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Course: Constitution 101 Sandbox > Unit 5

Lesson 5: 7.5: Reconstruction: An Overview

Info Brief: Overview of Reconstruction

Review the Reconstruction period.

Overview of Reconstruction

Following the Civil War, we finally transformed our Constitution—and its very text—forever. Why do some scholars—including leading Reconstruction historian Eric Foner—refer to this period (known as Reconstruction) as America’s Second Founding?

During this period, our nation confronted a series of vexing questions.

What was the meaning of the Civil War—a bloody, bloody war—and what should be the terms of a lasting peace?
How should our nation answer the Declaration of Independence’s prophetic call for freedom and equality?
How should we define what it means to be a U.S. citizen?
How broadly should the right to vote sweep?
And what role—if any—should the federal government play in protecting the civil and political rights of all?

And make no mistake, the Reconstruction Amendments transformed our Constitution forever. Recall where the Constitution stood before this critical period.

Of course, it didn’t mention the word “slavery.” However, various constitutional provisions—including the Three-Fifths Clause and the Fugitive Slave Clause—had increased the political power of the slaveholding states throughout the pre-Civil War period.
The Constitution was silent on the Declaration’s promise of equality and on the issue of African American voting rights.
States could violate key Bill of Rights protections like free speech without any consequences—and many Southern states did just that, banning abolitionist speech, with at least one state punishing such advocacy with death.
And citizenship rights were left to the states and the courts—with Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney infamously concluding in Dred Scott that African Americans could not be citizens and that they had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

And after our nation’s Second Founding?

Our Constitution abolished slavery. (That’s the Thirteenth Amendment.)
It made everyone born on American soil a U.S. citizen. (That’s the Fourteenth Amendment.)
It promised equality for all. (That’s the Fourteenth Amendment—again!)
It protected us from state abuses of important rights like free speech. (That’s the Fourteenth Amendment—yet again!)
It guaranteed the right to vote free of racial discrimination. (That’s the Fifteenth Amendment.)
And it gave the national government the authority to protect the civil and political rights of all. (That’s the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments!)

Of course, the Second Founding wasn’t perfect. It was thwarted in its own time by violence in the South, a mix of racism and indifference in the North, and a desire for North-South (white) reconciliation, more generally. It would take nearly a century and the Civil Rights Movement to begin to fulfill the promises enshrined in the Reconstruction Amendments. Nevertheless, our Reconstruction Founders made an important start.

Let’s take a closer look at this under-studied era of American history.

A Brief Reconstruction History

The Reconstruction Amendments

The Reconstruction generation ratified three constitutional amendments. Let’s briefly review the power of each of the Reconstruction Amendments.

The Thirteenth Amendment—ratified in December 1865—abolished slavery.

The Fourteenth Amendment—ratified in July 1868—wrote the Declaration of Independence’s promise of freedom and equality into the Constitution. It combined four big ideas—four ways in which it transformed the Constitution forever:

First, birthright citizenship: Dred Scott is overturned, African Americans did have rights that the white man was bound to respect, and if you’re born on American soil, you’re an American citizen.
Second, equality: the original Constitution was silent on the issue of equality, and now the Declaration of Independence’s promise (that “all men” and women “are created equal”) is written into the Constitution.
Third, freedom: the original Bill of Rights was limited to abuses by the national government, and now the Constitution protects those in the United States from abuses of key rights by the states—key rights like those in the Bill of Rights like free speech and religious liberty.
And fourth, national power over civil rights: Congress is now given the power to enforce the protections enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment. The Reconstruction Amendments are the first set of constitutional amendments to expand the reach of national power—rather than restrict it (as, for instance, the Bill of Rights did). So, Congress has more power than before.

Finally, the Fifteenth Amendment—ratified in February 1870—promised to end racial discrimination in voting.

Big Idea

While the original Constitution—plus the Bill of Rights—remains a powerful statement of many of America’s most enduring principles, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments truly represent our nation’s “Second Founding.” While America has struggled to realize the promise of our nation’s Second Founding, these transformational amendments represent some of our Constitution’s most important principles—and protections. It’s only after Lincoln, emancipation, victory in the Civil War, and the ratification of the Reconstruction Amendments that the Constitution begins to fully emerge as the inspiring document that it is today, redeeming us from the Framers’ original sin of slavery and beginning to give our nation what Lincoln promised at Gettysburg—“a new birth of freedom.”

Landmark Reconstruction Legislation

While the Reconstruction Amendments were crucial to America’s Second Founding, they were not the only political accomplishments of the era.

Though they enjoyed freedom after the abolition of slavery, African Americans still faced discriminatory laws and extralegal violence in the South. To address these challenges, the national government passed a variety of measures aimed at fulfilling Reconstruction’s promise of freedom and equality. Below are some key examples of the landmark legislation passed by the Reconstruction Congress.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the first piece of national civil rights legislation enacted in American history. Importantly, it also laid the groundwork for the Fourteenth Amendment. The Act defined citizenship and confirmed that all citizens are guaranteed the equal protection of the laws, regardless of race. President Andrew Johnson first vetoed this Act, but Congress enacted it anyway by overriding the President’s veto with a two-thirds majority. This was the first time in American history that a presidential veto was overridden to enact a major piece of legislation.

General Sherman’s Field Order 15

For one specific example of the types of innovative solutions attempted during Reconstruction, let’s look at the Sea Islands along the coasts of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. Historian Philip Dray tells the story of how these islands exhibited one of the federal government’s closest attempts to redistribute former plantation land to African Americans in the South.

Much of the land had previously been owned by wealthy Southern rice plantation owners—but with General William T. Sherman’s successful March to the Sea, the Union had confiscated the lands. The national government now faced a choice of what to do with these lands. Towards the end of the war, the area’s Black population dramatically increased, as refugees and the formerly enslaved fled the combat zones in the South. In January 1865, General William Sherman met with Black community leaders to ask how the government could best help them. As Dray describes it, the community leaders were unanimous and clear: “The way we can best take care of ourselves… is to have land, and turn and till it by our own labor.”

Sherman listened. In response, he issued Field Order 15, which established the Sea Islands as a safe zone for the formerly enslaved and their families to move and establish their own communities. And land was the biggest selling point; the Order promised forty-acre parcels for each family. (This is the origin of the phrase “forty acres and a mule.”). Sherman’s Order redistributed 400,000 acres of land stretching from Florida to South Carolina.

As land ownership was a major key to economic mobility, Sherman’s plan would have provided a path towards economic equality for many African Americans in these communities—around 40,000 Freedmen were the early beneficiaries of the Order. But unfortunately, the Order did not last long. By the fall of 1865, President Andrew Johnson had reversed Sherman’s Order—and the U.S. military removed the formerly enslaved from their lands, returning the again-confiscated land to the former plantation owners.

The Freedmen’s Bureau

In 1865, Congress passed an Act establishing the Freedmen’s Bureau, an agency which provided food, clothing, medical services, educational opportunities, and legal assistance to newly freed African Americans. The Bureau fed millions of people and helped the formerly enslaved track down family members who had been sold elsewhere. It established thousands of schools for Black Americans, primarily in the South. It helped to establish Howard University and other Black universities. And following the example of Sherman’s Field Order, the Bureau had the authority to promote and facilitate land redistribution and allocation (in fact, much of the confiscated land covered by Sherman’s order was given over to the Bureau to redistribute).

The first Freedmen’s Bureau bill created the Bureau for the duration of the war and one year after. It was passed (and signed by President Lincoln) just two months before General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. By 1866, Congress wanted to extend the Bureau’s time, so it passed additional legislation. But now, the President was Andrew Johnson, who again vetoed the bill. And yet again, Congress overrode Johnson’s veto, extending the Bureau for an additional few years.

The Reconstruction Acts

Astute readers may have noticed a recurring theme from these historical scenes: when the Reconstruction Congress passed major legislation aimed at improving political, social, and economic outcomes for African Americans, President Andrew Johnson often attempted to stop it. After all, he vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 1866 Freedmen’s Bureau bill. Congressional Republicans were worried that Johnson would thwart their attempts to reconstruct the nation.

Following the Election of 1866, Congress wrested control of Reconstruction from the Johnson administration, marking the end of “Presidential Reconstruction” and the beginning of “Congressional Reconstruction.” The President, in their view, was far too lenient towards former Confederates and far too hostile to the rights and liberties of African Americans. So, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts to make clear that the congressional vision of Reconstruction would win.

The Reconstruction Acts imposed military rule on the South, requiring each state to meet certain criteria to gain full readmission and home rule. Among other requirements, Southern states were required to allow African American men to vote, hold new constitutional conventions to establish new state constitutions, and ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.

The opening lines of the Reconstruction Act of 1867 made clear that Congress had no faith in Southern governments to respect the rights of African Americans; Congress had received far too many reports of anti-Black violence and discriminatory laws (like the “Black Codes”). Now, Congress would use the U.S. military to ensure the success of Reconstruction in the former Confederacy:

“Whereas no legal State governments or adequate protection for life or property now exists in the rebel States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Texas and Arkansas; and whereas it is necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said States until loyal and republican State governments can be legally established: Therefore…said rebel States shall be divided into military districts and made subject to the military authority of the United States as hereinafter prescribed…”

Congress passed a series of similar acts during 1867-1868, all of which passed over President Johnson’s vetoes. These Acts were crucial to provide many of the advancements made during Reconstruction, with African American votes in the former South central to the ratification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment, as well as the election of President Ulysses S. Grant in 1868. Because of the Reconstruction Acts, African Americans secured voting rights in the states of the former Confederacy before the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment.

The Civil Rights Act of 1875

As early as 1870, Senator Charles Sumner sought to protect African Americans from discrimination in public conveyances. He believed a civil rights act protecting access to public accommodations would be the permanent legacy of Reconstruction. Although Sumner did not live to see his bill passed, the Civil Rights Act of 1875, passed by a lame duck session of Congress, became the first federal public accommodation law passed in the United States. By “public accommodation,” the bill specified “inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement,” although not businesses or, as Sumner conceded during debate over the bill, “social life.” Sadly, the Act was struck down in The Civil Rights Cases (1883) by a Supreme Court increasingly hostile to Reconstruction and African American civil rights. But the principle of protecting rights to public accommodation through federal legislation would be revived nearly a hundred years later, in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Profiles in Black Leadership During Reconstruction

Histories of Reconstruction are full of inspiring stories of heroism, of the political and community leaders who helped to push for robust multiracial democracy in the United States. The role of African American leaders in pushing for an ambitious vision of the Reconstruction generation cannot be understated. Here are just a few examples:

Robert Smalls

Enslaved by a Confederate naval captain, Robert Smalls was forced in the early days of the Civil War to maintain a Confederate ship and place mines in the Charleston harbor. In 1862, Smalls impersonated the captain and sailed the ship, along with the rest of the Black crew and their families, past Confederate sentries and to freedom. Northern newspapers showered praise on this heroic act, and it helped convince President Lincoln to allow African American soldiers into the Union Army. After the war, Smalls returned to South Carolina and ran for office. He was elected to the U.S. House, where he served for over a decade (1875-1887). He was the last Republican to represent his South Carolina district until 2010.

Hiram Revels

During the Civil War, Hiram Revels served as an army chaplain, helping to recruit and establish Black regiments once the Union began accepting Black troops. Revels was selected to serve as U.S. Senator from Mississippii from 1870-1871, the first Black representative in either House of Congress. When Revels arrived to the Senate, Southern Democrats tried to refuse to seat him, citing Dred Scott. He was eventually seated on a party-line vote. As a senator, Revels continuously pushed for racial equality. On the question of punishing ex-Confederates, Revels called for amnesty and full citizenship, provided a loyalty oath was given. After his time in the Senate, Revels served as a college president in Mississippi.

Richard “Daddy” Cain

An African Methodist Episcopal (AME) minister with a booming voice, Richard Cain served and grew a number of churches in Missouri, Iowa, and New York. After the war, Cain moved to South Carolina and presided over one of the largest AME congregations in the South. Cain also served in the 1868 South Carolina constitutional convention, helping to ensure that the state constitution complied with the federal government’s requirements for Reconstruction. Cain eventually served two terms in the U.S. House. He was the first Black clergyman to serve in the House.

P.B.S. Pinchback

After serving as a captain during the war, P.B.S. Pinchback moved to New Orleans and became active in the Republican Party. He served in the 1867 Louisiana constitutional convention, then soon turned to state politics, eventually serving as a state senator and lieutenant governor. Pinchback briefly served as governor of Louisiana, becoming the first Black governor of a U.S. state.

John Mercer Langston

Denied admission to law schools based on his race, John Mercer Langston studied law under an abolitionist attorney in the 1850s, becoming the first Black man admitted to the Ohio bar. Langston became active in the Ohio Underground Railroad and later helped to recruit hundreds of Black Union soldiers during the war. After the war, Langston was appointed inspector general of the Freedmen's Bureau. His career included a wide variety of political and legal positions, from first Dean of Howard Law School to serving as the U.S. Minister to Haiti and to the Dominican Republic.

For more details on these profiles, see Phillip Dray, Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen. 2008.

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