5-1.2 Explain the effects of Reconstruction, including new rights under the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments; the actions of the Freedmen’s Bureau; and the move from a plantation system to sharecropping.
Key Concept Question: How did new legislation and the Freedman’s Bureau promote change during Reconstruction?
Three Reconstruction amendments were designed to end slavery and protect the rights of the newly freed slaves. The thirteenth amendment freed the slaves everywhere in the United States. It is a common misconception that the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves. The only slaves freed by President Lincoln’s proclamation were slaves that were in territories still controlled by the Confederacy. The Confederate government did not recognize the right of the President of the United States to free its slaves. The Union Army freed the slaves in the territories that it conquered. However, there were still slaves in the border states that had not left the Union and in parts of the South that the Union Army did not control. This amendment recognized the rights of all Americans to “life liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as promised in the Declaration of Independence. Consequently, during Reconstruction, the rights of African Americans were protected by the federal government.
The fourteenth amendment overturned the Dred Scott decision and recognized the citizenship of African Americans. The amendment also recognized the rights of all citizens to “due process of law” and “equal protection of the laws.” The amendment affected African Americans in all parts of the United States, not just in the South. Southern states refused to ratify the amendment and so Congressional Reconstruction was imposed. The fourteenth amendment also included provisions for lessening the political power of states that did not recognize the rights of citizens to vote. However, this was not effective and led to the passage of the fifteenth amendment.
The fifteenth amendment declared that a male citizen’s right to vote could not be infringed upon based on “race, creed or previous condition of servitude.” The amendment affected African Americans in all parts of the United States, not just in the South. Southern states were required to write new constitutions that allowed African Americans to vote. Southern critics claimed that the only reason Congress passed this amendment was to protect the power of the Republican Party. Certainly this motive played a part in the passage of the fifteenth amendment, however, as a result of the amendment; African Americans were able to vote and hold political office and were elected to state legislatures and congressional delegations during the Reconstruction period.
Although the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments were designed to protect the rights of African Americans, they were only effective so long as the Republicans had control of state governments or federal troops were able to protect African American’s social and political rights. No provisions were passed to ensure that African Americans would be able to own land and most Southerners refused to sell land to African Americans, even if the former slaves had the money to purchase it. Consequently the economic rights and independence of freedmen were limited, even during Reconstruction. Once Reconstruction ended, there were no protections in place for the rights of African Americans. Although African Americans had constitutional rights as a result of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, these were often violated by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.
The initial reaction of freedmen to emancipation ranged from exhilaration to hesitancy to fear. Most celebrated the day of Jubliee. The aim of African Americans during Reconstruction was to reunite with their families and enjoy the freedom that had been denied to them for so long under slavery. Many left their plantations, but most soon returned to the land that they knew. It is a common misconception that many freedmen immediately migrated to the North and the West. African Americans did not migrate in large numbers from the South until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Instead, they married and established strong communities in the South. African Americans formed their own churches where they could worship freely. Many African Americans sought an education in the freedom schools that had been established. Some established businesses. They voted and held elective offices during Reconstruction.
African Americans also tried to acquire land, however, for the most part, this was unsuccessful. General Sherman advocated distribution of ‘forty acres and a mule’ to African American war refugees and some land was distributed during and shortly after the Civil War. The federal government returned most land that had been confiscated from Confederates and given to freedmen to white landowners because the government respected the rights of whites to their landed property. Most freedmen had no money to purchase land and little opportunity to work for wages since there was little currency available in the South. Consequently, freedmen entered into agreements with white landowners to trade their labor for land in an arrangement known as sharecropping. In exchange for the right to work the land that belonged to whites, African Americans and poor landless whites would be given a share of the crop they grew. Although African Americans suffered from violence and intimidation, they carved out as much independence as possible in their own lives.
The Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees and Abandoned Lands, or Freedman’s Bureau for short, was established by Congress prior to the end of the Civil War. Although the Bureau was never effectively staffed or funded, it was the first line of assistance to all people in the South in need, especially the destitute freedmen. The Freedman’s Bureau provided food, clothing, medical care, education, and some protection from the hostile environment in the South. The Bureau helped many freedmen find jobs and provide some protection in their labor contracts. However, African Americans were not able to achieve economic independence because the great majority of African Americans did not receive their own land to farm. Instead the Freedman’s Bureau helped African Americans establish the sharecropping relationship with the worker-less plantation owners. The most important contribution of the Freedman’s Bureau, was the establishment of over one thousand schools throughout the South.