Lasting between 1865

The Oppression of Free People during Reconstruction

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Introduction

Lasting between 1865 and 1877, reconstruction is a turbulent era that followed the civil war of the United States that aimed at reintegrating the 4 million people that had been freed and the Southern states from the confederacy. At the time the nation was rather divided and reconstruction made attempts at redressing slavery inequalities and its social, political, and economic legacies. It also sought to address the issues arising from the readmission of 11 states into the Union. During the reign of President John Anderson, the southern state legislatures enacted restrictive rules that controlled the behavior and labor of formerly enslaved individuals and African Americans. Various historians have portrayed reconstruction as a period when republicans increased black supremacy after the fall of confederacy. After the late 20th century, reconstruction was viewed as an experiment of interracial democracy. Reconstruction brought extensive changes to American political life. Constitutional amendments and new laws at the national levels lastingly changed the federal structure and the meaning of United States citizenship. In the Southern regions, the black community that had been politically mobilized became allies with white counterparts bringing to power the Republican Party. With this, a new definition of the responsibilities of a government was born. The purpose of this essay is to dissect the reconstruction era and some of the initiatives that were used to protect the freedom of the oppressed and sustain their oppression including, black codes, presidential reconstruction, radical reconstruction, the thirteenth amendment, the fourteenth amendment, and the Ku Klux Klan & Reign of Terror.

Black Codes

To begin with, black codes were one of the initiatives that were used to oppression and limit the progress of the African Americans after the civil war. When slavery came to an end, freedom remained elusive to African Americans who still contended with this repressive set of laws. These laws effectively exacerbated their enslavement by exploiting them as a source of labor and limiting their rights. As a matter of fact, there was no much difference in the lives the slaves led during their time in bondage and after bondage. By design, black codes were the same as slavery; they represented a multi-billion dollar enterprise. It was the intention of former Confederate states to keep the system of subjugation alive. After losing the civil war, the southerners were left with limited options and they had to recognize and abide by the policies of the reconstruction period that put a stop to slavery. Through using the policies to deny black people privileges and opportunities enjoyed by their white counterparts, Confederacy continued subjecting Americans that had been newly liberated in virtual bondage.

The Thirteenth Amendment

Secondly, the Thirteenth Amendment is another initiative that played a role in protecting the freedom of freed slaves following the US civil war. The amendment was passed on 8th April 1864 by the US Senate following a legislative maneuver and unsuccessful vote by Abraham Lincoln’s administration. The thirteenth amendment was instrumental in granting people of color their rights as it abolished involuntary servitude or slavery in the US except when being used to punish a crime (Jenkins, 2020). The initiative was ratified without any complications because all except three Union States namely New Jersey, Delaware, and Kentucky ratified the measure. The then-Secretary of State, William Seward proclaimed that the thirteenth amendment has been incorporated into the federal constitution in December 1865. The Thirteenth Amendment was enshrined in the Constitution 61 years after the Twelfth Amendment was enacted, and this the longest interval to exists between constitutional amendments. In the original constitution, slavery has been enshrined through the provisions of article 1, section 2, and clause 3 which was commonly referred to as the three-fifths compromise. It contained details of the way the total slave population of each state would be included in the total population count mainly for the purpose of direct taxes and apportioning seats in the US House of Representatives.

The Fourteenth Amendment

Another initiative that was critical in protecting the freedom of freed people of color from oppression was the Fourteenth Amendment. Although it was proposed in 1866, it was not until 1868 that the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. The Fourteenth Amendment stipulates that all individuals born in the United States as its citizens and that that they have the right to equal protection and due process of the law. The amendment was proposed in response to the inhumane treatment of ex-slaves following the civil war. The southerners bitterly contested the amendment; the southern states had to ratify it so that they could return to Congress. This amendment is by far one of the most litigated sections of the Constitution. It formed the foundation of various landmark cases including Bush v. Gore (2000) regarding the presidential election of 2000 and Roe v. Wade (1973) that had to do with abortion. The first section of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated the due process clause, the citizenship clause, the equal protection clause, and the immunities or privileges clause. The Equal Protection Clause mandated all states to give equal protection to all people in accordance with the law in their jurisdiction. This clause formed the foundation for the ruling of the Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education of 1954 which rendered racial segregation unconstitutional in public schools. Additionally, it was the basis for the ruling made by the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia of 1967 that prohibited laws that were against interracial marriage. The Due Process clause made it illegal for local and state governments officials to deprive people of liberty, property, and life without legislative authorization (Zuckert, 2019). The Due Process clause was useful in making the majority of the bill of rights pertinent to States. The federal judiciary is also used in recognizing the procedural and substantive rations that state laws should satisfy. The citizenship clause gave new meaning to citizenship after it overruled the Supreme Court’s decision that stipulated that Americans with African roots were not considered US citizens in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1875. The Immunities Clause served to ensure that each state would be permitted all immunities of citizens in other states. In essence, the clause protected the fundamental rights of individuals and restrained them from discrimination.

Presidential Reconstruction

The fifth initiative that was key in sustaining the oppression of the freed people was the reconstruction plans of President Andrew Johnson. President Johnson made public his plans for reconstruction in May 1865, a plan that reflected his staunch belief in the rights of the States as well as his belief in Unionism (Perrone, 2019). In his view, states from the south still maintained the right to rule themselves and the federal government has no power to decide voting requirements within the state level. But with President Johnson’s plan for reconstruction, all land previously confiscated by the Union army and given to former slaves by the Freed Bureau or the army would be returned to its previous owners. In addition to eliminating slavery in accordance with the Thirteenth amendment, repaying debt war, and swearing loyalty to the union, the governments of southern states were given free authority to rebuild their lives. It was this leniency of President Johnson that made it possible for the majority of Southern states to successfully enact the laws of the black code; laws that were designed to enslave black people by using them as a labor force. The code enrages many Northerners and as a result, Congress declined to seat senators and congressmen emanating from the southern states.

Radical Reconstruction

The third initiative that served to protect the rights of the oppressed was radical reconstruction. In late 1988, the northern voters rejected the policies of Andrew Johnson and as a result, the Radical Republicans took over reconstruction in the southern regions. In March, Congress enacted the Reconstruction Act of 1867 following Andrew Johnson’s veto. The Act temporarily subdivided the Southern region into five military districts and stipulated the way governments would be organized using universal suffrage as a foundation. The Reconstruction Act of 1867 necessitated states from the south to sanction the fourteenth amendment that expanded the definition of US citizenship to include equal protection of people that had been formerly enslaved (Holloway, 2018). After two years, congress ratified the fifteenth amendment that assured citizen’s right to vote irrespective of color, race, or prior servitude condition.

The Ku Klux Klan & Reign of Terror

The fourth initiate that contributed to the oppression of free people during reconstruction was the Ku Klux Klan. Commonly referred to as the Klan, it was a terrorist and white supremacist hate group that mainly targeted African Americans, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Catholics, immigrants, homosexuals, and leftists. The Klan was existent in three main areas. Each era pushed for extremist positions including anti-immigration, white nationalism, anti-communism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and antitheism. Historically, the Klan employed tactics of murder and physical assault against people of color that were politically active and their allies in the Southern States of the United States during the late 1860s. The Khan movement advocated of purification of the American society. They were deemed right-wing extremists and membership to the group was highly secretive. During this era, the act of simply exercising the right to vote would warrant a visit from the Klan. There were limited employment opportunities for people of color and most of them worked as sharecroppers in the lands owned by their white counterparts. After working on these farms, black people would get a tiny proportion of the worth of the crops grown. The first Klan group was formed in the wake of the civil war in America and as an organization, it redefined the Reconstruction era.

Conclusion

In closing, during the era of reconstruction, various initiatives served to protect people from oppression while others served to sustain the oppression. Some of the initiatives that protected the freedom of ex-slaves are the thirteenth amendment, the fourteenth amendment, and the radical reconstruction. On the other hand, initiatives including the presidential reconstruction, black codes, and the Ku Klux Klan & Reign of Terror only served to sustain the oppression of people of color following the civil war. All these initiatives discussed here-in were critical in revolutionizing racial and political inequality in the United States. Reconstruction made attempts at redressing slavery inequalities. We owe abolition of slavery, increased freedom, recognition of the right to vote, the right to liberty, and the right to life to the reconstruction era.

Word count: 1739 words

References

Holloway, V. (2018). Black Rights in the Reconstruction Era. Rowman & Littlefield.

Jenkins, E. (2020). Elite colored women: the material culture of photography & Victorian era womanhood in reconstruction era Memphis. Slavery & Abolition, 41(1), 29-63.

Perrone, G. (2019). “Back into the Days of Slavery”: Freedom, Citizenship, and the Black Family in the Reconstruction-Era Courtroom. Law and History Review, 37(1), 125-161.

Zuckert, M. (2019). On the Fourteenth Amendment: A Textual Analysis. Perspectives on Political Science, 48(4), 246-251.