WEBVTT 00:12.860 --> 00:16.220 Professor David Blight: I was in a meeting some 00:16.215 --> 00:19.695 months ago of the New York Historical Society's Board of 00:19.697 --> 00:23.477 Trustees; august, wonderful group of 00:23.479 --> 00:26.239 people. That's about thirty-five very 00:26.244 --> 00:30.084 rich New Yorkers and two token historians, and I'm one of the 00:30.081 --> 00:31.361 token historians. 00:31.360 --> 00:37.010 They have us there for window dressing, and other good and 00:37.013 --> 00:39.793 useful and noble purposes. 00:39.790 --> 00:44.670 And during a discussion of a subject I won't even go into, 00:44.670 --> 00:49.890 one of the very intelligent and very dedicated members of that 00:49.892 --> 00:54.262 board--and I'm not being ironic--said that he really 00:54.259 --> 00:59.909 wished American history could be about "people of goodwill." 00:59.910 --> 01:06.220 He wished American history wasn't so full of conflict. 01:06.219 --> 01:12.529 In effect, he was asking "why can't we really just tell the 01:12.525 --> 01:16.435 stories about people of goodwill?" 01:16.439 --> 01:24.919 And I remember thinking, "Oh dear, this poor man." 01:24.920 --> 01:30.000 But of course I didn't say anything, kept my mouth shut. 01:30.000 --> 01:35.840 I nearly threw up, and I just went home, 01:35.836 --> 01:38.826 about my business. 01:38.830 --> 01:40.950 But why can't history just be about people of goodwill? 01:40.950 --> 01:46.340 01:46.340 --> 01:51.050 I'll leave that to you, to figure out. 01:51.050 --> 01:56.680 Sometimes there is a great deal of goodwill and sometimes there 01:56.683 --> 01:59.833 isn't. Now, Reconstruction is a 01:59.833 --> 02:05.593 classic story of--we've said this already--great change, 02:05.590 --> 02:09.670 great experimentation, change forced upon people in 02:09.665 --> 02:14.305 some ways--as we'll see with the Fourteenth Amendment in a 02:14.311 --> 02:18.791 moment--and yet enough of a cadre of leadership accepted 02:18.794 --> 02:23.444 that challenge and rewrote the country you live in. 02:23.439 --> 02:27.579 And yet, of course, like all great change, 02:27.575 --> 02:33.115 it caused a tremendous--and if there's a Newton's Law of 02:33.122 --> 02:37.562 history--an opposite and equal reaction. 02:37.560 --> 02:41.020 Revolutions always cause counter-revolutions, 02:41.017 --> 02:42.507 just count on it. 02:42.509 --> 02:44.969 Look throughout American History just for a moment. 02:44.970 --> 02:50.360 Let's play some games of historical cycles just for a 02:50.357 --> 02:52.647 moment. Think of the greatest, 02:52.650 --> 02:55.060 take your pick, the greatest fundamental 02:55.062 --> 02:59.342 changes in American History, whether that's in society, 02:59.336 --> 03:03.136 the law, politics, massive immigration that 03:03.142 --> 03:08.492 changed the demographics of the country--take your pick, 03:08.490 --> 03:11.110 but pick three or four of the greatest moments of change in 03:11.111 --> 03:11.971 American History. 03:11.969 --> 03:14.779 Every one of them caused a counter-change. 03:14.780 --> 03:20.200 Every revolution we have causes a counter-revolution. 03:20.199 --> 03:25.209 You grew up reaping the great changes of the Civil Rights 03:25.207 --> 03:29.717 Revolution. You take them for granted, 03:29.724 --> 03:34.464 most of us do. But you also came of age in the 03:34.458 --> 03:38.428 midst of the counter-revolution against it. 03:38.430 --> 03:42.540 If you experienced the Civil War and Reconstruction in 03:42.538 --> 03:45.638 America, you experienced a revolution, 03:45.639 --> 03:51.969 in many ways perhaps even more fundamental, than the one in the 03:51.965 --> 03:56.725 '60's and '70s, and you experienced very 03:56.729 --> 04:00.769 quickly its counter-revolution. 04:00.770 --> 04:05.500 Now, I just want to say that because the more you read about 04:05.497 --> 04:08.787 Reconstruction, the more it seems to me you 04:08.788 --> 04:11.498 find serious writers on Reconstruction, 04:11.501 --> 04:14.521 historians or otherwise, and not a lot of popular 04:14.519 --> 04:17.059 writers and journalists have discovered Reconstruction. 04:17.060 --> 04:19.610 We're going to read a book by one of them, Nick Lemann, 04:19.605 --> 04:22.145 who's the Dean of the Journalism School at Columbia, 04:22.149 --> 04:26.289 who in quite good ways fashions himself a historian. 04:26.290 --> 04:28.340 He always says he's not a real historian, 04:28.337 --> 04:31.197 blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, but he did pretty good research 04:31.204 --> 04:35.304 for this book on violence, largely in Mississippi in 1875, 04:35.298 --> 04:39.918 but he's using it as a window into the counter-revolution 04:39.921 --> 04:42.811 you're soon to be reading about. 04:42.810 --> 04:47.700 But most people who write about this period now tend to do it in 04:47.695 --> 04:53.565 tones of a kind of a requiem; a requiem, a tragic mode, 04:53.565 --> 05:00.355 a mode that is always saying what might have been, 05:00.357 --> 05:05.627 what was attempted, what was aimed for, 05:05.625 --> 05:10.195 but then failed, fell apart; 05:10.199 --> 05:16.039 what high aspiration, but God they couldn't quite do 05:16.037 --> 05:20.057 it. And it is a national requiem, 05:20.061 --> 05:23.701 in a sense. Somebody should write that 05:23.697 --> 05:27.007 symphony, the Reconstruction Symphony. 05:27.009 --> 05:30.629 We need a Beethoven for that, and he needs to be really 05:30.629 --> 05:31.969 depressed one day. 05:31.970 --> 05:35.300 05:35.300 --> 05:39.680 But that doesn't mean it won't be great and we won't learn from 05:39.678 --> 05:41.018 it, feel from it. 05:41.020 --> 05:46.430 All right, back on the ground. 05:46.430 --> 05:50.840 I got in some cheap shots on Andrew Johnson before we left 05:50.844 --> 05:53.404 the other day, and they were that, 05:53.400 --> 05:56.860 cheap shots; no apologies. 05:56.860 --> 06:00.970 But Andrew Johnson's, of course, a key player here. 06:00.970 --> 06:04.040 He comes to the presidency because he's Lincoln's running 06:04.038 --> 06:07.108 mate, he and his office saying he's going to make treason 06:07.107 --> 06:09.467 odious. And some Radical Republicans 06:09.473 --> 06:12.253 were quite fond, initially, of that approach, 06:12.245 --> 06:14.205 but it quickly, quickly changed, 06:14.208 --> 06:16.948 and here in a nutshell--you've read this now in Foner, 06:16.953 --> 06:20.323 you've all gotten up through at least the first four chapters. 06:20.319 --> 06:22.809 And by the way, I've now visited at least three 06:22.808 --> 06:24.538 sections, and I'm enjoying it. 06:24.540 --> 06:28.090 I wish they weren't just 50 minutes. 06:28.089 --> 06:32.569 You just get going and--of course this just gets going and 06:32.567 --> 06:37.357 then--you're glad we're out of here in 50 minutes I'm sure. 06:37.360 --> 06:38.660 But back to Andrew Johnson. 06:38.660 --> 06:44.250 He was, above all else, an ardent States' Rightist. 06:44.250 --> 06:46.520 He did not support Secession. 06:46.519 --> 06:49.359 Now you can be a States' Rightist, you can believe that 06:49.364 --> 06:52.584 power should always remain in the hands of the state and still 06:52.577 --> 06:54.787 not believe in the right of Secession. 06:54.790 --> 06:57.180 And he was one of those. 06:57.180 --> 07:01.360 He believed secession was political suicide for the South, 07:01.360 --> 07:04.440 and lo and behold he got that one right. 07:04.439 --> 07:07.159 He had a strong attachment to the American Union. 07:07.160 --> 07:12.250 He was a Unionist, and a patriot in that sense. 07:12.250 --> 07:15.150 He had a hatred also of the Southern planter class because 07:15.154 --> 07:16.484 he didn't grow up in it. 07:16.480 --> 07:22.240 He was a poor boy who made good; had a huge chip on his shoulder. 07:22.240 --> 07:25.830 He was brilliant at a certain kind of politics, 07:25.825 --> 07:29.095 which was East Tennessee stump politics. 07:29.100 --> 07:30.590 Andrew Johnson, it was said, 07:30.586 --> 07:33.936 could crawl up on the back of a wagon and hold an audience for 07:33.943 --> 07:35.763 two hours, in East Tennessee. 07:35.760 --> 07:39.070 07:39.069 --> 07:43.659 He didn't very easily convert that style and that talent at 07:43.659 --> 07:48.239 local stump politics, however, to the much broader 07:48.243 --> 07:54.563 world of pragmatic negotiation of Washington or the presidency. 07:54.560 --> 07:56.510 He'd held every kind of office you could hold. 07:56.509 --> 07:59.669 He'd been mayor of Greenville, Tennessee; 07:59.670 --> 08:03.880 he'd been a state senator or state legislator; 08:03.880 --> 08:05.810 he'd been governor of Tennessee. 08:05.810 --> 08:09.030 He was then elected Senator from Tennessee and then once 08:09.025 --> 08:12.475 again appointed the wartime Governor of Tennessee by Abraham 08:12.475 --> 08:14.575 Lincoln in the midst of the war. 08:14.580 --> 08:18.700 He'd held every level of office. 08:18.700 --> 08:21.980 He'd never been anti-slavery. 08:21.980 --> 08:28.050 He saw the end of slavery as a misfortune for the South, 08:28.054 --> 08:34.244 something that had to be accepted as a verdict of war. 08:34.240 --> 08:38.810 But Johnson had one essential slogan for his approach to 08:38.806 --> 08:42.376 Reconstruction, and if you can remember that 08:42.376 --> 08:46.026 slogan you in essence have his point of view: 08:46.030 --> 08:50.680 the Constitution as it is and the Union as it was. 08:50.679 --> 08:54.419 The Constitution as it is and the Union as it was. 08:54.420 --> 08:57.570 Don't revise the Constitution. 08:57.570 --> 09:00.280 He would accept the Thirteenth Amendment, the end of slavery, 09:00.281 --> 09:02.451 because that's part of the verdict of the war, 09:02.450 --> 09:05.620 there wasn't any way around that, but he never accepted the 09:05.615 --> 09:07.685 Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, 09:07.690 --> 09:11.870 and he worked vehemently to destroy the Fourteenth 09:11.868 --> 09:17.328 Amendment, or at least he worked vehemently to urge states not to 09:17.326 --> 09:18.516 ratify it. 09:18.520 --> 09:22.080 09:22.080 --> 09:24.220 Now, his approach to Reconstruction, 09:24.217 --> 09:26.597 once in office, was essentially this. 09:26.600 --> 09:31.170 He took Lincoln's lenient plan, The Ten Percent Plan, 09:31.170 --> 09:35.390 and he went another step further in its leniency, 09:35.389 --> 09:38.729 or some say several steps further. 09:38.730 --> 09:42.660 Instead of saying he wanted ten percent of the voting population 09:42.660 --> 09:45.780 of the Confederate states to take loyalty oaths, 09:45.779 --> 09:48.109 form a government, come back and so forth, 09:48.108 --> 09:50.208 he simply converted ten percent to, 09:50.210 --> 09:55.340 quote, "that portion who are loyal." 09:55.340 --> 09:59.450 Any portion, wherever may be two or more are 09:59.450 --> 10:03.370 gathered, will have a loyal government; 10:03.370 --> 10:07.360 that portion who are loyal. 10:07.360 --> 10:12.370 Now, he added one exception to the pardons, however. 10:12.370 --> 10:15.540 You remember people were going to get pardoned, 10:15.537 --> 10:18.427 lieutenant and above, and so forth--I mean, 10:18.428 --> 10:21.938 lieutenant and below in the Confederate forces. 10:21.940 --> 10:25.520 He added one exception to the pardons, and this reflected a 10:25.516 --> 10:27.486 very personal interest of his. 10:27.490 --> 10:30.530 He would not pardon, he said at first at least, 10:30.525 --> 10:34.155 any Southerner who owned $20,000.00 worth of property or 10:34.155 --> 10:37.575 more. It seemed like a class appeal. 10:37.580 --> 10:39.970 Nobody who owned $20,000.00-- the planter class, 10:39.971 --> 10:42.261 in other words, was not going to get a pardon, 10:42.261 --> 10:44.451 no matter what they did during the war; 10:44.450 --> 10:48.090 if they were rich they weren't going to be pardoned, 10:48.091 --> 10:51.091 well at least until they applied for it, 10:51.090 --> 10:55.470 and the application had to be personal to the President of the 10:55.470 --> 10:59.970 United States. Now, this set in motion, 10:59.966 --> 11:03.866 in 1865, a bizarre process. 11:03.870 --> 11:10.900 He promised clemency but only after they made formal written 11:10.901 --> 11:15.551 applications about their new loyalty. 11:15.549 --> 11:19.429 And what literally occurred, by the end of 1865 and 11:19.434 --> 11:22.624 especially in the first months of 1866, 11:22.620 --> 11:27.100 is lines formed at the White House in Washington, 11:27.102 --> 11:30.352 often women. Southern women came to--lines 11:30.348 --> 11:33.958 outdoors, on a daily basis at times--with their written 11:33.956 --> 11:36.626 applications for clemency and pardon, 11:36.629 --> 11:40.729 for participation in the Confederate war effort. 11:40.730 --> 11:44.520 After one year of this process, by May 1866, 11:44.523 --> 11:49.643 Johnson himself had personally signed 7000 such pardons. 11:49.639 --> 11:51.329 He wanted to make them grovel, in other words. 11:51.330 --> 11:54.510 11:54.509 --> 12:00.979 Not a wise policy, but a policy nonetheless. 12:00.980 --> 12:04.260 He did put in place, or tried, some so-called 12:04.259 --> 12:05.899 Johnson governments. 12:05.899 --> 12:07.739 Now instead of calling them Lincoln governments they would 12:07.738 --> 12:08.768 be called Johnson governments. 12:08.769 --> 12:11.289 And the reason Johnson could get away with this, 12:11.293 --> 12:13.713 of course, as you should know from reading, 12:13.710 --> 12:17.870 is that Congress went out of session in the summer of 12:17.873 --> 12:21.563 1865--for months, they went out of session--and 12:21.556 --> 12:24.996 Johnson had largely a free hand to act, 12:25.000 --> 12:30.160 and did he ever. By December of '65, 12:30.156 --> 12:34.756 when a new Congress would reconvene in Washington, 12:34.763 --> 12:38.903 all the states in the former Confederacy, 12:38.899 --> 12:42.609 except Texas, had met the simplest of 12:42.607 --> 12:47.547 criteria, had written new state constitutions, 12:47.549 --> 12:52.799 had found "that portion who are loyal" to form a new government. 12:52.799 --> 12:55.209 And it was very tiny proportions in some places. 12:55.210 --> 13:01.450 In fact, there were no loyalty oaths, even applied to people. 13:01.450 --> 13:04.810 All but one state, Texas, was ready for 13:04.812 --> 13:09.772 readmission to the Union, under this--what actually Foner 13:09.768 --> 13:15.548 calls it in his book--quote, "amazing leniency of Andrew 13:15.548 --> 13:19.498 Johnson." The only major demand put upon 13:19.502 --> 13:24.562 them was to formally nullify their Act of Secession. 13:24.559 --> 13:29.209 That's basically all they had to do. 13:29.210 --> 13:31.970 Now, these were whites-only governments, these were 13:31.965 --> 13:34.385 governments formed by former Confederates, 13:34.389 --> 13:38.139 and in many of these states, of course, they began to 13:38.141 --> 13:41.461 rapidly, in the late summer/early fall 1865, 13:41.460 --> 13:44.760 pass what became quickly known as the Black Codes. 13:44.759 --> 13:48.069 You've actually got a portion of the Virginia Black Codes in 13:48.071 --> 13:49.251 the Gienapp reader. 13:49.250 --> 13:53.200 Three or four of those laws are there in your reader; 13:53.200 --> 13:55.510 read them, with some care. 13:55.509 --> 13:58.709 These Black Codes mirrored the old Slave Codes. 13:58.710 --> 14:01.340 They explicitly denied the right to vote to blacks, 14:01.340 --> 14:04.180 the right to serve on juries, the right to hold office, 14:04.181 --> 14:05.761 the right to own property. 14:05.759 --> 14:09.869 There were all kinds of restrictive vagrancy laws 14:09.869 --> 14:11.849 passed; pass laws passed, 14:11.848 --> 14:15.258 where blacks could be at any given point in time, 14:15.261 --> 14:17.111 with or without a pass. 14:17.110 --> 14:22.130 And in this newly reconstructed Johnson approach to these 14:22.129 --> 14:27.509 states, there was a great deal of legislation already flowing 14:27.508 --> 14:32.708 from some of these new state legislatures meant to directly 14:32.707 --> 14:37.097 obstruct the work of the Freedmen's Bureau. 14:37.100 --> 14:41.020 The counter-revolution folks began almost as soon as the war 14:41.016 --> 14:44.466 was over, as soon as ex-Confederates could find their 14:44.468 --> 14:49.968 way into power. And did they ever. 14:49.970 --> 14:53.940 Part of what went on here in the Northern mind--now let's 14:53.938 --> 14:58.328 remember, the blood of the war is not entirely dry--but part of 14:58.332 --> 15:02.372 what was simply going on here in the Northern mind as they 15:02.371 --> 15:05.431 witnessed this, and as these new states now 15:05.428 --> 15:09.028 sent their representatives and senators, after Fall election, 15:09.029 --> 15:14.129 back to Washington, some of them literally wearing 15:14.131 --> 15:17.151 their Confederate uniforms. 15:17.149 --> 15:20.219 And from Georgia came no less than as the new U.S. 15:20.224 --> 15:22.294 Senator from Georgia, Alexander H. 15:22.294 --> 15:24.314 Stephens. A year ago he was the 15:24.310 --> 15:27.170 Vice-President of the Confederacy who had spent six 15:27.168 --> 15:29.968 months in a Charlestown jail in Massachusetts, 15:29.970 --> 15:34.050 allegedly arrested for his treason against the United 15:34.053 --> 15:35.863 States, but released. 15:35.860 --> 15:38.960 15:38.960 --> 15:43.350 And as they began to arrive in Washington, it was this kind of 15:43.354 --> 15:47.104 insolence on the part of ex-Confederates that in some 15:47.099 --> 15:50.559 ways began to stimulate what we will call Radical 15:50.557 --> 15:53.797 Reconstruction. Radical Reconstruction is a 15:53.804 --> 15:55.754 plan. And Foner's right on that. 15:55.750 --> 15:59.720 He said one of the reasons that this cadre of Republicans 15:59.722 --> 16:03.342 succeeded is because they really did have a plan. 16:03.340 --> 16:06.790 If there's a revolution going on and something's got to be 16:06.794 --> 16:10.374 redone about your country, go to the meeting with a plan. 16:10.370 --> 16:13.310 James Madison did that, by the way, at the original 16:13.308 --> 16:16.538 drafting of the Constitution, and he got most of what he 16:16.541 --> 16:18.301 took. But they came back to 16:18.297 --> 16:21.157 Washington with ex-Confederate generals, colonels, 16:21.162 --> 16:24.442 members of the Confederate Cabinet and the Vice-President 16:24.436 --> 16:25.836 of the Confederacy. 16:25.840 --> 16:30.470 Jeff Davis couldn't get elected in Mississippi yet because Jeff 16:30.468 --> 16:34.648 Davis was still the only ex-Confederate still in jail. 16:34.649 --> 16:37.489 He will never be formally indicted. 16:37.490 --> 16:42.720 He spent two years at Fortress Monroe, in a prison, 16:42.716 --> 16:45.996 in Virginia. Tremendous mythology has gone 16:46.000 --> 16:48.950 around that story that he wasn't fed properly, 16:48.950 --> 16:51.380 that he was mistreated, that he got ill and wasn't 16:51.380 --> 16:54.700 given medical attention, virtually all of which is 16:54.698 --> 16:57.108 nonsense. He wasn't terribly well at 16:57.111 --> 17:00.871 times but it wasn't because he didn't get medical attention. 17:00.870 --> 17:04.420 By the time the United States Government, under the Johnson 17:04.422 --> 17:08.222 Administration--in fact Johnson wanted absolutely nothing to do 17:08.219 --> 17:12.139 with trying Jefferson Davis--but by the time they even got around 17:12.138 --> 17:14.648 to finally formally considering it, 17:14.650 --> 17:20.490 they had wasted so much time that Jefferson Davis will 17:20.488 --> 17:26.438 finally be formally released in the spring--April to be 17:26.436 --> 17:31.196 exact--of 1867, two years after his arrest. 17:31.200 --> 17:34.980 And just to show you the harbingers of reconciliation in 17:34.980 --> 17:39.380 the political culture, the people who paid his bail 17:39.382 --> 17:44.202 were all Northerners, some of them quite famous. 17:44.200 --> 17:47.050 Horace Greeley, the great editor of the New 17:47.049 --> 17:50.469 York Herald-Tribune and the former abolitionist, 17:50.470 --> 17:53.540 although a strange and mercurial character by now, 17:53.536 --> 17:56.596 put up the most amount, and none other than Garret 17:56.602 --> 17:59.982 Smith--the former radical abolitionist from upstate New 17:59.981 --> 18:02.761 York, who checked himself into an 18:02.755 --> 18:07.535 insane asylum after John Brown's raid--paid most of the rest of 18:07.543 --> 18:11.263 the bail. And Jefferson Davis would be 18:11.257 --> 18:15.537 released, April 1867, to a cheering crowd in 18:15.539 --> 18:17.729 Richmond, Virginia. 18:17.730 --> 18:21.650 He would go on to write; to live in the South, 18:21.645 --> 18:26.295 of course, and to write the longest and most turgid, 18:26.298 --> 18:31.588 the most overblown personal memoir about a failed political 18:31.590 --> 18:36.430 movement in all of history; about 1300 page memoir, 18:36.427 --> 18:41.177 basically all arguing that secession was right and the war 18:41.179 --> 18:43.179 wasn't about slavery. 18:43.180 --> 18:46.430 Enough on Davis for the moment. 18:46.430 --> 18:48.440 But back to Washington. 18:48.440 --> 18:51.650 When these new state governments send their 18:51.649 --> 18:55.699 representatives to Congress, beginning of December, 18:55.700 --> 18:59.810 that's a Congress with an obvious Republican majority, 18:59.809 --> 19:04.229 and they absolutely called a halt to the whole process. 19:04.230 --> 19:06.690 Here were all these people from the South coming to take 19:06.688 --> 19:09.458 the--not loyalty oaths--but the Oath of Office into the U.S. 19:09.460 --> 19:14.180 Congress, and they were stopped, some of them physically 19:14.177 --> 19:17.177 at the door, and told to go home. 19:17.180 --> 19:21.270 And the Republican Party now began to try to wrest control, 19:21.266 --> 19:25.486 and they did wrest control of Reconstruction away from Andrew 19:25.494 --> 19:28.584 Johnson. And from that day forward you 19:28.580 --> 19:33.450 had the beginnings of a growing Titanic constitutional political 19:33.446 --> 19:37.996 struggle between president and Congress--they are not of the 19:38.004 --> 19:41.724 same party, to say the least--that will 19:41.722 --> 19:45.402 result in Andrew Johnson's impeachment. 19:45.400 --> 19:47.520 Now, to the Radicals for a moment. 19:47.520 --> 19:53.080 19:53.079 --> 19:56.719 They established what was known as the Joint Committee on 19:56.723 --> 19:59.173 Reconstruction. There'd never been such a 19:59.167 --> 20:02.107 committee really in American history before that date. 20:02.109 --> 20:05.489 This was to be a committee of members of both houses of 20:05.492 --> 20:09.002 Congress, but they made no pretence to bipartisanship. 20:09.000 --> 20:12.770 It had 15 members, 12 of whom were Republicans and 20:12.766 --> 20:16.496 three Democrats. They said thank you very much, 20:16.500 --> 20:18.380 we don't need any more. 20:18.380 --> 20:22.460 Now, they established this joint committee--it began to 20:22.464 --> 20:26.254 meet in January of '66--the purpose of which was to 20:26.246 --> 20:30.856 investigate what was going on on the ground in the South, 20:30.859 --> 20:34.779 to investigate the necessities and needs of Reconstruction, 20:34.777 --> 20:38.827 to investigate the further needs of the Freedmen's Bureau, 20:38.829 --> 20:46.619 and to recommend to Congress what legislation ought be passed 20:46.616 --> 20:50.376 to reconstruct the country. 20:50.380 --> 20:53.500 They held massive hearings, the largest such Congressional 20:53.500 --> 20:55.910 Hearings in American history to that time. 20:55.910 --> 21:00.000 They saw 144 witnesses over about two months, 20:59.998 --> 21:01.758 including Robert E. 21:01.764 --> 21:05.484 Lee himself, who came up from Richmond to 21:05.481 --> 21:08.541 testify; testifying essentially under 21:08.543 --> 21:11.393 orders, and he still was under House Arrest, 21:11.389 --> 21:13.639 he didn't really have a choice. 21:13.640 --> 21:16.890 They asked hundreds of questions, but you could boil 21:16.891 --> 21:18.231 them down to these. 21:18.230 --> 21:22.920 They asked about the treatment of freedmen in the South. 21:22.920 --> 21:26.430 And their witnesses were all kinds of people, 21:26.430 --> 21:29.620 Union officers, Freedmen's Bureau agents, 21:29.622 --> 21:33.212 some white Southerners, for sure, some famous, 21:33.213 --> 21:35.893 most not. They asked lots of questions 21:35.891 --> 21:38.221 about the levels of loyalty and disloyalty. 21:38.220 --> 21:41.680 What were the political attitudes of Southerners? 21:41.680 --> 21:46.080 They were really trying to find out "what would white 21:46.083 --> 21:49.643 Southerners actually do if we did that?" 21:49.640 --> 21:54.380 Now, this was absolutely crucial because we've long--I 21:54.378 --> 21:58.668 wouldn't say assumed--but we've long wondered, 21:58.670 --> 22:03.790 and there's a lot of evidence for this, that had the white 22:03.793 --> 22:09.473 South in its prostrate state, in its state of destruction and 22:09.473 --> 22:14.703 defeat, had they truly been put under an honest-to-God, 22:14.700 --> 22:20.510 legitimate, near total occupation, the assumption is, 22:20.513 --> 22:25.723 among a lot of scholars, that they (being the white 22:25.715 --> 22:30.745 South), would've accepted it, because they didn't have any 22:30.747 --> 22:33.617 choice; they had virtually no choice at 22:33.619 --> 22:35.409 all. And some of their leadership 22:35.412 --> 22:36.572 was already in exile. 22:36.569 --> 22:40.079 I think I mentioned the other day about 8 to 10,000 22:40.083 --> 22:43.323 ex-Confederate leaders, mostly military people, 22:43.316 --> 22:46.616 had left the country, at least temporarily. 22:46.619 --> 22:49.499 Anyway, they're trying to test what Southern attitudes are. 22:49.500 --> 22:52.280 Thirdly, they ask lots of questions about the needs of the 22:52.284 --> 22:54.584 Freedmen's Bureau, what ought this Bureau do? 22:54.580 --> 22:55.670 What about schools? 22:55.670 --> 22:59.440 What about food? What about hospitals, et cetera? 22:59.440 --> 23:02.840 And then they would ask about the need for troops and the need 23:02.837 --> 23:03.837 for enforcement. 23:03.840 --> 23:07.370 23:07.369 --> 23:12.039 Now, you may know from reading Foner by now that the reduction 23:12.042 --> 23:14.802 in the Union Armies was overnight, 23:14.799 --> 23:24.669 from nearly a million men in arms to a mere 15 to 20,000, 23:24.667 --> 23:28.777 by 1866; and a fair portion of those are 23:28.776 --> 23:31.346 being sent west to fight Indians. 23:31.349 --> 23:35.279 And one of the great deep myths about the melodrama of 23:35.284 --> 23:38.484 Reconstruction, or the Lost Cause version of 23:38.476 --> 23:43.516 Reconstruction over the years, is that the South was put under 23:43.517 --> 23:47.977 this military occupation, "bayonet rule," as it so often 23:47.983 --> 23:51.033 was called. About the only time a Union 23:51.032 --> 23:54.502 soldier fixed a bayonet, in all the Reconstruction 23:54.502 --> 23:56.472 years, was when they put their 23:56.466 --> 23:59.746 bayonets on, in part to defend themselves and go after the 23:59.753 --> 24:02.933 people who were murdering and massacring black people in 24:02.926 --> 24:05.056 Memphis and New Orleans in 1866. 24:05.059 --> 24:07.729 The vast majority of Union troops throughout the 24:07.728 --> 24:09.828 Reconstruction years, in the South, 24:09.829 --> 24:15.239 were simply in garrisoned forts, on the coastlines, 24:15.236 --> 24:17.936 occasionally in cities. 24:17.940 --> 24:21.650 The conclusions of this report, the Joint Committee's Report, 24:21.649 --> 24:25.729 which was by the way chaired by William Pitt Fessenden of Maine, 24:25.730 --> 24:29.120 a moderate Republican senator, but a key figure. 24:29.120 --> 24:30.370 He had a lot of prestige. 24:30.369 --> 24:31.479 He'd been in the U.S. 24:31.482 --> 24:34.602 Senate forever. He was an old-time Republican 24:34.604 --> 24:38.214 but a moderate, who had come to see the verdict 24:38.211 --> 24:43.171 of the Civil War, the destruction of slavery and 24:43.168 --> 24:46.668 the challenge to make it good. 24:46.670 --> 24:49.010 Their conclusions were essentially this, 24:49.014 --> 24:52.204 and they actually used this word, that it would be, 24:52.200 --> 24:57.560 quote, "madness" to let ex-Confederates run the new 24:57.560 --> 25:03.620 Southern state governments; madness was the word used by 25:03.615 --> 25:06.135 the Committee's report. 25:06.140 --> 25:09.300 Secondly, the Johnson style of leniency toward 25:09.295 --> 25:13.495 Reconstruction--and they had various ways of putting this and 25:13.502 --> 25:17.502 various conclusions they drew from this--was foolish. 25:17.500 --> 25:20.610 And the third and last, but not least, 25:20.611 --> 25:25.321 they made a whole series of recommendations for what they 25:25.320 --> 25:30.530 called safeguards that would be necessary to guarantee security 25:30.534 --> 25:37.344 in the South and the beginnings, at least, of a new political 25:37.342 --> 25:40.312 regime in every state. 25:40.309 --> 25:46.649 Now, it is that Republican majority Congress of the winter, 25:46.649 --> 25:51.879 spring and summer of 1866, that began to first pass the 25:51.876 --> 25:54.736 great legislation of Reconstruction. 25:54.740 --> 26:00.180 And if you want to see Reconstruction as this rise and 26:00.184 --> 26:04.914 fall requiem--and why not--this is the rise. 26:04.910 --> 26:08.550 If Reconstruction was a kind of bright, shining moment, 26:08.551 --> 26:12.461 as Du Bois once called it in Black Reconstruction in 26:12.463 --> 26:14.763 1935, this was its moment, 26:14.764 --> 26:18.494 1866 and '67, when the actual system by which 26:18.493 --> 26:23.493 the Southern states would be readmitted to the Union was put 26:23.493 --> 26:26.743 in place. The first thing they passed was 26:26.738 --> 26:31.768 the Civil Rights Act of 1866; passed Congress in April of '66. 26:31.769 --> 26:34.199 This was an act of Congress, not a constitutional amendment; 26:34.200 --> 26:37.270 therefore it didn't require a two-thirds. 26:37.269 --> 26:42.769 It was the first statutory definition in American history 26:42.767 --> 26:45.807 of the rights of citizenship. 26:45.809 --> 26:52.039 It was potentially a profound change in federal state 26:52.041 --> 26:55.061 relations. This Republican Congress and 26:55.064 --> 26:57.614 its leadership, at least, was going to do some 26:57.610 --> 27:00.100 very new things with American federalism. 27:00.100 --> 27:03.120 27:03.120 --> 27:06.660 Now, it had a bunch of flaws. 27:06.660 --> 27:12.790 It gave full citizenship to all Americans, regardless of race, 27:12.791 --> 27:15.351 creed or color; it said that, 27:15.347 --> 27:17.757 the first time ever, in our history. 27:17.759 --> 27:20.089 We'd never had a citizenship law. 27:20.089 --> 27:23.049 It had never been legally determined who was a U.S. 27:23.048 --> 27:26.888 citizen. But citizenship had always 27:26.887 --> 27:31.007 implied whiteness, and maleness. 27:31.009 --> 27:35.229 It now had at least a definition. 27:35.230 --> 27:37.430 The problem in it, of course its flaw, 27:37.426 --> 27:40.926 and there would be a flaw and a compromise element in almost 27:40.928 --> 27:44.488 everything passed in these years--nothing came out pure, 27:44.490 --> 27:48.940 out of these terrible debates over Reconstruction--its great 27:48.941 --> 27:53.391 flaw was that it was directed against public but not private 27:53.392 --> 27:55.432 acts of discrimination. 27:55.430 --> 28:00.260 I might still discriminate against you any way I wish 28:00.255 --> 28:06.015 privately, with my business, with my private facility, 28:06.019 --> 28:10.069 with my school, with a lot of ways, 28:10.071 --> 28:14.721 but in terms of public/civic rights, 28:14.720 --> 28:20.130 it at least put in place the beginnings of the idea of 28:20.127 --> 28:22.267 citizenship rights. 28:22.269 --> 28:27.679 Secondly, this Congress renewed the Freedman's Bureau. 28:27.680 --> 28:30.200 They gave it a new life for another year. 28:30.200 --> 28:33.670 And they did this--and the Civil Rights Act, 28:33.672 --> 28:38.682 by the way--over the rapid and quick veto of Andrew Johnson. 28:38.680 --> 28:42.400 What set in as early as April of 1866 was the Federal 28:42.398 --> 28:43.898 Government by veto. 28:43.900 --> 28:46.230 Congress would pass a law, whether it's the Civil Rights 28:46.227 --> 28:48.087 Act, the renewal of the Freedmen's Bureau, 28:48.089 --> 28:51.569 and numerous other things--eventually all four of 28:51.574 --> 28:55.864 the Reconstruction Acts in early '67--and Johnson would veto 28:55.856 --> 28:57.576 them. Andrew Johnson, 28:57.575 --> 29:01.265 in one and a half years, will issue more presidential 29:01.267 --> 29:04.747 vetoes than all American presidents before him put 29:04.746 --> 29:08.316 together. Not the way the thing's 29:08.315 --> 29:13.015 supposed to work, but it's the way this was 29:13.018 --> 29:16.488 working. And then, for six months, 29:16.488 --> 29:22.038 the Congress debated--and let's remember, there's still about a 29:22.041 --> 29:26.431 one-third of this Congress that are Democrats. 29:26.430 --> 29:30.410 29:30.410 --> 29:34.140 I don't know how close I can get you to this, 29:34.140 --> 29:38.210 but I'm going to try, at least to Section One. 29:38.210 --> 29:43.830 Oh dear. I don't know, can you read that? 29:43.830 --> 29:47.900 Good. Because that's the country you 29:47.903 --> 29:51.683 live in. Oh, I'm sounding so pretentious 29:51.677 --> 29:53.757 today. But you know what? 29:53.759 --> 29:58.729 The United States was invented at Philadelphia in 1787, 29:58.728 --> 30:03.788 but in many ways--and Americans still don't get this, 30:03.789 --> 30:08.219 don't understand it, don't know it--the country you 30:08.217 --> 30:11.757 actually live in was invented in 1866, 30:11.759 --> 30:13.199 in Washington, D.C. 30:13.202 --> 30:16.972 It's the country of the Fourteenth Amendment. 30:16.970 --> 30:20.710 The Fourteenth Amendment has five parts. 30:20.710 --> 30:24.410 It's the first one, the resounding one, 30:24.414 --> 30:28.904 the one authored by John Bingham, a staunch, 30:28.900 --> 30:32.280 Christian abolitionist from Ohio, went to a tiny little 30:32.281 --> 30:34.411 college called Franklin College. 30:34.410 --> 30:38.110 30:38.109 --> 30:44.579 It is that first clause that actually revolutionized, 30:44.584 --> 30:48.324 if you want, the revolution. 30:48.319 --> 30:52.529 The Fourteenth Amendment was in effect the Republican 30:52.530 --> 30:55.770 leadership's response to emancipation. 30:55.769 --> 30:58.239 Well of course the Thirteenth Amendment is too, 30:58.237 --> 31:01.147 but the Thirteenth Amendment, you'll remember, 31:01.148 --> 31:05.278 has a second clause that said "Congress shall pass all 31:05.283 --> 31:08.543 appropriate legislation, to enforce it." 31:08.539 --> 31:10.719 All right, now how do you enforce the end of slavery? 31:10.720 --> 31:12.020 What is the end of slavery going to mean? 31:12.019 --> 31:15.839 Or, as you were discussing in sections yesterday, 31:15.837 --> 31:19.727 and as Foner's chapter addresses, what did freedom 31:19.734 --> 31:21.884 mean? What the amendment did is it 31:21.880 --> 31:24.440 enshrined birthright, and it enshrined at least two 31:24.435 --> 31:26.065 things into the Constitution. 31:26.069 --> 31:29.019 Even though they're ill-defined at first and we're still 31:29.024 --> 31:32.044 fighting over them right now, in probably two-thirds of the 31:32.037 --> 31:33.987 courts in the United States, as we speak. 31:33.990 --> 31:36.910 And by the way, about two-thirds of everything 31:36.905 --> 31:40.335 in an American Case Law Book is a Fourteenth Amendment 31:40.340 --> 31:44.410 case--those gigantic, God awful thick case law books, 31:44.409 --> 31:48.679 if you ever open one--about two-thirds of everything in 31:48.676 --> 31:52.386 there goes through the Fourteenth Amendment. 31:52.390 --> 31:57.230 Anyway, it enshrined birthright citizenship, number one; 31:57.230 --> 32:02.060 and number two, the beginnings of the idea of 32:02.064 --> 32:06.244 equal rights, into the Constitution. 32:06.240 --> 32:07.710 It took six months of debate. 32:07.710 --> 32:11.340 It was passed finally in June of 1866. 32:11.340 --> 32:16.230 32:16.230 --> 32:22.060 These were the new framers; if you want, the new founders. 32:22.059 --> 32:26.339 The first set of challenges they faced, they've settled 32:26.335 --> 32:31.085 pretty--not easily--but they pretty much settled in clean and 32:31.085 --> 32:34.735 clear language. Those first three challenges 32:34.744 --> 32:38.214 were number one, to define citizenship and who 32:38.206 --> 32:40.796 holds it. Now, the Civil Rights Act had 32:40.801 --> 32:43.871 already begun to do that; this is going to go a little 32:43.866 --> 32:46.606 further. Two, they had the problem of 32:46.614 --> 32:49.424 repudiating Confederate war debts. 32:49.420 --> 32:54.050 What do you do with all those debts that a Confederate state 32:54.049 --> 32:57.339 had entailed, toward Great Britain or Spain 32:57.344 --> 32:59.624 or France or anyone else? 32:59.619 --> 33:01.869 The Federal Government was hereby saying in a 33:01.874 --> 33:04.794 Constitutional Amendment that any debt the Confederacy had 33:04.794 --> 33:06.934 entailed, to any government, 33:06.932 --> 33:10.862 any people, any bank, anybody, anywhere--that the 33:10.858 --> 33:15.518 United States Federal Government would never pay them. 33:15.519 --> 33:19.669 But they were also here trying to head off, of course, 33:19.669 --> 33:23.969 the demands for compensation for loss of slave property, 33:23.974 --> 33:26.014 as a Confederate debt. 33:26.009 --> 33:29.999 And three, they had to face the question now that every 33:29.999 --> 33:34.209 Reconstruction plan to face--and Lincoln had it in his and 33:34.209 --> 33:38.569 Johnson had it and even the Wade-Davis Bill had it--and that 33:38.568 --> 33:42.698 is which ex-Confederates are going to get disqualified or 33:42.704 --> 33:45.754 disfranchised? How many ex-Confederates? 33:45.750 --> 33:49.940 What level of disfranchisement would there be from office 33:49.943 --> 33:53.913 holding, or for that matter citizenship rights at all, 33:53.912 --> 33:55.712 for ex-Confederates? 33:55.710 --> 34:00.570 These three they settled, but there were three others 34:00.571 --> 34:06.271 they did not settle so easily, and they were the extent of the 34:06.274 --> 34:09.364 right to vote, for black men. 34:09.360 --> 34:14.930 Would this amendment declare the right to vote for black men 34:14.929 --> 34:20.119 everywhere, or only in the South, only in ex-Confederate 34:20.121 --> 34:23.361 states? The inconvenient and terrible 34:23.364 --> 34:27.244 problem on this one, of course, is that the very men 34:27.239 --> 34:31.879 writing this bill know that in their own northern states black 34:31.876 --> 34:35.716 suffrage is not popular, to say the least, 34:35.718 --> 34:41.598 and most northern whites still don't want black men to vote, 34:41.600 --> 34:44.320 especially in their own states. 34:44.320 --> 34:48.200 The evidence of that was so clear, the State of Connecticut, 34:48.202 --> 34:50.752 this state, in 1865, after the war was over, 34:50.745 --> 34:53.505 held a special referendum and overwhelmingly voted down the 34:53.508 --> 34:55.698 right to vote for black men in Connecticut. 34:55.700 --> 35:00.690 35:00.690 --> 35:04.040 Secondly, they had to settle the extent of civil rights 35:04.043 --> 35:06.033 declared equal before the law. 35:06.030 --> 35:08.530 How equal? Which rights? 35:08.530 --> 35:14.080 Where? That first section of the 35:14.082 --> 35:19.172 Fourteenth Amendment ends with the famous language of equal 35:19.169 --> 35:21.449 protection of the laws. 35:21.449 --> 35:26.019 No one shall be deprived--"no state shall deprive any person 35:26.019 --> 35:29.969 of life, liberty or property without due process, 35:29.969 --> 35:34.289 nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal 35:34.292 --> 35:36.372 protection of the law." 35:36.369 --> 35:41.389 And then lastly they faced the vexing problem now--and you may 35:41.387 --> 35:46.657 have forgotten all about this, it's easy to forget it--of how 35:46.656 --> 35:51.926 to reapportion representation of the so-called slave seats. 35:51.929 --> 35:57.049 Those are the extra congressmen that Southern states had been 35:57.050 --> 36:00.470 given from the 1790s on, through 1860, 36:00.472 --> 36:05.652 because of the three-fifths clause in the Constitution. 36:05.650 --> 36:08.850 The estimate is that between 1800 and 1860, 36:08.845 --> 36:13.405 the slave states in the South, depending on when you take the 36:13.410 --> 36:16.410 snapshot, received from twenty to thirty 36:16.413 --> 36:18.833 additional congressmen, in the House, 36:18.829 --> 36:21.379 because of the three-fifths clause; 36:21.380 --> 36:26.960 because three-fifths of black people were being counted for 36:26.955 --> 36:30.595 representation. Now what happens is you're 36:30.603 --> 36:33.163 going to count all black people. 36:33.159 --> 36:37.389 The estimate was that the Southern states would get an 36:37.394 --> 36:40.514 additional eighteen more congressmen. 36:40.510 --> 36:44.020 So when these new states come back into the Union they're 36:44.023 --> 36:47.603 going to have more congressmen, more power, more clout. 36:47.599 --> 36:49.009 What are you going to do with that? 36:49.010 --> 36:52.990 36:52.989 --> 36:56.179 Now, the key players in this--and I want to spin through 36:56.182 --> 36:59.552 this as quick as possible--the key players in this were, 36:59.550 --> 37:03.990 on the one hand Thaddeus Stevens, as a kind of visionary 37:03.986 --> 37:05.596 and radical voice. 37:05.599 --> 37:08.299 Stevens would've had this amendment go further than it 37:08.303 --> 37:10.143 did, especially in Black Suffrage. 37:10.139 --> 37:13.139 Probably its greatest architect--two of them 37:13.142 --> 37:16.912 really--were John Bingham of Ohio and Lyman Trumbull of 37:16.912 --> 37:19.872 Illinois. They're unsung heroes. 37:19.869 --> 37:23.109 I bet you don't know anything about John Bingham and probably 37:23.107 --> 37:24.777 nothing about Lyman Trumbull. 37:24.780 --> 37:27.540 They're not famous. 37:27.540 --> 37:32.780 They should be. Bingham wrote Section One. 37:32.780 --> 37:37.070 Lyman Trumbull wrote the '66 Civil Rights Act. 37:37.070 --> 37:39.560 He actually wrote the Thirteenth Amendment, 37:39.558 --> 37:42.518 and he will write other parts of the Reconstruction 37:42.521 --> 37:45.381 legislation. John Bingham will stand up day 37:45.383 --> 37:49.283 after day in the Congress and will argue that Emancipation had 37:49.275 --> 37:52.525 finally forced the United States--this is the way he 37:52.528 --> 37:56.418 always put it--to apply the Bill of Rights to everybody. 37:56.420 --> 37:57.820 And he argued, in his words, 37:57.819 --> 38:00.829 that what they were really doing now, were federalizing the 38:00.825 --> 38:03.915 Bill of Rights. Now think about it. 38:03.920 --> 38:06.140 American history had always had the Bill of Rights. 38:06.139 --> 38:08.289 Just tick them off, the first ten Amendments to the 38:08.286 --> 38:10.826 Constitution; your right to religion and your 38:10.832 --> 38:13.722 right to free speech and your right to assembly, 38:13.717 --> 38:15.187 and on and on and on. 38:15.190 --> 38:19.020 But it had never been applied to all Americans. 38:19.019 --> 38:21.529 There'd never even been an assumption it applied to all 38:21.531 --> 38:22.091 Americans. 38:22.090 --> 38:31.850 38:31.850 --> 38:34.860 Well, there were others. 38:34.860 --> 38:38.890 Charles Sumner, to some extent; Robert Dale Owen of Indiana, 38:38.886 --> 38:44.046 the old utopian community leader, was quite a visionary of 38:44.050 --> 38:46.590 this as well; and some others. 38:46.590 --> 38:50.480 But it's really a handful of six or seven people, 38:50.475 --> 38:53.465 who wrote the Fourteenth Amendment. 38:53.469 --> 38:56.389 Now, they faced tremendous opposition. 38:56.389 --> 38:59.219 Day in and day out Democrats would get up and say that all 38:59.222 --> 39:02.352 the Fourteenth Amendment really was trying to do is to get white 39:02.352 --> 39:04.392 and black people to marry each other. 39:04.389 --> 39:08.909 They trotted out the worst of white supremacy and the worst of 39:08.908 --> 39:12.608 racism to try to trash the vision of the Fourteenth 39:12.612 --> 39:15.192 Amendment. It's going to have effect 39:15.193 --> 39:18.653 eventually in a larger American politics, rest assured, 39:18.650 --> 39:21.460 because the '68 presidential election is going to be a 39:21.464 --> 39:23.434 referendum on this, and it will be, 39:23.429 --> 39:26.349 without question, the most white supremacist, 39:26.346 --> 39:29.326 racist election in all of American history; 39:29.329 --> 39:34.779 so unsubtle and so blunt that it will surprise you, 39:34.781 --> 39:38.261 I suspect. The central compromise in the 39:38.261 --> 39:42.301 Fourteenth Amendment--I'll let you read the rest of its 39:42.304 --> 39:46.724 provisions--but the central compromise was actually on black 39:46.721 --> 39:49.281 suffrage. As I said, there was this 39:49.278 --> 39:52.718 uncomfortable fact that most white Northerners didn't want 39:52.717 --> 39:55.007 black people to vote, in the North. 39:55.010 --> 40:02.110 So they left any enforcement of the right to vote to the states. 40:02.110 --> 40:05.760 40:05.760 --> 40:08.850 They're going to codify the right to vote for black 40:08.847 --> 40:12.427 males--and by the way it's the first time the word male got 40:12.428 --> 40:14.468 into the U.S. Constitution--a very 40:14.466 --> 40:17.546 complicated, important amendment, and it's going to 40:17.553 --> 40:21.013 cause a terrible explosion and actually a bad train wreck 40:21.011 --> 40:24.591 between the Women's Suffrage Movement and the old abolition 40:24.593 --> 40:27.183 movement, black and white men, 40:27.180 --> 40:30.730 and it's going to cause Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan 40:30.728 --> 40:32.858 B. Anthony and others to basically 40:32.856 --> 40:36.466 bolt from the black suffrage movement, and even the whole 40:36.469 --> 40:40.349 Civil Rights movement, such as it was during 40:40.347 --> 40:44.647 Reconstruction, and go off and fight their own 40:44.648 --> 40:48.538 crusade. That's another long story we'll 40:48.541 --> 40:51.731 return to. So instead of an outright 40:51.734 --> 40:56.454 guarantee of the right to vote, everywhere, for blacks, 40:56.451 --> 41:01.081 men, the final version left control of suffrage to the 41:01.081 --> 41:03.501 states. It did though, 41:03.504 --> 41:07.144 in one provision, penalize if a state, 41:07.136 --> 41:12.106 to come back into the Union, denied the right to vote to 41:12.105 --> 41:15.955 black men, it would have its representation in Congress 41:15.956 --> 41:20.446 reduced to the proportion of the black males in their state. 41:20.449 --> 41:22.439 Now that's not going to scare many northern states because 41:22.436 --> 41:23.896 they don't have large black populations. 41:23.900 --> 41:29.380 41:29.380 --> 41:32.340 And actually they're not going to be part of that provision 41:32.342 --> 41:34.592 because they never seceded from the Union. 41:34.590 --> 41:38.040 But the key thing here is that the equality genie, 41:38.043 --> 41:40.583 this language of equal protection, 41:40.579 --> 41:44.689 this definition of citizenship rights, it had never happened 41:44.694 --> 41:48.534 before, the equality genie was now out of the bottle, 41:48.530 --> 41:51.790 and for better or worse it could never be put back. 41:51.790 --> 41:57.230 41:57.230 --> 42:01.220 The Equal Protection Clause is the most malleable provision in 42:01.217 --> 42:02.457 the Constitution. 42:02.460 --> 42:07.820 It has been used to support or advance the rights of everyone, 42:07.817 --> 42:11.067 and everything, every kind of organization you 42:11.071 --> 42:13.481 can imagine, cities, states, corporations, 42:13.478 --> 42:15.818 immigrants, women, gays and lesbians, 42:15.818 --> 42:19.218 anti-gay and lesbian movements, students, labor unions, 42:19.220 --> 42:21.920 anti-labor union movements. 42:21.920 --> 42:25.520 It has advanced tolerance and intolerance. 42:25.519 --> 42:29.039 It has advanced affirmative action and the anti-affirmative 42:29.038 --> 42:31.418 action crusade. The Fourteenth Amendment is so 42:31.424 --> 42:33.054 malleable it can be used by anyone. 42:33.050 --> 42:36.670 42:36.670 --> 42:40.960 It's the great legal wellspring of the modern Civil Rights 42:40.961 --> 42:44.081 Revolution. No Fourteenth Amendment, 42:44.076 --> 42:46.386 no Civil Rights Movement. 42:46.389 --> 42:52.959 And last but not least, it is the basis of that 42:52.963 --> 43:00.823 dreadful Supreme Court decision in 2000 known as Bush v. 43:00.823 --> 43:04.513 Gore. I didn't make that up. 43:04.510 --> 43:08.310 Now, in this circumstance, of the passage of the Civil 43:08.313 --> 43:12.263 Rights Act, the passage of the new Freedmen's Bureau, 43:12.260 --> 43:15.670 the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, now to be sent out to 43:15.665 --> 43:20.155 the states for ratification, comes the fall elections of 43:20.162 --> 43:23.312 1866. And Andrew Johnson took his 43:23.313 --> 43:25.373 case out on the road. 43:25.369 --> 43:28.069 He called it the Swing Around the Circle. 43:28.070 --> 43:36.090 The circle was to be the Union or--oh, where's my map? 43:36.090 --> 43:37.770 I have a better map here somewhere. 43:37.770 --> 43:44.610 43:44.610 --> 43:51.070 Oops, no I don't even really have the whole North on here, 43:51.067 --> 43:53.217 sorry about that. 43:53.220 --> 43:58.990 Oh well. In the fall elections of 43:58.989 --> 44:02.109 1866--these were Congressional elections but they're terribly 44:02.113 --> 44:04.543 important, given what's going on in 44:04.539 --> 44:08.979 Congress--the '66 Congressional elections were a referendum on 44:08.984 --> 44:13.504 Reconstruction and they came in the wake of two terrible racial 44:13.503 --> 44:18.923 riots or massacres in the South, which really got Northern 44:18.922 --> 44:22.492 attention. The first was in New Orleans, 44:22.485 --> 44:24.275 the other in Memphis. 44:24.280 --> 44:28.160 In both cases they were essentially police riots. 44:28.159 --> 44:33.409 In Memphis, about forty blacks were killed and over 200 44:33.412 --> 44:37.402 wounded, whole neighborhoods destroyed; 44:37.400 --> 44:40.170 Congressional investigations launched. 44:40.170 --> 44:45.710 In New Orleans the riots or massacre that was conducted by 44:45.711 --> 44:51.741 the white police of New Orleans against its black community was 44:51.740 --> 44:57.960 stimulated by a political parade of black Republicans in the late 44:57.962 --> 45:02.382 spring, 1866. Before the New Orleans riot was 45:02.380 --> 45:06.860 over thirty-four blacks were killed, about 250 wounded, 45:06.857 --> 45:09.757 and hundreds of homes destroyed. 45:09.760 --> 45:15.670 This was the state of chaos and reaction, already going on in 45:15.668 --> 45:19.458 the South. And you don't even really have 45:19.460 --> 45:22.940 legitimate functioning governments yet. 45:22.940 --> 45:27.310 So out on the hustings that fall the campaign appeals were 45:27.309 --> 45:31.989 on the one hand by Democrats to prejudice and racism and leave 45:31.986 --> 45:34.766 the South alone. Democrats are out on the 45:34.769 --> 45:37.889 hustings blaming Republicans for causing that violence in the 45:37.891 --> 45:40.651 South--if you give black people the right to vote, 45:40.650 --> 45:43.340 if you let black people move too high, too far, 45:43.343 --> 45:45.923 too fast, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 45:45.920 --> 45:49.060 And the Republicans attacking Andrew Johnson, 45:49.061 --> 45:52.131 for everything, including his drunkenness at 45:52.130 --> 45:56.230 his inauguration, but most importantly for his 45:56.229 --> 46:01.799 insolence and obstinance and obstruction to Reconstruction. 46:01.800 --> 46:04.350 So Johnson took his case to the people. 46:04.349 --> 46:07.759 He went on a long tour--he called it the Swing Around the 46:07.757 --> 46:10.127 Circle--all over the Northern states, 46:10.130 --> 46:13.550 up through New England, all across the Midwest, 46:13.548 --> 46:17.188 and he tried to be the old stump speaker from East 46:17.189 --> 46:22.799 Tennessee, and it totally backfired on him. 46:22.800 --> 46:26.810 He demanded that Ulysses Grant go with him; 46:26.809 --> 46:28.089 he demanded that William H. 46:28.087 --> 46:30.067 Seward go with him, the Secretary of State, 46:30.074 --> 46:31.734 and they reluctantly joined him. 46:31.730 --> 46:34.950 They were, after all, serving him as president. 46:34.950 --> 46:35.900 Grant hated this. 46:35.900 --> 46:38.280 Grant didn't even like politics. 46:38.280 --> 46:42.010 He's soon going to have to change his tune on that. 46:42.010 --> 46:45.640 But what happened, in essence, is that Andrew 46:45.640 --> 46:49.930 Johnson went out and caused a gigantic embarrassment, 46:49.931 --> 46:53.481 for himself, for Grant, and for others. 46:53.480 --> 46:57.110 He took out hundreds and hundreds of new U.S. 46:57.114 --> 47:00.424 flags, that had thirty-six stars on them, 47:00.419 --> 47:04.549 and not the twenty-five, without the eleven seceded 47:04.549 --> 47:08.349 states, and he would pass out the flags. 47:08.349 --> 47:11.609 And everywhere he went he would make the same speech, 47:11.611 --> 47:13.181 over and over and over. 47:13.179 --> 47:17.569 He would say you always begin by saying, "I stand on the 47:17.572 --> 47:20.082 Constitution." And then he started talking 47:20.084 --> 47:22.694 about the traitors in Congress, he called them traitors, 47:22.690 --> 47:26.580 Stevens and Sumner and Bingham and Fessenden, 47:26.583 --> 47:28.533 in their own states. 47:28.530 --> 47:33.240 Now that wasn't very clever. 47:33.239 --> 47:36.679 He even engaged in all kinds of undignified displays and certain 47:36.675 --> 47:37.815 kinds of vulgarity. 47:37.820 --> 47:39.740 Crowds began to react to him. 47:39.739 --> 47:42.619 He'd give the same damn speech town after town after town after 47:42.615 --> 47:44.295 town. It'd be reprinted in the paper 47:44.300 --> 47:46.570 and before he could get up and say, "I stand on the 47:46.568 --> 47:48.818 Constitution," the crowd would start saying, 47:48.822 --> 47:50.562 "Yeah, yeah, yeah, you stand on the 47:50.560 --> 47:53.950 Constitution." Crowds started shouting back at 47:53.954 --> 47:58.924 him saying, "Shut up" and "Stop" and "We'd rather hear Grant," 47:58.921 --> 48:01.121 and chants of that sort. 48:01.120 --> 48:04.150 48:04.150 --> 48:07.510 It became, in some instances, by the time he got to the 48:07.505 --> 48:10.795 Midwest, into Indiana and Illinois, impossible for him 48:10.798 --> 48:12.598 even to hold an audience. 48:12.600 --> 48:15.810 48:15.809 --> 48:20.969 Then finally he started to compare himself to Jesus on the 48:20.966 --> 48:25.036 cross; never a good idea. 48:25.039 --> 48:28.659 [Laughter] He was being crucified by the 48:28.659 --> 48:34.599 radical, traitorous wing of the Republican Party and Congress. 48:34.599 --> 48:38.629 And then he invented a story that he had been the one called 48:38.628 --> 48:42.378 Judas, and he worked that, he worked the Judas metaphor, 48:42.383 --> 48:44.503 about as often as he could. 48:44.500 --> 48:51.870 He was finally shouted off the stage in Pittsburgh and he just 48:51.866 --> 48:55.606 took the train and went home. 48:55.610 --> 49:01.000 He also kept referring to this magical circle of the Union; 49:01.000 --> 49:08.830 magical circle of the Union, and it became a parody. 49:08.829 --> 49:13.029 And in the fall elections, the people of the Northern 49:13.027 --> 49:17.947 states returned an overwhelming majority of Republicans to the 49:17.950 --> 49:22.330 Congress; a slightly more than two-thirds 49:22.333 --> 49:26.423 veto proof majority, to the Congress. 49:26.420 --> 49:30.910 And it will be that Congress, once it convenes in December 49:30.914 --> 49:33.914 '66 and into the next winter of '67, 49:33.909 --> 49:37.759 that will put in place the first Reconstruction Act, 49:37.756 --> 49:41.896 and then three subsequent Reconstruction Acts to enforce 49:41.904 --> 49:44.814 the first. And that first Reconstruction 49:44.806 --> 49:48.496 Act we will come back to next time, because it's crucial. 49:48.500 --> 49:53.720 But it set up here--and you can see it on this map--a system by 49:53.720 --> 49:58.350 which the South was to now be divided into five military 49:58.351 --> 50:01.401 districts, two or three states in each, 50:01.397 --> 50:05.197 the ex-Confederacy divided into five military districts, 50:05.199 --> 50:07.709 each commanded by a major-general. 50:07.710 --> 50:12.290 That major-general was to have control over elections and 50:12.293 --> 50:15.653 electoral boards, and a sufficient body of 50:15.649 --> 50:18.419 troops, it said, to enforce the 50:18.415 --> 50:21.005 electoral process in the South. 50:21.010 --> 50:23.960 And there was to be, according to that first 50:23.961 --> 50:26.161 Reconstruction Act, as we'll see, 50:26.158 --> 50:29.658 a high level of Confederate disenfranchisement. 50:29.659 --> 50:34.159 This now will be the Republican Party taking control of 50:34.159 --> 50:37.239 Reconstruction, of trying to plant the 50:37.243 --> 50:42.913 Republican Party into the South now with African-American votes, 50:42.909 --> 50:48.469 and they will succeed in creating Republican control, 50:48.468 --> 50:52.208 legislatures, governors' offices, 50:52.210 --> 50:56.620 in all eleven of the ex-Confederate states--at least 50:56.619 --> 51:01.979 at first--and in some of those states we'll see some remarkable 51:01.981 --> 51:05.441 experimental democracy put in place, 51:05.440 --> 51:07.550 unprecedented, to that time, 51:07.550 --> 51:09.270 in American history. 51:09.269 --> 51:13.169 Unfortunately, of course, what will also be 51:13.166 --> 51:18.816 stimulated and put in place is a deeply embittered reaction in 51:18.824 --> 51:23.224 the white South, to now do whatever it took--by 51:23.222 --> 51:27.802 any means necessary--to destroy the Republican party, 51:27.800 --> 51:32.010 to destroy African-American autonomy, to destroy the 51:32.007 --> 51:34.727 African-American right to vote. 51:34.730 --> 51:38.300 And it will be organizations like the Ku Klux Klan, 51:38.302 --> 51:42.382 which had been around at least since 1866 but are going to 51:42.376 --> 51:44.516 explode with fury in 1868. 51:44.519 --> 51:48.679 And between 1868 and 1871, the Klan and its many, 51:48.682 --> 51:52.502 many, many imitators will engage in a kind of 51:52.498 --> 51:58.518 violence-as-real-politics, in an attempt to take back 51:58.520 --> 52:02.730 control of the political South. 52:02.730 --> 52:08.000 And I'll leave you there hanging, with good will.