“We’ve won the war. Now you have to lead us out of it,” General Ulysses S. Grant in Lincoln (2012) encapsulates the Reconstruction Era’s limitations and failure to truly unite and rebuild post-Civil War America even a decade after. The Reconstruction Era was characterized by a fragmented country with a gridlocked Congress, violent, southern paramilitary groups, poverty, and failure to implement true unity by providing freedmen with equality despite de jure feats of the 13th Amendment enacted by President Lincoln. Ultimately Lincoln’s goal to further enfranchise African Americans and rebuild America was halted by his assassination and left unfulfilled by President Johnson. While the war ended and the institution of slavery was destroyed, violence, and state versus federal government conflict ensued. Reconstruction was was socio-politically a failure to many, and disagreement led to its abandonment in 1877.
The passage of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 which freed slaves in the Confederacy marked the first step towards Reconstruction. Although it was step towards freedom, it did not fully succeed until 1865 with the passage of the 13th amendment. The proclamation was passed two years before the war ended because President Lincoln anticipated a Union victory and was committed to ending slavery before southern states would eventually rejoin Congress (298). This pressure for abolition rose from abolitionists, radical Republicans who “denounced slavery throughout the quarter-century before war broke out” and from the issue posed by runaway slaves seeking refuge inside Union lines (284). According to Major Problems, “Their growing numbers confronted the Union army with the option of either returning them to their owners and therefore to continued enslavement, or giving them a different status (284).”
The country faced many issues even as the war dwindled down, including making negotiations to bring back the seceded, figuring out how to rebuild the country alongside those who fought against them, while imposing firm restrictions for readmission, and implementing equal protection policies for the four million freed African-Americans. Still, before these issues could be tackled, the battles had to come to an end.
The film Glory (1989) depicts the pre-Reconstruction phase through the battles fought by the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment – the second African American regiment — and their plight towards obtaining a true definition of freedom even in a post-Emancipation Proclamation America. It portrays how Union African American soldiers fought for and despite a country that denied them true equality, privileges, and even amenities for soldiers. Lincoln expressed this sentiment while defending his decision in his Conkling letter in August 1863, “You say you will not fight to free [blacks]. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter..I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union (290).” It also highlights the Confederacy’s continued disregard of federal government statutes which would ultimately lead to failure in the Reconstruction period. In the film, the Confederacy issues a counter to the Emancipation Proclamation stating that black soldiers will return to slavery and that those found in a Union uniform will be killed along with their officers. It portrays how resistance against de jure freedom occurred even within the Union as the base’s quartermaster denies the men army supplies.
After the 54th is transferred under General Harker, Shaw finally lands the regiment a combat mission where they end up defeating a Confederate attack in South Carolina. In one pivotal scene, Trip refuses to bear the regimental flag because he doubts whether the war he is fighting for will actually result in a better life for ex-slave men like him.
Glory provides an accurate portrayal of the social ineffectiveness the Emancipation Proclamation, the first step towards Reconstruction, had at improving the lives of four million Americans. Former slaves discovered their freedom was very limited, and historians doubt how successful emancipation was (285). However, the film inaccurately states that Fort Wagner never fell to the Union Army. It also portrays he constant defiance against federal law from the Confederacy that would prevent real unity after the war. President Lincoln feared aggravating this opposition’s resistance, and for this reason, resisted introducing any abolitionist legislature in the first few years of his term. In General Benjamin F. Butler’s dispatch of July 30, 1861, he asks Lincoln what should be done about the “contraband of war” seeking refuge in the Union. But Lincoln held off in fear of stiffening their resistance and “[scaring] slaveholders in Union areas to moving to the Confederacy (284).”
Despite the shortcomings of the Emancipation Proclamation and increased legislative resistance from the Confederacy, Lincoln was able to successfully commence Reconstruction by ending the war and abolishing slavery. Although this was a successful, impactful start to uniting the country, the unity Lincoln sought would be undermined by his successor President Johnson. The film Lincoln (2012) offers a look into the skilled negotiations made by Lincoln to usher in the Reconstruction era through the many congressional struggles between Democrats and radical Republicans. As evident by his Conkling letter, Lincoln was committed to the freedom of all men, as he states in November 1863, “This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.” In the film, the Confederate States have just been defeated and Lincoln is worried that emancipation will be destroyed by the courts, and the 13th amendment abolishing slavery will not pass after the southern states return to the union.
Following Francis Blair’s advice, Lincoln begins peace negotiations with the Confederacy, and together with the Secretary of State, seek lame duck Democrat votes by offering them future federal jobs. Thaddeus Stevens, foreshadows the shortcomings of the passage of the 13th Amendment stating that the amendment will only enact legal equality, not de facto equal treatment. The vote secretly passes by two votes while Lincoln negotiates the peace with the Confederacy. Lincoln articulates the new definition of freedom he began to introduce in the Reconstruction age, stating, “If we..even submit to losing freedoms, the freedom to oppress, for instance, we may discover other freedoms previously unknown to us.” The negotiations fail after Lincoln tells them slavery can not be restored but later on April 3rd, Grant receives General Lee’s surrender. Lincoln discusses plans for the enfranchisement of African Americans until his Reconstruction agenda is stopped by his assassination. The film is historically accurate; emancipation was not fully achieved until this ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 (285). However, this tremendous achievement was not enough to effectively unite the country; freed slaves had to be protected with equal opportunity to solidify their new status, guaranteed legal rights, and economic security (323). Lincoln’s plans towards enfranchisement, national unity restoration, and economic reconstruction were halted by his assassination.
Although Reconstruction had successful, legislative origins with the readmission of the southern states and abolishment of slavery, the aftermath was dismal and demoralizing for thousands. According to the historically accurate documentary Beyond the Civil War, after the war claimed 260,000 southern men’s lives, life was marked by mass starvation, the emergence of white supremacist violent paramilitary groups like the KKK, infrastructural devastation – entire cities, trains, and crops in rummages, and homelessness. It correctly portrays the Reconstruction period as one of failure and hardship. Furthermore, Reconstruction failed to address the economic void left by the disappearance of slavery which “had been a $2 billion dollar industry” then.
Though the war was over, violence ensued against African Americans and Republicans as many plantation owners refused to free their slaves. The violence was described by Governor Adelbert Ames in September 1875 where he writes of a “premeditated riot on the part of the Democracy which resulted in the death of some four white men” and African Americans in Mississippi (433). The South enacted “black codes” to regulate the lives of blacks and force them back on the plantation. To combat this, Radical Republicans succeeded in creating an avenue for which to aid in enacting socioeconomic equality for former slaves, but Johnson declared war against them and their Freedman’s Bureau. Ultimately, the bureau failed to fully allocate the 800,000 acres of land to freed slaves. Thaddeus Stevens summarized this stating, “We have turned..loose four million slaves without a hut to shelter them or a cent in their pockets…This Congress is bound to provide for them until they can take care of themselves.” He warns against leaving slaves to the jurisdiction of their late masters stating, “If we do not furnish them with homesteads, and hedge them around with protective laws..we had better have left them in bondage.”
Ultimately, President Johnson prevented further progress because was only opposed to the institution of slavery because of “the power it granted the planter class in the south,” but he had no desire for de facto racial equality and facilitated the conditions for southern states to reenter the union, believing freedmen needed no further protection (323). In May 1878, Frederick Douglass reflected on this failure of Reconstruction to enact true freedom and unity. He states in May 1878, “if the principles for which you bravely fought are in any way compromised or threatened..so that it cannot protect the humblest citizen in his rights, the fault is not yours (469).” He points to the violent anti-government uprisings, an elective franchise “overbone by intimidation” and he south’s self-government attempts at reducing the federal power as culprits.
Many opposed the easy terms for readmission, one Representative George W. Julian of Indiana stated in January 1867, “What these regions need..is not an easy and quick return to their forfeited rights in the Union, but government, the strong arm of power, outstretched from the central authority here in Washington, making it safe” for freedmen and northerners (329).” James S. Pike shared this sentiment and issued a critique of Reconstruction in South Carolina in 1873 warning against being too conciliatory with the treasonous states who “tore down the American flag from Fort Sumter..hoisted the Confederate ensign in its place.” While in his February 19, 1867 speech, John Sherman of Ohio objected to the terms of the Reconstruction bill cautioning against being too restrictive against Southern states and instead “providing all necessary safeguards for white and black (330).” Conflict ensued over the fear of “supersed[ing] one form of oligarchy in which the blacks were slaves by another in which the whites are disfranchised outcasts (330).” Ultimately, readmission relied on the existence of independent governments in the South with federal supervision withdrawn but this failed once the South sought help from the federal government which then fell short (425).
This disagreement manifested between 1865 and 1870 as the Republican party failed to implement terms for reconstructing the devastated South. Johnson first vetoed Republicans’ Fourteenth Amendment to which they responded with the Reconstruction Act of 1867 (324). By 1877, reconstruction plans failed and the mission was abandoned because terms for readmission of Southern states didn’t include a role for the federal government in the South (425).
Ultimately, the Reconstruction Era was born out of legislative successes that ended the war and abolished slavery but the era was marked by an inadequate government response from a ideologically conflicted, gridlocked congress that failed to fulfill Lincoln’s plans for enfranchisement, national unity restoration, and economic reconstruction. It failed to address the economic devastation of the south, the violent paramilitary groups limiting freed African Americans with black codes as they struggled to define adequate readmission terms for the south. These failures in the aftermath all led to an abandonment of Reconstruction in 1877.
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