The Reconstruction Acts were adopted by Congress in 1867 and 1868. These four bills laid out the terms for what would be known as congressional Reconstruction. The Reconstruction Acts were largely authored by the Radical Republicans and sought to remake Southern society.
When the Civil War ended, Congress was not in session. Responsibility for reconstructing the shattered nation fell upon President Abraham Lincoln and, after his death, President Andrew Johnson. Johnson had used harsh rhetoric in condemning the actions of the Confederacy and its leaders, and it seemed that he might be prepared to take dramatic steps to fundamentally alter the social, political, and economic order of the South. Johnson’s actions, however, revealed his conservatism. The terms of presidential Reconstruction were mild and did not force the South to change at all. Confederate leaders were promptly reelected to office, and the passage of Black Codes in every Southern state sought to restrict the new freedom of the ex-slaves.
When Congress met in December 1865, the Republicans had a large majority of the seats in both chambers. Initially most Congressional leaders appeared inclined to accept presidential Reconstruction, with some important modifications. The Joint Committee on Reconstruction was initially conciliatory, and its chair, William Pitt Fessenden, was in constant communication with the president. Most members of Congress ignored the Radical Republicans’ plans for the South and instead passed two bills that were in harmony with the president’s vision of Reconstruction. The more important of the two bills, which became known as the Civil Rights Act of i866, extended civil rights and legal equality to African Americans but made their protection the responsibility of the states.
Johnson promptly vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, declaring that Congress had no business involving itself
In Reconstruction. Congressional Republicans, shocked by the president’s actions, overrode his veto. The Radical Republicans gained support from their more moderate colleagues, and Congress considered the possibility of repudiating presidential Reconstruction. Nonetheless, the moderates still retained control, and they proposed the fairly conservative Fourteenth Amendment. Like the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Fourteenth Amendment was in essential harmony with presidential Reconstruction. Nonetheless, Johnson attacked Congress again. He traveled through the North, delivering a series of inflammatory
This Thomas Nast cartoon from the September 5, 1868, issue of Harper's Weekly criticizes the Democratic Party's opposition to Reconstruction legislation. Symbolizing the Democrats are caricatures of (from left) a stereotypical Irish American, former Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, and financier August Belmont. The three are shown trampling a black Union veteran. (Library of Congress)
Speeches that came to be known as the “Swing Round the Circle.” Meanwhile, all Southern legislatures voted overwhelmingly against accepting the Fourteenth Amendment.
The actions of President Johnson and the former states of the Confederacy played directly into the hands of the Radical Republicans. Between March 1867 and March 1868, enough moderates broke with the president to allow the Radicals to gain passage of a series of four Reconstruction Acts. The First Reconstruction Act divided the South into five military districts, with supreme authority vested in the military commanders of each district. African Americans were to be registered to vote, while leading Confederates were disqualified from holding office and disenfranchised. States desiring readmission the Union were required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and to write new constitutions that guaranteed black suffrage. The latter three Reconstruction Acts expanded and clarified the terms of the first, in particular eliminating the governments that had been elected under presidential Reconstruction and disqualifying former Confederates from holding office.
The Reconstruction Acts were far more sweeping than what the moderates had initially proposed. They incorporated almost all of the measures the Radicals deemed important, and the terms were mandatory rather than voluntary. The notion of states’ rights was completely subverted, as state boundaries were effectively erased.
President Johnson vetoed each of the Reconstruction Acts and was overridden each time. He then tried to thwart the bills in a variety of ways—by removing military commanders who enforced the acts too strongly, by frequently challenging the authority of the law, and by trying to influence Ulysses S. Grant, who was in charge of all the U. S. armies. These actions increased Congress’s fury. Shortly after his veto of the First Reconstruction Act was overridden, Johnson forced Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton from office and replaced him with Grant. This was a violation of the Tenure of Office Act, which Congress had passed in 1867. Congressional leaders used Johnson’s violation of the law as an excuse to bring him up on articles of impeachment. He avoided conviction by one vote.
Johnson’s impeachment was the high point of the Radicals’ power. In 1868 a number of Radical leaders died or were defeated for reelection. Meanwhile, Ulysses S. Grant replaced Johnson in the White House. The impetus for action among congressional leaders had passed. By 1870 all of the former Confederate states had been readmitted to the Union under the terms of the Reconstruction Acts, and the task of making Reconstruction work would largely be left to the Republican governments in the states of the South.
See also Enforcement Acts; impeachment of Andrew Johnson.
Further reading: Michael Les Benedict, A Compromise of Principle; Congressional Republicans and Reconstruction, 1863-1869 (New York: Norton, 1974); Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988).
—Christopher Bates
World History
