case. The two parties in the controversy are the President on the one side, and the people of the United States in Congress assembled on the other side. It is the One Man Power vs. Of course, each of these performs its part in the government; but, until now, it has always been supposed that the Legislative gave the law to the Executive, and not that the Executive gave the law to the Legislative.

Perhaps this irrational assumption becomes more astonishing when it is considered that the actual President, besides being the creature of an accident, is inferior in ability and character, while the House of Representatives is eminent in both respects. Thus, in looking at the parties, we are tempted to exclaim: Such a President dictating to such a Congress! The question at issue is one of the vastest ever presented for practical decision.

It is a question of statesmanship. We are to secure by counsel what was won by war. Failure now will make the war itself a failure; surrender now will undo all our victories. Our first duty is to provide safeguards for the future. This can be only by provisions.

Such is the suggestion of common prudence and of self-defense. States which precipitated themselves out of Congress must not be permitted to precipitate themselves back.

They must not be allowed to enter those halls which they treasonably deserted, until we have every reasonable assurance of future good conduct. From all quarters we learn that after the surrender of Lee, the rebels were ready for any terms, if they could escape with their lives. They were vanquished, and they knew it. Had the national government merely taken advantage of this plastic condition, it might have stamped Equal Rights upon the whole people, as upon molten wax, while it fixed the immutable conditions of permanent peace.

The question of reconstruction would have been settled before it arose. It is sad to think that this was not done. Perhaps in all history there is no instance of such an opportunity lost. Glance, if you please, at that Presidential Policy. You all know that at the close of the war, when the rebel states were without lawful governments, he assumed to supply them.

In this business of reconstruction he assumed to determine who should vote, and also to affix conditions for adoption by the conventions. The former is a military act, and belongs to the President. The latter is a civil act, and belongs to Congress. On this distinction I stand. The other blunder is. From top to bottom these States were organized by men who had been warring on their country. Ex-rebels were appointed by the governor or chosen by the people everywhere.

Ex-rebels sat in conventions and in legislatures. Ex-rebels became judges, justices of the peace, sheriffs and everything else, while the faithful Unionist, white or black, was rejected. This is a mistake.

Would that he could rise from his bloody shroud to repel the calumny! But he has happily left his testimony behind, in words which all who have ears to hear can hear.

He is constructing State governments, not merely in preponderating part, but in whole from the hostile element. Therefore, he departs openly from the policy of the martyred Lincoln. Such are two pivotal blunders of the President. It is not easy to see how he has fallen into these — so strong were his early professions the other way.

The powers of Congress he had distinctly admitted. He was equally positive against the restoration of rebels to power. You do not forget that, in accepting his nomination as Vice-President, he rushed forward to declare that the rebel States must be remodelled; that confiscation must be enforced, and that rebels must be excluded from the work of reconstruction.

His language was plain and unmistakable. Then ensued a strange sight. Instead of faithful Unionists, recent rebels thronged the Presidential ante-chambers, rejoicing in a new-found favor. They made speeches at the President, and he made speeches at them.

A mutual sympathy was manifest. Instead of telling the ex-rebels that thronged the Presidential ante-chambers, as he should have done, that he was their friend ; that he wished them well from the bottom his heart; that he longed to see their fields yield an increase and peace in all their borders, and that, to this end, he counselled them to devote themselves to agriculture, commerce and manufactures, and for the present to say nothing about politics;—instead of this, he sent them away talking and thinking of nothing but politics, and frantic for the re-establishment of a sectional power.

Instead of designating officers of the army as military governors, which I had supposed he would do, he appointed ex-rebels, who could not take the oath required by Congress of all officers of the United States, and they in turn appointed ex-rebels to office under them, so that participation in the rebellion found its reward, and treason, instead of being made odious, became a passport to power.

The evil that he has done already is on such a scale that it is impossible to measure it, unless as you measure an arc of the globe. I doubt if in all history there is any ruler, who in the same brief space of time has done so much.

There have been kings and emperors, proconsuls and satraps, who have exercised a tyrannical power; but the facilities of communication now lend swiftness and extension to all evil influences, so that the President has been able to do in a year what in other days would have taken a life. Nor is the evil that he has done confined to any narrow spot. It is co-extensive with the Republic. Next to Jefferson Davis stands Andrew Johnson as its worst enemy.

The whole has suffered; but it is the rebel region which has suffered most. He should have sent peace; instead, he sent a sword. In the first place, Congress must be sustained in its conflict with the One Man Power , and in the second place, ex-rebels must not be restored to power. Bearing these two things in mind the way will be easy. Of course, the constitutional amendment must be adopted.

As far as it goes, it is well; but it does not go far enough. More must be done. Impartial suffrage must be established. If to these is added education, there will be a new order of things, with liberty of the press, liberty of speech and liberty of travel.

Let these be secured and all else will follow. You are aware, that from the beginning I have insisted upon impartial suffrage as the only certain guarantee of security and reconciliation.

How did Reconstruction leave an enduring legacy? The black family became more like the typical white family, with men as the breadwinners and women as the homemakers. The Compromise of was an unwritten deal, informally arranged among U. Congressmen, that settled the intensely disputed presidential election. It resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, and ending the Reconstruction Era. Three Reconstruction amendments were designed to end slavery, allow all Americans to coexist, and protect the rights of the newly freed slaves.