WEBVTT 00:01.700 --> 00:05.080 Professor David Blight: So what is the engine of 00:05.075 --> 00:08.545 history? I beg your attention. 00:08.550 --> 00:14.610 There's a simple question for you, what is the engine of 00:14.608 --> 00:18.008 history? Don't you like unanswerable 00:18.012 --> 00:21.972 questions? Is the engine of history 00:21.972 --> 00:28.022 politics, the inherent, natural, eternal quest of 00:28.018 --> 00:34.818 people to bend other people's wills and take power? 00:34.820 --> 00:39.710 Or is the engine of history economics, the grinding, 00:39.707 --> 00:45.267 on-the-ground process by which people carve out livelihoods 00:45.266 --> 00:50.146 over against other people's competition for the same 00:50.154 --> 00:55.114 livelihoods? It doesn't seem to matter what 00:55.114 --> 00:59.004 history you study, or where you look, 00:58.995 --> 01:04.705 history always somehow comes around to this nexus, 01:04.709 --> 01:09.579 this collision, between forces of political 01:09.580 --> 01:16.420 power and forces of economics, and our job is always somehow 01:16.421 --> 01:21.641 to discern between them and how they mix. 01:21.640 --> 01:26.780 Now often, of course, the answer is that it's all one 01:26.775 --> 01:28.845 and the same thing. 01:28.849 --> 01:33.489 Listen to this passage by a freedman in the South named 01:33.490 --> 01:37.570 Bailey Wyatt. He got up and made a speech at 01:37.571 --> 01:40.551 a freedmen's political meeting. 01:40.550 --> 01:45.300 This was actually an early Union League meeting, 01:45.299 --> 01:48.339 in 1866. It was about political 01:48.341 --> 01:50.651 organizing in the South. 01:50.650 --> 01:55.610 But know what Bailey gets up and says, as it was recorded. 01:55.610 --> 01:58.440 It was a meeting in Yorktown, Virginia. 01:58.440 --> 02:00.600 Bailey Wyatt, former slave, 02:00.600 --> 02:05.340 he's sort of announcing the freed people's grievances at a 02:05.335 --> 02:07.325 political gathering. 02:07.329 --> 02:11.659 He says: "We now as a people desires to be elevated, 02:11.661 --> 02:15.571 and we desires to do all we can to be educated, 02:15.568 --> 02:20.068 and we hope our friends will aid us all they can. 02:20.069 --> 02:25.389 I may state to all our friends and to all our enemies that we 02:25.391 --> 02:29.561 has a right to the land where we are located. 02:29.560 --> 02:32.430 Why? I'll tell you. 02:32.430 --> 02:35.360 Our wives, our children, our husbands, 02:35.361 --> 02:39.881 has been sold over and over again to purchase the lands we 02:39.876 --> 02:41.536 now locates upon. 02:41.539 --> 02:47.189 For that reason we have a divine right to the land. 02:47.190 --> 02:50.370 And then didn't we clear the lands and raise the crops of 02:50.367 --> 02:53.597 corn and of cotton and of tobacco and of rice and of sugar 02:53.601 --> 02:54.851 and of everything? 02:54.849 --> 02:58.699 And then didn't them large cities in the North grow up on 02:58.698 --> 03:02.408 the cotton and the sugars and the rice that we made? 03:02.409 --> 03:06.469 Yes, I appeal to the South and to the North, 03:06.472 --> 03:10.632 if I hasn't spoken the words of the truth. 03:10.629 --> 03:15.989 I say they have grown rich, and my people are poor." 03:15.990 --> 03:23.710 At a political rally, he makes an aggressive economic 03:23.706 --> 03:29.786 speech about the labor theory of value. 03:29.789 --> 03:32.509 He didn't need to read to John Locke. 03:32.509 --> 03:35.019 He'd never read Second Treatise on Government. 03:35.020 --> 03:38.700 He hadn't had a political philosophy course, 03:38.698 --> 03:41.348 but he absolutely understood. 03:41.349 --> 03:45.739 He called it the divine right--the labor theory of 03:45.742 --> 03:50.042 value. If I labor to improve that 03:50.039 --> 03:54.979 land, it's mine. In that, in the simplicity, 03:54.983 --> 04:00.483 in the agony and the beauty of Bailey Wyatt's statement, 04:00.479 --> 04:05.649 you have a lot of what was at stake in Reconstruction, 04:05.651 --> 04:11.311 and you have a lot about what the political dilemma was, 04:11.310 --> 04:18.440 in delivering on Bailey Wyatt's claim to a divine right to the 04:18.441 --> 04:22.051 land. All right, back to Washington, 04:22.053 --> 04:26.713 back to the politics, at least for a few minutes, 04:26.709 --> 04:30.869 and then I want to shift us south to this story of the 04:30.868 --> 04:34.318 on-the-ground economics of Reconstruction, 04:34.319 --> 04:38.719 especially this massive transformation of a slave labor 04:38.715 --> 04:43.265 economy into some kind of free labor economy that quickly 04:43.273 --> 04:46.033 evolves, of course--and you know this, 04:46.030 --> 04:49.590 at least the contours of it, from reading Foner--it evolves 04:49.590 --> 04:51.680 eventually, rather quickly, 04:51.679 --> 04:56.599 into a system of tenant farming and a system of sharecropping 04:56.596 --> 05:00.936 and a system ultimately of a kind of debt peonage. 05:00.939 --> 05:04.509 But in Washington, the political triumph of the 05:04.506 --> 05:08.926 Radical Republicans comes in that veto-proof Congress they 05:08.926 --> 05:12.256 produced in the fall elections of 1866. 05:12.259 --> 05:19.109 And in 1867 they passed the First Reconstruction Act, 05:19.112 --> 05:24.912 followed after that, in '67 and early '68, 05:24.910 --> 05:27.850 by three more Reconstruction Acts, simply called the Second, 05:27.848 --> 05:29.838 Third, and Fourth Reconstruction Acts. 05:29.839 --> 05:33.519 And it was this system by which the southern states, 05:33.518 --> 05:37.628 the ex-Confederate states, were actually readmitted to the 05:37.628 --> 05:41.468 Union. The great possibilities--Foner 05:41.470 --> 05:48.230 addresses over and over--in this experiment in racial democracy, 05:48.230 --> 05:52.010 this experiment in increasing democratic forms of government 05:52.009 --> 05:55.859 and institutions in the South, through the transplanting of 05:55.858 --> 05:59.388 the Republican Party into those ex-Confederate states, 05:59.390 --> 06:01.890 is rooted in this document. 06:01.889 --> 06:04.499 Those are the five--I don't know if you can read it in the 06:04.501 --> 06:06.061 back, can read that in the back? 06:06.060 --> 06:10.270 Yeah, all right, I love this machine, 06:10.271 --> 06:13.081 it makes me look good. 06:13.079 --> 06:16.369 But those are the five--I'm not going to, well, 06:16.367 --> 06:18.807 maybe I will. The first part of the First 06:18.812 --> 06:21.562 Reconstruction Act divided the South into five military 06:21.558 --> 06:23.728 districts. The Second said that each 06:23.732 --> 06:27.482 district would be commanded by a General, not below the rank of 06:27.483 --> 06:30.693 Brigadier-General, and an adequate military force. 06:30.689 --> 06:35.899 That part will never really come off, and it wasn't even 06:35.901 --> 06:38.231 begun. The Third, the Commanding 06:38.228 --> 06:41.868 General would supervise--a General would supervise election 06:41.868 --> 06:44.188 of delegates to state conventions, 06:44.190 --> 06:47.600 and those new state conventions would write these new state 06:47.598 --> 06:49.948 constitutions for the Southern states. 06:49.950 --> 06:51.210 Note the process now. 06:51.209 --> 06:53.299 This is not Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan, 06:53.298 --> 06:56.318 and it sure as hell isn't Andrew Johnson's "that portion 06:56.321 --> 06:57.641 who are loyal" plan. 06:57.640 --> 07:01.760 07:01.759 --> 07:03.769 All adult males, regardless of color, 07:03.770 --> 07:07.010 who were not disfranchised for participation in the war, 07:07.009 --> 07:11.149 were eligible to vote, and the constitutions had to 07:11.146 --> 07:16.606 provide for male Negro suffrage, in the South. 07:16.610 --> 07:18.830 You'll note, the Republicans, 07:18.825 --> 07:22.535 as I've said before, are stepping clear of black 07:22.543 --> 07:25.663 suffrage in the North, and they're going to do it 07:25.657 --> 07:27.037 again in the Fifteenth Amendment; 07:27.040 --> 07:30.010 we'll come back to that Thursday. 07:30.009 --> 07:33.019 And finally, when a majority of the voters 07:33.017 --> 07:36.687 ratified a constitution, and when Congress approved 07:36.685 --> 07:40.495 it--the President has virtually no role in this, 07:40.500 --> 07:43.680 this is Congressional Reconstruction; 07:43.680 --> 07:47.010 when a state had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, 07:47.009 --> 07:49.739 no choice, the equal protection clause, 07:49.740 --> 07:56.270 the citizenship amendment--you must accept, then and only then, 07:56.270 --> 08:00.800 a state would be readmitted to the Union. 08:00.800 --> 08:05.300 If you put it all in one large pill, it's a very big pill for 08:05.296 --> 08:08.216 the ex-Confederate states to swallow, 08:08.220 --> 08:11.000 and at least politically, on the surface, 08:11.003 --> 08:14.623 it is exactly what they had to swallow in order to be 08:14.621 --> 08:16.571 readmitted to the Union. 08:16.569 --> 08:21.529 And between 1866--actually Tennessee was readmitted before 08:21.527 --> 08:24.397 this act even passed, in a shifty, 08:24.397 --> 08:28.397 strange manner; it had to be readmitted again 08:28.395 --> 08:32.755 after that--but between '66 and 1870, the eleven former 08:32.762 --> 08:36.972 Confederate states were readmitted to the Union under 08:36.968 --> 08:41.088 the Radical Reconstruction Plan of the Congressional 08:41.093 --> 08:44.273 Republicans. Now, those three subsequent 08:44.274 --> 08:46.714 Reconstruction Acts are very important. 08:46.710 --> 08:48.950 And by the way, every one of these acts, 08:48.946 --> 08:52.326 including the renewal each year of the Freedmen's Bureau, 08:52.330 --> 08:56.250 the renewal--I mean, the first Civil Rights 08:56.248 --> 09:01.378 Act--fifteen different bills developing a Reconstruction 09:01.380 --> 09:03.870 plan, passed by Congress, 09:03.869 --> 09:08.729 were all vetoed between 1866 and '68 by Andrew Johnson. 09:08.730 --> 09:12.170 I may have said this before, more vetoes by a president of 09:12.172 --> 09:15.672 the United States than all previous American presidents put 09:15.674 --> 09:17.434 together. You could call this a 09:17.433 --> 09:18.903 constitutional crisis; it was. 09:18.899 --> 09:21.449 You could call it a breakdown in federalism. 09:21.450 --> 09:23.050 You could call it whatever you want. 09:23.049 --> 09:27.279 But it's government by veto and override of veto. 09:27.279 --> 09:30.589 Every time A.J. vetoed a Reconstruction Act, 09:30.593 --> 09:34.913 Congress, in its two-thirds majority, Republicans in both 09:34.908 --> 09:37.218 houses, overrode his veto. 09:37.220 --> 09:39.860 We've never had a government operate like this, 09:39.861 --> 09:42.391 with this many vetoes, an override of vetoes, 09:42.388 --> 09:44.798 in such a concentrated period of time. 09:44.799 --> 09:48.319 That's how Reconstruction was actually put in place 09:48.323 --> 09:50.743 politically. The Second Reconstruction Act 09:50.737 --> 09:53.197 gave details for how those military commanders were 09:53.199 --> 09:55.119 supposed to conduct their districts. 09:55.120 --> 09:58.930 The Third Reconstruction Act, passed summer of '67, 09:58.932 --> 10:02.442 set up what were called registration boards, 10:02.440 --> 10:06.760 which were empowered to deny voting rights to anyone they 10:06.757 --> 10:10.687 felt were not taking loyalty oaths in good faith; 10:10.690 --> 10:13.590 they're still trying to enforce this loyalty oath. 10:13.590 --> 10:18.850 And the Fourth Reconstruction Act, not passed until spring of 10:18.846 --> 10:23.576 '68, simply said that a majority of votes cast would be 10:23.576 --> 10:28.216 sufficient to put a new constitution into effect, 10:28.220 --> 10:35.290 not a majority of those Southerners who had voted in 10:35.289 --> 10:38.919 1860. You'll note some erosion there, 10:38.917 --> 10:42.257 in the radicalism of the radical plan. 10:42.259 --> 10:45.529 There are a lot of reasons for that, not the least of which is 10:45.531 --> 10:47.521 they were in the midst, at that point, 10:47.515 --> 10:49.655 of trying to impeach Andrew Johnson. 10:49.659 --> 10:54.249 Now, I wish I had an entire lecture--well I do have an 10:54.248 --> 10:59.008 entire lecture--to give you on the impeachment of Andrew 10:59.010 --> 11:01.900 Johnson, but I'm going to do it quickly, 11:01.897 --> 11:05.407 and I'd be more than happy in our review session in a couple 11:05.414 --> 11:09.204 of weeks, or any other time, 11:09.199 --> 11:12.609 to come back to it. 11:12.610 --> 11:15.340 It's the first great model we have of the impeachment of a 11:15.335 --> 11:17.195 President, of course, in our history. 11:17.200 --> 11:19.530 We've had another one, since. 11:19.529 --> 11:24.059 We used to think it would never, ever, ever happen again 11:24.059 --> 11:26.199 after the Nixon debacle. 11:26.200 --> 11:31.160 Here I go, I'm straying into my tangent. 11:31.159 --> 11:35.579 Believe it or not I was--I'm giving away my age here--but I 11:35.576 --> 11:39.986 was a high school teacher the year Richard Nixon was almost 11:39.993 --> 11:43.923 impeached, and I had prepared for months 11:43.923 --> 11:49.363 to teach my students about impeachment, and then the SOB 11:49.355 --> 11:51.365 resigned. [Laughter] 11:51.368 --> 11:55.758 And it just took all the fun out of the early 1970s. 11:55.759 --> 11:58.579 [Laughter] But it was a great civics 11:58.575 --> 12:01.655 lesson. We got that civics lesson over 12:01.659 --> 12:06.059 again because of Bill Clinton's affair with a White House 12:06.063 --> 12:08.303 intern, and because of what "is" or 12:08.295 --> 12:11.555 "was" or whatever the hell it was he said to the Grand Jury. 12:11.559 --> 12:14.039 You need to know a couple of things though about the 12:14.040 --> 12:16.230 Constitution, if you don't already know it. 12:16.230 --> 12:19.700 There actually are four, well five, provisions about 12:19.703 --> 12:22.023 impeachment in the Constitution. 12:22.019 --> 12:25.179 It's the most awesome power in the Constitution, 12:25.181 --> 12:27.741 in some ways, and it isn't wielded very 12:27.737 --> 12:30.217 often. The authority to impeach, 12:30.224 --> 12:34.004 of course, rests with the House of Representatives. 12:34.000 --> 12:36.270 It is the House of Representatives, 12:36.273 --> 12:39.553 through its judiciary committee, that investigates 12:39.549 --> 12:43.489 grounds for impeachment of a president or a cabinet official 12:43.493 --> 12:45.703 or a Supreme Court justice. 12:45.700 --> 12:47.980 It is the House of Representatives that then brings 12:47.982 --> 12:51.132 articles of impeachment, which in effect are like an 12:51.126 --> 12:55.546 indictment, although they are a political indictment and never 12:55.548 --> 12:58.228 intended to be a legal indictment. 12:58.230 --> 13:00.900 The third part of the Constitution, 13:00.895 --> 13:04.415 Article 1, Section 3, Clause 6, gives the U.S. 13:04.423 --> 13:09.133 Senate the power to sit as the jury, the judicial function of 13:09.127 --> 13:12.887 trying a person under impeachment charges. 13:12.889 --> 13:17.839 The House charges, the Senate judges. 13:17.840 --> 13:20.550 Only the Senate, in its collective vote, 13:20.547 --> 13:24.087 can determine guilt or innocence, and it takes--they 13:24.087 --> 13:28.107 kept this an awesome power and difficult to use--it takes a 13:28.114 --> 13:29.994 two-thirds vote of the U.S. 13:29.988 --> 13:34.568 Senate to impeach and remove a president or other official. 13:34.570 --> 13:37.390 And then comes the punishment clause, Article 1, 13:37.392 --> 13:39.732 Section 3, Clause 7 of the Constitution: 13:39.734 --> 13:42.624 judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend 13:42.617 --> 13:45.137 further than to removal from office, 13:45.139 --> 13:48.549 and disqualification to hold and enjoy any other office of 13:48.546 --> 13:50.096 honor, trust, or profit, 13:50.100 --> 13:52.960 under the United States, but the party convicted shall 13:52.958 --> 13:55.708 nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, 13:55.710 --> 14:00.280 trial, judgment and punishment according to law. 14:00.279 --> 14:05.859 You could still be tried in a criminal court after you're 14:05.864 --> 14:10.854 impeached, although we've never gotten that far. 14:10.850 --> 14:14.520 But the only power the Senate has is removal. 14:14.519 --> 14:17.439 And that is exactly what the Radical Republicans are trying 14:17.440 --> 14:22.210 to do to Andrew Johnson, and that he provokes them to 14:22.208 --> 14:27.518 do, over and over, in 1867 and early 1868. 14:27.519 --> 14:30.599 There is one other feature in the Constitution, 14:30.597 --> 14:33.937 and that is of course the President's pardon power: 14:33.942 --> 14:38.092 the President shall have the power to pardon in all cases, 14:38.090 --> 14:41.520 except impeachment. 14:41.519 --> 14:45.699 Now, I don't--you don't remember Gerald Ford's pardon of 14:45.695 --> 14:47.235 Richard Nixon. I do. 14:47.240 --> 14:51.980 14:51.980 --> 14:55.580 Probably cost Gerald Ford election. 14:55.580 --> 14:59.690 All right, in brief, what happened in the Johnson 14:59.688 --> 15:02.768 impeachment--and he was impeached, 15:02.769 --> 15:07.549 he simply wasn't removed from office--is what you had is a 15:07.551 --> 15:12.501 process, through four and five different--depends on how you 15:12.499 --> 15:17.029 count them--stages in the political development of this 15:17.029 --> 15:21.389 crisis of authority and power over who's going to run 15:21.390 --> 15:25.340 Reconstruction. Now there are numerous 15:25.336 --> 15:28.636 theories, historical interpretations, 15:28.636 --> 15:34.316 about why Johnson was finally impeached by the Republicans. 15:34.320 --> 15:38.710 It never would have happened if Andrew Johnson would've, 15:38.705 --> 15:43.485 in any way, just backed off and admitted that he was probably 15:43.489 --> 15:46.519 going to be a lame duck president. 15:46.519 --> 15:48.999 One theory is Johnson's personal behavior, 15:48.995 --> 15:51.405 as an explanation for his impeachment. 15:51.409 --> 15:54.249 His personal habits were hardly fetching. 15:54.250 --> 15:59.250 His Swing Around the Circle in the fall of 1866 was an utter 15:59.249 --> 16:02.129 embarrassment to the presidency. 16:02.130 --> 16:07.560 His likening himself to Jesus; his constant ranting on the 16:07.564 --> 16:13.584 Radical Republicans as traitors, calling them Judas. 16:13.580 --> 16:19.290 He is called in the press a "presidential ass," at various 16:19.293 --> 16:21.803 times during that tour. 16:21.799 --> 16:25.439 That's one part of it, the sort of personal 16:25.442 --> 16:27.872 provocations of his style. 16:27.870 --> 16:31.810 But a second explanation, that I think holds much more 16:31.808 --> 16:36.338 weight, is that Johnson and the Radical Republicans simply had 16:36.340 --> 16:40.200 fundamentally different constitutional conceptions of 16:40.204 --> 16:44.294 the meaning of the war and the meaning and the nature of 16:44.290 --> 16:46.520 Reconstruction policy. 16:46.519 --> 16:48.889 Johnson, you'll remember, wanted a rapid, 16:48.888 --> 16:51.728 quick, presidential, executive Reconstruction, 16:51.730 --> 16:56.310 with virtually no alteration of the Constitution and utterly no 16:56.311 --> 16:59.711 changes in black civil and political rights. 16:59.710 --> 17:04.150 His fifteen vetoes and the overrides of those vetoes--in 17:04.146 --> 17:07.046 that process of veto and override, 17:07.049 --> 17:11.259 you really have the origins, the roots, the essence of why 17:11.258 --> 17:15.758 the Radicals finally decided the best thing in their political 17:15.761 --> 17:19.971 interest to do with Andrew Johnson was to remove him. 17:19.970 --> 17:23.090 A third theory is--and there's something to this, 17:23.088 --> 17:26.788 although I don't think it explains it all by any means--is 17:26.791 --> 17:30.561 what one historian has called the radical plot thesis, 17:30.559 --> 17:35.519 just sheer partisan politics, just sheer partisan hatreds. 17:35.519 --> 17:39.539 This guy was an old Jacksonian Democrat, he was a southern 17:39.536 --> 17:42.836 Democrat, as the president, and the Republicans not only 17:42.841 --> 17:45.411 wanted him out of the way of their Reconstruction plans, 17:45.410 --> 17:48.150 they wanted the Democratic Party ruined, 17:48.146 --> 17:49.686 if they could do it. 17:49.690 --> 17:52.360 Some of them did want that. 17:52.359 --> 17:54.889 Some of the leaders of the impeachment movement in the 17:54.894 --> 17:56.764 House--James Ashley, Benjamin Butler, 17:56.759 --> 17:59.869 George Boutwell and others--were sometimes referred 17:59.871 --> 18:02.051 to, even in their friendly press, 18:02.049 --> 18:06.729 as one Republican paper put it, "as baleful a trio of buzzards 18:06.733 --> 18:10.653 as ever perched in the House of Representatives." 18:10.650 --> 18:14.220 And they were accused, as sometimes politicians are 18:14.216 --> 18:16.566 accused today, of a witch-hunt. 18:16.569 --> 18:19.179 They investigated everything about Johnson, 18:19.184 --> 18:22.114 his bank accounts, allegations that he had tried 18:22.109 --> 18:25.279 to betray Tennessee during the Civil War--which were 18:25.284 --> 18:28.834 nonsense--and even that he had somehow participated in the 18:28.832 --> 18:32.382 Booth conspiracy to kill Lincoln--utter nonsense. 18:32.380 --> 18:37.000 The real explanation here, if there's smoke--I mean if 18:37.002 --> 18:40.672 there's fire, where the smoke comes from on 18:40.665 --> 18:44.585 this radical plot thesis against Johnson, 18:44.589 --> 18:48.199 is this idea that there were some Radical Republicans here 18:48.200 --> 18:51.510 who saw a big opening, not only to remake the South, 18:51.513 --> 18:54.923 to Yankeeize the South--and they are interested in doing 18:54.915 --> 18:58.595 that, and not always of bad motives; 18:58.599 --> 19:02.059 the South needed schools, desperately; 19:02.059 --> 19:05.189 it needed some kind of economic revival, desperately; 19:05.190 --> 19:07.110 it needed its harbors dredged desperately. 19:07.109 --> 19:09.249 It needed an activist government to do all of this. 19:09.250 --> 19:12.820 But there were some Radical Republicans who saw a chance 19:12.816 --> 19:15.536 here to rearrange constitutional powers, 19:15.539 --> 19:19.479 to use the feeling abroad against Andrew Johnson, 19:19.482 --> 19:23.592 to tip the balance of power toward the Congress, 19:23.589 --> 19:27.739 as never before, in the nature of the federal 19:27.742 --> 19:30.302 government. Removing Johnson would be 19:30.296 --> 19:33.156 removing an obstacle to congressional hegemony over the 19:33.162 --> 19:34.332 federal government. 19:34.330 --> 19:39.320 19:39.319 --> 19:42.329 And now there's some element here too, of the fact that you 19:42.326 --> 19:45.486 need to remember who actually would've replaced Andrew Johnson 19:45.488 --> 19:47.508 if he had been removed from office. 19:47.510 --> 19:48.930 There is no vice-president. 19:48.930 --> 19:50.620 He had been Lincoln's vice-president. 19:50.620 --> 19:52.200 There is no vice-president. 19:52.200 --> 19:54.990 We didn't have the amendment, which comes later, 19:54.985 --> 19:58.125 in the twentieth century, which allows a new president 19:58.126 --> 20:01.026 who takes over to appoint his vice-president. 20:01.029 --> 20:03.549 So in the absence of any vice-president, 20:03.545 --> 20:05.605 who would've become president? 20:05.609 --> 20:08.259 Come on, that's a great trivia question, use this one out at 20:08.260 --> 20:11.510 the bar. No one will know it. 20:11.510 --> 20:14.520 Louder, I can't hear you. 20:14.519 --> 20:16.029 Students: Speaker of the House. 20:16.029 --> 20:20.619 Professor David Blight: No. 20:20.619 --> 20:25.049 President Pro Tem of the Senate--bingo--who was Benjamin 20:25.053 --> 20:30.053 Wade, a Radical Republican from Ohio, and one of the leaders of 20:30.052 --> 20:35.102 the impeachment movement; a little unsavory. 20:35.099 --> 20:36.459 You're organizing to impeach the president; 20:36.460 --> 20:40.600 oh by the way, I'll be the next president. 20:40.599 --> 20:42.509 And fourth and last, but not least, 20:42.513 --> 20:44.933 what's at stake in the impeachment of Andrew 20:44.934 --> 20:48.034 Johnson--and I'm going to spare you all the sordid, 20:48.029 --> 20:51.479 wonderful, tasty, lovely details of the 20:51.478 --> 20:57.008 corruption and skullduggery and scandal and payments that went 20:57.014 --> 20:59.344 on, in the final vote in the 20:59.341 --> 21:03.081 Senate, that moved seven Republicans over to acquittal 21:03.077 --> 21:04.837 and saved A.J.'s hide. 21:04.839 --> 21:10.329 I'm going to spare you all that wonderful, lovely, 21:10.332 --> 21:13.702 corruption. It's really beautiful, 21:13.700 --> 21:15.350 awful, ugly stuff. 21:15.350 --> 21:20.060 Money, offices. If you read John Kennedy's 21:20.060 --> 21:21.720 Profiles in Courage. 21:21.720 --> 21:24.840 We all love to love Jack Kennedy, and Ted Sorenson, 21:24.835 --> 21:27.675 who was his speech writer, was one of the greatest speech 21:27.680 --> 21:29.150 writers ever, and Ted Sorenson wrote that 21:29.146 --> 21:30.756 book, Profiles in Courage, 21:30.762 --> 21:32.772 then they put Jack Kennedy's name on it. 21:32.769 --> 21:36.579 And one of his chapters is, of course, about Andrew Johnson 21:36.578 --> 21:40.778 being persecuted by the Radical Republicans in Reconstruction. 21:40.780 --> 21:45.240 Blah, God they got that wrong. 21:45.240 --> 21:49.100 But last, but not least, Andrew Johnson was impeached 21:49.098 --> 21:52.728 and the Radicals kept going after him because A.J. 21:52.734 --> 21:55.434 wouldn't quit; he kept provoking them, 21:55.431 --> 21:57.981 provoking them, provoking them and provoking 21:57.976 --> 21:59.926 them, and not just with words. 21:59.930 --> 22:03.190 They would appoint a General in one of the five districts in the 22:03.189 --> 22:04.379 South, he'd fire him. 22:04.380 --> 22:08.400 Congress would appoint a whole new series of Freedman's Bureau 22:08.402 --> 22:10.712 agents for Texas, he'd fire them. 22:10.710 --> 22:14.060 You can't run a government like that. 22:14.059 --> 22:16.229 He would veto the Freedmen's Bureau, they'd override the 22:16.230 --> 22:18.400 Freedmen's Bureau and they'd put the budget in place, 22:18.400 --> 22:22.050 and he'd say, "Just go and try to enforce 22:22.052 --> 22:24.422 it." Now what do you do with a 22:24.424 --> 22:28.884 president, if you're running the Congress and you're trying to 22:28.875 --> 22:30.695 put a policy in place? 22:30.700 --> 22:34.560 But at the heart here was a struggle between a group of 22:34.564 --> 22:38.934 politicians capable of serious corruption in their own way, 22:38.930 --> 22:42.780 but nevertheless who were actually trying to defeat white 22:42.784 --> 22:45.204 supremacy. They were actually really 22:45.200 --> 22:49.080 trying to create some kind of black civil and political rights 22:49.081 --> 22:52.361 in the South. Sure, they wanted those blacks 22:52.358 --> 22:56.688 to be Republican voters; what else is new? 22:56.690 --> 23:02.380 But Andrew Johnson stood fast against them at every turn to 23:02.384 --> 23:07.204 try to preserve his own particular vision of white 23:07.195 --> 23:10.425 supremacy. Note just one passage. 23:10.430 --> 23:15.020 In his State of the Union Message, December 1867--this is 23:15.016 --> 23:18.456 after three attempts; three investigations of him 23:18.462 --> 23:21.762 have already been done by the House Judiciary Committee, 23:21.759 --> 23:25.009 and the House Judiciary Committee has brought possible 23:25.012 --> 23:28.632 impeachment articles to a vote and yet voted it down because 23:28.634 --> 23:31.584 they didn't quite have any smoking guns yet. 23:31.579 --> 23:34.859 And what does he do in his State of the Union, 23:34.857 --> 23:37.477 December 1867, among other things? 23:37.480 --> 23:41.000 He says: "In the progress of nations,"--I quote--"Negroes 23:41.001 --> 23:44.651 have shown less capacity for government than any other race 23:44.649 --> 23:47.349 of people. No independent government of 23:47.349 --> 23:50.599 any form has ever been successful in their hands. 23:50.599 --> 23:54.899 Wherever they have been left to their own devices, 23:54.898 --> 23:59.278 they have shown a constant tendency to relapse into 23:59.284 --> 24:03.974 barbarism." And it got worse from there. 24:03.970 --> 24:08.130 Stephens, Sumner, Wade and the host of the 24:08.128 --> 24:14.008 Republicans in Congress kept hearing this over and over and 24:14.010 --> 24:18.270 over, and finally they went after him. 24:18.269 --> 24:23.039 The House finally voted in February 1868, 24:23.041 --> 24:27.571 by a vote of about 140 to 50-something, 24:27.573 --> 24:31.323 to impeach him. The trouble was they 24:31.321 --> 24:35.541 actually--they wrote eleven articles of impeachment but in 24:35.544 --> 24:40.214 essence the first nine were all about the technical violation of 24:40.212 --> 24:44.882 two laws that Congress had passed that ultimately will be, 24:44.880 --> 24:47.890 and should have been, declared unconstitutional. 24:47.890 --> 24:51.440 They are called the Tenure of Office Act and the Command of 24:51.441 --> 24:54.451 the Army Act. The Tenure of Office Act was a 24:54.451 --> 24:58.771 law passed in essence saying the President of the United States 24:58.774 --> 25:02.544 could not fire members of his own cabinet [laughs]. 25:02.539 --> 25:04.359 The Commander of the Army, the Act said, 25:04.362 --> 25:07.122 the president of the United States as Commander-in-Chief, 25:07.119 --> 25:10.629 cannot issue orders to the armies without passing those 25:10.632 --> 25:13.302 orders through the General of the Army; 25:13.299 --> 25:17.009 which was the nineteenth century version of the Joint 25:17.006 --> 25:20.456 Chiefs of Staff. They were literally trying to 25:20.458 --> 25:25.018 strip constitutional powers away from--not the presidency--but 25:25.020 --> 25:26.740 from Andrew Johnson. 25:26.740 --> 25:29.130 He violated the Tenure of Office Act, he violated the 25:29.130 --> 25:31.940 Command of the Army Act, he willfully did it, 25:31.936 --> 25:37.186 and that's the grounds on which they actually impeached him and 25:37.193 --> 25:38.893 put him on trial. 25:38.890 --> 25:42.720 Now, in the end he was acquitted, not just because of 25:42.720 --> 25:45.740 skullduggery, corruption, and payments; 25:45.740 --> 25:50.500 not entirely because of that at all. 25:50.500 --> 25:53.910 He was acquitted, in part, because it was the 25:53.911 --> 25:57.891 spring of 1868. The Republican Party was about 25:57.888 --> 26:01.878 to hold its nominating convention for the 1868 26:01.876 --> 26:04.056 election, and they were about to 26:04.061 --> 26:07.071 nominate, everybody knew it, if they could just convince him 26:07.068 --> 26:09.538 to do it, Ulysses Grant as the next 26:09.537 --> 26:11.317 presidential candidate. 26:11.319 --> 26:14.949 Grant had been Johnson's General of the Army and Johnson 26:14.953 --> 26:18.063 kept embarrassing Grant, over and over and over, 26:18.058 --> 26:19.708 until Grant resigned. 26:19.710 --> 26:23.040 And the Republicans were suddenly frightened politically 26:23.044 --> 26:26.494 in the spring of 1868, if they really removed Johnson 26:26.493 --> 26:29.953 and put Ben Wade in the presidency and just literally 26:29.949 --> 26:34.149 took over the government, that it might really hurt them 26:34.146 --> 26:36.246 at the polls, in the fall. 26:36.250 --> 26:40.290 And that Democratic Party was doing everything under the sun, 26:40.287 --> 26:44.187 including using the Ku Klux Klan to a tremendous extent, 26:44.190 --> 26:48.200 as we'll see in the next two weeks, to revive itself and 26:48.204 --> 26:52.004 oppose the Republicans in election after election; 26:52.000 --> 26:55.510 and will they ever in that '68 election. 26:55.509 --> 26:58.319 In the spring of '68 good old A.J. 26:58.315 --> 27:00.945 promised better behavior too. 27:00.950 --> 27:03.600 He said he'd cool it, he'd back off, 27:03.599 --> 27:07.839 he'd get out of the way, and he would never run again; 27:07.840 --> 27:10.760 which wasn't quite true. 27:10.759 --> 27:13.639 He was acquitted, he served out his term. 27:13.640 --> 27:17.970 He went home to East Tennessee and did as old Andy Johnson 27:17.968 --> 27:22.068 always had, he got back on the stump and he got himself 27:22.068 --> 27:23.738 re-elected to the U.S. 27:23.738 --> 27:26.458 Senate. He will die in 1875. 27:26.460 --> 27:29.350 He's buried in Greenville, Tennessee, to this day, 27:29.353 --> 27:32.843 and we're told he was buried with a copy of the Constitution 27:32.838 --> 27:35.258 on his chest, held down by his hands. 27:35.259 --> 27:37.809 He used to say he stood on the Constitution; 27:37.809 --> 27:42.159 he's buried with the Constitution I guess standing on 27:42.158 --> 27:45.958 him. Goodbye Andrew Johnson, 27:45.956 --> 27:50.396 it's been so good to know you. 27:50.400 --> 27:55.930 Now, that fall the American people had a pivotal 27:55.927 --> 27:58.747 presidential election. 27:58.750 --> 28:01.170 I know we say that about all great elections, 28:01.172 --> 28:03.982 but let me give you the quick and dirty, on 1868. 28:03.980 --> 28:07.440 Foner covers this nicely. 28:07.440 --> 28:10.840 Grant was a war hero, of course. 28:10.839 --> 28:14.419 He was going to be now the candidate of harmony. 28:14.420 --> 28:18.310 We've had a lot of generals in our history run for president as 28:18.313 --> 28:19.823 candidates of harmony. 28:19.819 --> 28:25.349 When informed of his nomination, which was only a few 28:25.352 --> 28:30.322 weeks after the acquittal trial, in the Senate, 28:30.316 --> 28:35.026 of Andrew Johnson, when informed on May 20,1868 of 28:35.028 --> 28:38.318 his--excuse me, in early June, 28:38.322 --> 28:44.022 1868 of his nomination, he issued a public statement 28:44.016 --> 28:50.376 which read: "I shall have no policy of my own to interfere 28:50.379 --> 28:54.509 against the will of the people." 28:54.509 --> 28:58.459 And I'm going to repeat that, you tell me what it means. 28:58.460 --> 29:03.550 "I shall have no policy of my own to interfere against the 29:03.546 --> 29:05.506 will of the people." 29:05.509 --> 29:11.329 I will not take a stand, he said, in effect. 29:11.329 --> 29:15.159 He didn't exactly mean that, but the slogan--and he ended 29:15.160 --> 29:19.130 that statement with the famous slogan that would become the 29:19.127 --> 29:23.407 slogan of his election campaign, "Let us have peace." 29:23.410 --> 29:28.860 This splendidly ambiguous slogan, "Let us have peace." 29:28.859 --> 29:31.939 And God knows the whole country's yearning for peace, 29:31.943 --> 29:35.563 but what they would have in 1868 is by far the most racist, 29:35.559 --> 29:39.629 white supremacist election in American history, 29:39.634 --> 29:43.624 and by far, to that date, the most violent. 29:43.619 --> 29:46.309 Grant had committed to congressional control of 29:46.306 --> 29:49.106 Reconstruction and to the Reconstruction Acts. 29:49.109 --> 29:54.109 But the party platform in '68 now retrenched into being a 29:54.107 --> 29:59.367 political persuasion of order and stability and no longer of 29:59.372 --> 30:02.052 revolution and experiment. 30:02.049 --> 30:06.519 They would now be protectors of the status quo they had created, 30:06.515 --> 30:10.125 rather than the innovators and the experimenters. 30:10.130 --> 30:14.020 They were now pilloried by their opponents, 30:14.016 --> 30:16.416 the Democrats, as radicals, 30:16.422 --> 30:20.682 as amalgamationists, as miscegenationists. 30:20.680 --> 30:24.430 Black suffrage, the right to vote for black men 30:24.434 --> 30:27.704 became the issue of the 1868 election. 30:27.700 --> 30:31.700 If you think the Democratic Party in the 1960s under LBJ, 30:31.695 --> 30:35.115 which passes the '64 and '65 Civil Rights Act, 30:35.119 --> 30:40.389 put itself on a course of near destruction in the South because 30:40.385 --> 30:44.205 of its liberal racial views--which it did--the 30:44.206 --> 30:48.786 Republicans of 1868 are now running as the party of the 30:48.792 --> 30:51.512 black man's right to vote. 30:51.510 --> 31:01.300 31:01.299 --> 31:06.549 Now they did say that they were going to leave the right to vote 31:06.545 --> 31:10.145 to the whims of the states, in the North, 31:10.148 --> 31:14.168 but in the South, in that Reconstruction Act, 31:14.173 --> 31:18.383 and by swallowing the Fourteenth Amendment, 31:18.380 --> 31:22.730 the black man's right to vote was supposed to be sacrosanct. 31:22.730 --> 31:25.650 The Democratic Party had its convention in July of '68. 31:25.650 --> 31:30.260 It nominated Horatio Seymour of New York, its former governor. 31:30.259 --> 31:32.729 Now Seymour had, among other things--the 31:32.728 --> 31:36.268 Democrat's candidate for president--the vice-presidential 31:36.272 --> 31:39.562 candidate gets worse--but the Democrat's presidential 31:39.564 --> 31:43.464 candidate in '68, Seymour, had openly supported 31:43.456 --> 31:48.076 the draft rioters in 1863 in New York City, who were out 31:48.077 --> 31:51.267 slaughtering people in the streets. 31:51.269 --> 31:54.199 He was on record for having opposed the Civil War, 31:54.204 --> 31:56.304 for having been a Peace Democrat, 31:56.299 --> 31:59.379 a McClellan supporter, a man who would've sued for 31:59.377 --> 32:02.387 peace with the South, and he chose as his running 32:02.392 --> 32:05.922 mate Francis "Frank" Blair, for vice-president, 32:05.918 --> 32:09.568 from Missouri, who was not only an open white 32:09.573 --> 32:12.753 supremacist, but he declared that the 32:12.749 --> 32:15.969 Democrats would, if elected, announce the 32:15.965 --> 32:18.935 Reconstruction Acts null and void, 32:18.940 --> 32:23.580 they would repeal them, and they would return the South 32:23.580 --> 32:27.190 as immediately as possible to home rule. 32:27.190 --> 32:31.240 In other words, if the Democrats were elected 32:31.238 --> 32:35.928 in '68 they would crush the Reconstruction plans. 32:35.930 --> 32:44.430 And Blair, in his blustery ways, even threatened a second 32:44.428 --> 32:50.268 civil war; a little stupid there. 32:50.269 --> 32:54.889 There were rhetoric and reality in '68, but what was at stake in 32:54.894 --> 32:57.834 '68 were the results of the Civil War. 32:57.829 --> 33:02.859 It was a memory-laden peace that was at stake. 33:02.859 --> 33:06.519 The Democrats wanted to take the Constitution backward. 33:06.519 --> 33:09.109 The New York Herald, a Democratic paper, 33:09.106 --> 33:11.516 asked, quote, "Was it the Constitution as it 33:11.523 --> 33:13.663 was or the Constitution as it is?" 33:13.660 --> 33:18.500 That's Andrew Johnson's slogan. 33:18.500 --> 33:25.340 Now I want to just give you an example or two of just how 33:25.336 --> 33:29.606 racist this campaign was in 1868. 33:29.609 --> 33:32.349 There were bloody shirts waving everywhere. 33:32.350 --> 33:33.900 "Your people killed my people." 33:33.900 --> 33:37.050 "The blood on your hands is the blood of my son." 33:37.049 --> 33:39.929 There were Southern bloody shirts, Northern bloody shirts, 33:39.925 --> 33:43.775 Democratic Party bloody shirts, Republican Party bloody shirts, 33:43.778 --> 33:46.318 and African-American bloody shirts; 33:46.319 --> 33:49.039 symbolically, and in some cases literally, 33:49.035 --> 33:50.885 people would hold them up. 33:50.890 --> 33:53.530 Here's Blair, the vice-president, 33:53.534 --> 33:56.844 the attack dog, on the campaign trail. 33:56.839 --> 33:59.989 Republicans had oppressed the South, claimed Blair in one 33:59.987 --> 34:02.457 speech, by subjecting it to the rule of a, 34:02.460 --> 34:07.850 quote, "semi-barbarous race of blacks who are polygamist and 34:07.849 --> 34:13.239 destined to subject white women to their unbridled lust." 34:13.239 --> 34:17.029 "Let White Men Rule America," screamed a headline in a 34:17.033 --> 34:20.863 Louisville newspaper, arguing that Republicans 34:20.858 --> 34:24.668 preferred, quote, "native negroes to native 34:24.671 --> 34:27.711 whites." And everywhere Democrats 34:27.705 --> 34:31.435 labeled the Republican Party as the party of, 34:31.436 --> 34:36.456 quote, "the amalgamation of the races, 34:36.464 --> 34:44.034 the monstrous negro equality doctrine," and on and on it 34:44.029 --> 34:46.929 went. A Georgia Democrat, 34:46.926 --> 34:50.136 who got himself elected to the U.S. 34:50.140 --> 34:55.430 Senate, named Benjamin Hill, said the South was now under 34:55.433 --> 35:00.823 the rule of a foreign power, driven by hate and determined 35:00.822 --> 35:04.322 to dishonor an unarmed people. 35:04.320 --> 35:08.720 And in language understood across, you might say, 35:08.720 --> 35:12.480 all the white class lines in the South, 35:12.480 --> 35:15.700 he announced that if the Radicals controlled 35:15.695 --> 35:18.905 Reconstruction, southern whites would become 35:18.910 --> 35:20.780 America's new slaves. 35:20.780 --> 35:27.140 They were, said Benjamin Hill, quote, "becoming the new 35:27.135 --> 35:32.215 negroes." And on and on it went. 35:32.219 --> 35:36.459 Now, the Republicans gave it back, not quite in kind, 35:36.458 --> 35:40.288 but they certainly waved their bloody shirts. 35:40.289 --> 35:43.699 Here's Wendell Phillips, the old abolitionist in Boston, 35:43.700 --> 35:45.750 who said, quote, in this election, 35:45.747 --> 35:48.907 "We have just finished a war between two ideas. 35:48.909 --> 35:52.889 We sent our armies into South Carolina to carry our ideas. 35:52.889 --> 35:57.279 If we had no right to carry our ideas, we had no right to send 35:57.283 --> 36:00.193 our armies. If the Democrats"--no, 36:00.185 --> 36:05.005 he said, "If Seymour wins this election it is as if Lee 36:05.008 --> 36:07.418 triumphs at Appomattox." 36:07.420 --> 36:10.220 And that makes it pretty clear. 36:10.219 --> 36:15.499 Or take this example of a kind of a black bloody shirt. 36:15.500 --> 36:17.640 This is Benjamin Tanner, the editor of The Christian 36:17.643 --> 36:19.313 Recorder, the largest circulation black 36:19.310 --> 36:20.700 newspaper in the United States. 36:20.699 --> 36:25.749 It was the weekly newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal 36:25.754 --> 36:29.254 Church. And he put it into a kind of 36:29.249 --> 36:32.679 little parable. And he says what's at stake in 36:32.684 --> 36:36.294 the '68 election--this is very gendered of course--when you 36:36.289 --> 36:39.459 think about the power and significance of black male 36:39.459 --> 36:42.629 suffrage you know exactly what he's aiming at. 36:42.630 --> 36:47.750 He says Negro manhood is what is at stake in '68. 36:47.750 --> 36:49.050 Here's the way he put it. 36:49.050 --> 36:53.590 "Negro manhood says 'I am an American citizen.' 36:53.590 --> 36:56.530 Modern Democracy," meaning the Democratic Party, 36:56.532 --> 36:57.912 "says 'you are not.' 36:57.909 --> 37:00.529 Negro manhood says 'I demand all my rights, 37:00.533 --> 37:01.973 civil and political.' 37:01.969 --> 37:06.029 Modern Democracy says 'you have no rights, except what I choose 37:06.028 --> 37:08.758 to give you.' Negro manhood says 'I must 37:08.758 --> 37:12.858 build churches for myself and schoolhouses for my children.' 37:12.860 --> 37:17.490 Modern Democracy says 'if you do, I will burn them down.' 37:17.489 --> 37:22.129 Negro manhood says 'I will exercise the rights vouchsafed.' 37:22.130 --> 37:30.440 Modern Democracy says 'if you do I will mob and murder you.'" 37:30.440 --> 37:34.290 Now, you think our political campaigns get ugly. 37:34.289 --> 37:43.089 God, we are so tame, compared to this. 37:43.090 --> 37:48.080 As someone once said, politics, it's just war by 37:48.075 --> 37:54.865 other means, and there's never a time when that is more true than 37:54.865 --> 37:57.965 1868. The Ku Klux Klan came into its 37:57.968 --> 38:01.758 own in 1868. I'm going to lecture in full 38:01.759 --> 38:08.089 about violence and the Klan come next Thursday and next week. 38:08.090 --> 38:11.820 But 1868 was their first real coming out. 38:11.820 --> 38:16.460 There was a reign of terror in five or six southern states in 38:16.464 --> 38:19.414 this election, especially in Louisiana, 38:19.405 --> 38:22.265 Georgia, Arkansas, and Tennessee. 38:22.269 --> 38:26.009 All across the South, in '67 and especially that 38:26.012 --> 38:29.752 election year of '68, as blacks are beginning to 38:29.754 --> 38:33.344 evolve into this process of tenant farming and 38:33.337 --> 38:36.937 sharecropping, and trying somehow to eke out 38:36.936 --> 38:41.016 livings, they went to the polls in extraordinary numbers and 38:41.018 --> 38:45.098 risked their lives, and many of them died doing it. 38:45.099 --> 38:49.409 There were all kinds of auxiliaries of the Democratic 38:49.409 --> 38:54.299 Party that really were the Ku Klux Klan or its imitators. 38:54.300 --> 38:58.230 There were more than 200 political murders in the State 38:58.232 --> 39:01.002 of Arkansas alone, in this election. 39:01.000 --> 39:05.140 The death toll in Georgia was lower, but intimidation at the 39:05.143 --> 39:07.043 polls was very effective. 39:07.039 --> 39:12.609 In twenty-two Georgia counties, with a total of 9,300 black men 39:12.610 --> 39:17.820 listed on the voting rolls, Grant tallied only eighty-seven 39:17.821 --> 39:20.601 votes. Student: Professor 39:20.600 --> 39:25.190 Blight, the students of Civil War have suffered long enough. 39:25.190 --> 39:27.410 Let my people go! 39:27.410 --> 39:33.380 39:33.380 --> 39:36.520 Professor David Blight: You're free to leave. 39:36.520 --> 39:37.040 [Laughter] Nice hair. 39:37.040 --> 39:48.630 39:48.630 --> 39:50.320 I hope he doesn't have a gun. 39:50.320 --> 40:09.160 40:09.159 --> 40:10.279 [Laughter] At least he could've sung the 40:10.280 --> 40:10.510 lyric. 40:10.510 --> 40:16.460 40:16.460 --> 40:17.780 Seriously, has that guy left? 40:17.780 --> 40:26.610 40:26.610 --> 40:29.130 And the suffering continues. 40:29.130 --> 40:34.570 40:34.570 --> 40:36.250 [Laughter] In Louisiana, 40:36.248 --> 40:39.748 more than 1000 people died in political violence, 40:39.750 --> 40:44.880 in this one election year, almost all of them black, 40:44.879 --> 40:49.229 all between April and November 1868. 40:49.230 --> 40:53.220 In Louisiana, twenty-one parishes that had 40:53.223 --> 40:59.163 previously had a Republican vote in 1867, totaling some 28,000 40:59.164 --> 41:03.844 black voters, only 501 black votes got cast. 41:03.840 --> 41:08.980 And these are just some examples of how intimidation 41:08.982 --> 41:12.292 worked. Grant carried all of the North 41:12.293 --> 41:16.463 in '68, except three states, if you count Oregon as a 41:16.458 --> 41:19.588 northern state. The only northern states that 41:19.593 --> 41:22.863 Seymour and the Democrats carried were New Jersey and New 41:22.862 --> 41:25.772 York. Seymour won three border 41:25.772 --> 41:29.742 states, Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky, 41:29.742 --> 41:34.732 and he won only two of the nine reconstructed, 41:34.730 --> 41:39.920 ex-Confederate states--eight, excuse me--that were already 41:39.918 --> 41:41.828 readmitted by 1868. 41:41.829 --> 41:46.249 Grant won in the electoral college 214 to 80. 41:46.250 --> 41:50.250 The important thing is--two things--the Republicans 41:50.254 --> 41:54.824 sustained in the fall elections of 1868 a clear veto-proof 41:54.818 --> 41:57.718 Congress; two-thirds in the House and 41:57.724 --> 41:59.594 four-fifths in the Senate. 41:59.590 --> 42:05.120 And without the approximately half million African-American 42:05.117 --> 42:10.547 men who voted for Grant in those ex-Confederate states, 42:10.550 --> 42:13.110 Grant would never have been elected. 42:13.110 --> 42:18.140 It was the first time in American history when the black 42:18.139 --> 42:20.699 vote mattered, it counted; 42:20.699 --> 42:25.639 and so many of them voted in the face of threats to their 42:25.635 --> 42:28.745 lives. Now, on the ground in the 42:28.746 --> 42:34.036 South, in the midst of all this politics and violence, 42:34.039 --> 42:44.099 which we'll hear more about in time, a new level of--did he say 42:44.097 --> 42:48.637 suffering?--went in place. 42:48.639 --> 42:53.299 There was a speech made by a former Confederate General at 42:53.303 --> 42:57.803 the American Cotton Planters Association meeting in late 42:57.803 --> 43:01.543 1865; December '65 to be exact. 43:01.539 --> 43:04.399 And at that meeting-- ironically it isn't exactly 43:04.404 --> 43:07.634 clear what he intended-- but at this meeting the former 43:07.627 --> 43:11.017 Confederate General, whose name was Robert 43:11.021 --> 43:15.411 Richardson, said, quote, "The emancipated slaves 43:15.411 --> 43:21.671 own nothing because nothing but freedom has been given to them." 43:21.670 --> 43:27.510 They own nothing because nothing but freedom was given to 43:27.510 --> 43:30.680 them. In the absence of slavery what 43:30.677 --> 43:35.307 did the freedmen--now think with me--what did the freedmen 43:35.309 --> 43:39.279 actually own? They owned their bodies and 43:39.278 --> 43:41.648 they owned their labor. 43:41.650 --> 43:44.580 The freed people, as a mass of people, 43:44.583 --> 43:49.023 at the end of the Civil War now--the jubilee has come but 43:49.022 --> 43:51.482 what do they actually have? 43:51.480 --> 43:55.380 They lacked physical capital--money, 43:55.378 --> 44:02.278 land, to some extent tools--and they lacked to a certain degree 44:02.284 --> 44:05.414 human capital, which means education, 44:05.411 --> 44:07.401 literacy, and certain kinds of skills. 44:07.400 --> 44:11.410 Now a lot of slaves came out of slavery, of course, 44:11.413 --> 44:13.263 with enormous skills. 44:13.260 --> 44:18.220 Blacks' economic freedom though, like their political 44:18.219 --> 44:23.469 freedom, was largely at the mercy of the regime of white 44:23.465 --> 44:27.265 society, or of white supremacy itself, 44:27.272 --> 44:29.662 however it would survive. 44:29.659 --> 44:33.179 And the primary goal of white Southerners, from day one of 44:33.181 --> 44:35.531 Reconstruction, all the way through, 44:35.530 --> 44:40.310 was to try to sustain what they most needed, what whites most 44:40.310 --> 44:47.090 needed, which was a landless, dependent, agricultural labor 44:47.093 --> 44:51.113 force that would stay put. 44:51.110 --> 44:57.060 They wanted black people to remain, if not slaves in status, 44:57.058 --> 45:02.098 landless, dependent and stationary, as agricultural 45:02.100 --> 45:04.840 workers. Put another way, 45:04.838 --> 45:10.758 American freedom for American slaves brought no freedom dues. 45:10.760 --> 45:13.870 If you learned about indentured servitude in the past, 45:13.872 --> 45:17.162 in the eighteenth century, in all the colonies there were 45:17.161 --> 45:19.571 always something called freedom dues. 45:19.570 --> 45:24.060 When an indenture ended, a former indentured servant got 45:24.064 --> 45:26.924 a suit of clothing, a piece of cash, 45:26.924 --> 45:29.544 and usually a piece of land. 45:29.540 --> 45:31.450 It didn't happen. 45:31.450 --> 45:36.300 There were attempts at this; we'll see more about this in 45:36.302 --> 45:38.482 the coming two weeks. 45:38.480 --> 45:42.450 There was the Freedmen's Bureau efforts to redistribute land, 45:42.446 --> 45:45.336 to some extent. There was Thaddeus Stephens' 45:45.335 --> 45:49.055 bill in 1867 which would've--it didn't pass--but it would've 45:49.055 --> 45:51.825 called for forty acres and fifty dollars; 45:51.829 --> 45:55.639 there was no mention of a mule--forty acres and fifty 45:55.643 --> 45:59.603 dollars be given to each freedmen family by the federal 45:59.603 --> 46:04.993 government across the South; forty acres. 46:04.989 --> 46:08.039 It actually is sometimes referred to as the first 46:08.041 --> 46:11.011 reparations bill; didn't pass. 46:11.010 --> 46:14.010 There was Frederick Douglass's idea, a little bit later, 46:14.005 --> 46:16.125 of a national freedmen's loan agency, 46:16.130 --> 46:19.970 a federal loan agency subsidized by the federal 46:19.969 --> 46:24.259 government, by taxpayer money, to which freedmen would apply 46:24.261 --> 46:27.281 for loans, perhaps three-year loans, five-year loans, 46:27.280 --> 46:30.270 low interest loans, to buy land. 46:30.269 --> 46:33.499 It's the simplest idea in banking. 46:33.500 --> 46:37.720 Didn't happen. What did happen was a fourth 46:37.722 --> 46:41.492 effort that became known as the Freedmen's Bank. 46:41.489 --> 46:46.169 The Freedmen's Bank was chartered in late 1865. 46:46.170 --> 46:48.440 It lasted eight, nine years. 46:48.440 --> 46:53.490 It died in 1874 with obligations to approximately 46:53.488 --> 46:57.588 61,000 depositors, all former slaves, 46:57.590 --> 47:02.670 or virtually all former slaves, and the bank died on Frederick 47:02.671 --> 47:05.671 Douglass's watch as its president, 47:05.670 --> 47:09.590 because it could not make good on its payments. 47:09.590 --> 47:17.890 It was a good idea, that really wasn't tried. 47:17.889 --> 47:20.619 The Freedmen's Bank, by the way, did have some 47:20.619 --> 47:23.409 Congressional support, it did have some federal 47:23.410 --> 47:26.430 subsidies, but never enough to make a go 47:26.428 --> 47:30.868 or make it work. Today we bail out Bear Stearns. 47:30.869 --> 47:36.399 In 1874, the federal government and the politics of 1874, 47:36.395 --> 47:40.435 as we'll see, just let the Freedmen's Bank 47:40.440 --> 47:43.830 die. Now, let me leave you with this. 47:43.830 --> 47:46.520 I have I think a minute or so. 47:46.519 --> 47:49.759 We've learned a great deal, I think, from the First and the 47:49.760 --> 47:52.670 Second Reconstructions in American history--if we can 47:52.666 --> 47:55.286 refer to the Civil Rights Movement as the Second 47:55.292 --> 47:58.702 Reconstruction--we've learned a great deal about how political 47:58.700 --> 48:01.550 liberty can be achieved: the right to vote, 48:01.550 --> 48:03.890 right to hold office, serve on a jury, 48:03.893 --> 48:06.873 engage in the political culture, in spite of the 48:06.869 --> 48:09.909 hostility and the violence and intimidation. 48:09.909 --> 48:12.599 We've learned a great deal about what can be achieved with 48:12.604 --> 48:16.514 political liberty, but we've also learned a lot 48:16.511 --> 48:22.651 about what is often not achieved in any kind of concomitant 48:22.646 --> 48:27.216 economic power. What happens now in the South 48:27.221 --> 48:32.381 is a rapid process from slave labor to a whole new set of 48:32.380 --> 48:36.710 economic arrangements in the contract realm. 48:36.710 --> 48:42.680 What blacks most wanted to get away from, to kill off if they 48:42.680 --> 48:46.860 could, was any old system of gang labor. 48:46.860 --> 48:50.450 They wanted control over the labor and lives of their women. 48:50.450 --> 48:52.640 They wanted out of gang labor. 48:52.639 --> 48:55.609 They wanted plots of land of their own. 48:55.610 --> 48:59.500 But they faced essentially these three great obstacles. 48:59.500 --> 49:01.740 And I'll leave you with this. 49:01.739 --> 49:05.929 One is that they had inherited almost nothing from slavery with 49:05.928 --> 49:07.278 which to buy land. 49:07.280 --> 49:14.250 Two, they lived in an almost non-existent credit market. 49:14.250 --> 49:17.930 Long-term loans were simply not available anywhere; 49:17.929 --> 49:23.029 and show me a farmer anywhere, in a capitalist economy, 49:23.028 --> 49:26.898 who can survive without his bank loans. 49:26.900 --> 49:31.030 And three, they face an enormously hostile regime of 49:31.028 --> 49:35.968 white supremacy that does not believe black people should have 49:35.965 --> 49:38.065 economic independence. 49:38.070 --> 49:41.220 And initially what we see happening is that tenant 49:41.224 --> 49:43.674 farming, and then working on halves, 49:43.670 --> 49:48.470 or thirds and then halves, and working in a sharecropping 49:48.471 --> 49:51.131 system, becomes a compromise. 49:51.130 --> 49:55.100 It becomes a compromise because paying wages to former slaves 49:55.095 --> 49:58.395 doesn't work in an economy that is so cash poor. 49:58.400 --> 50:02.640 There's no cash to pay anybody with. 50:02.639 --> 50:06.159 So blacks actually begin to embrace this idea of being a 50:06.155 --> 50:08.895 tenant farmer, because you get your own plot 50:08.903 --> 50:11.393 of land, you have some control over your 50:11.385 --> 50:14.535 own labor, you plant your seeds, you own your own tools, 50:14.540 --> 50:16.000 or you think you do. 50:16.000 --> 50:19.400 At the end of the crop season you're going to share half of 50:19.402 --> 50:22.512 that crop with the owner of the land and then with the 50:22.512 --> 50:25.612 furnishing merchant, this new institution that 50:25.611 --> 50:28.681 evolves. But you get to keep half, 50:28.676 --> 50:34.366 and you can at least hope that in that half comes something 50:34.374 --> 50:37.424 like cash that you can keep. 50:37.420 --> 50:41.660 What it really is going to become, however, 50:41.656 --> 50:44.886 for most, not all, is a dead end, 50:44.885 --> 50:50.025 to some extent a dead end kind of debt peonage. 50:50.030 --> 50:54.200 What we do know is this: over the next twenty to thirty 50:54.202 --> 50:57.682 years, by about 1890 and certainly by 1900, 50:57.679 --> 51:01.639 about fifteen to percent percent of American freedmen, 51:01.642 --> 51:07.062 and their sons and daughters, will own their own land. 51:07.059 --> 51:15.079 It means about eight percent to eight-five percent did not. 51:15.080 --> 51:20.000 I'll leave you there; and suffer on.