Which is like the leading journal of our profession. But he had the last laugh because guess what, in the 1960s during the civil rights era, his view of reconstruction became dominance. They saw it for what it was. And then there was the Second World War were racism was politically unfashionable. Nazism had made racism suspect and race ideas suspect. So the profession as a whole is sort of reckoning with reconstruction in different ways. And many people who write in the sixties, black and white historians, john franklin, they all right to resurrect towards these ideas reconstruction. It is also interesting that it is really a 1940 essay, writing in essay in the american historical review, he criticizes them but he praises some as going beyond the ways in which the Dining School had written about reconstruction. This view, and he wrote in the 19 eighties, you are reading unabridged version of this magnum opus. It read as a manuscript when i was a student at columbia. And what is interesting is that he updates the boys who are times, he is an intellectual air, youre reading his view on reconstruction, that is the standard thing to do now of reconstruction he sees African Americans as central players of the drama of reconstruction and he looks at the expansion of the nation state, the political crises, the fights over the meetings of freedom. Remember that chapter you read about meeting of freedom . And how slaves thought about freedom . Does anyone want to take a stab at that . Any ideas on how phone or talks about freedom being contested. That is the central issue, black freedom on being the central issue. Black people reconstructing their families, their marriages, their communities, their churches. But also thinking about economic independence. Yes . In terms of African Americans, because they had lost so much in slavery, they talked about how they tried to establish families and legalize their marriages so that their personal freedoms became very political because things they were not able to do became things which were regarded as foundations for freedom and how they could engage in their own freedom, even though it might not too much the white dominant society. Really good point. These are what we would consider basic civil rights. Have family, get married to someone. Think about the debate of Marriage Equality and you all probably grew up with it. That is a basic civil rights that many gay people did not have. We should not be stigmatized for who we are. We need this basic civil right. And on the basis of the 14th amendment, they should have. That that is exactly what these states were contending, basics is security, basic security as citizens in this country. And most importantly for eric foner, their political rights. They are looking for economic rights. But political rights, this is the argument of what he calls black politics. Black people want to be politicized. Whether it is that every day life, they are not willing to act as slaves. The idea that black people should move out of the sidewalk when a white person walks by and this would lead to violent fights after the civil war. Or that they should be deferential and cowarding as if they were slaves was something that racial etiquette no longer applied. Black people were a quick to assert their rights as citizens, demand access to schools, demand access to the bell box, demand access to public accommodations. Things that had been they had been deprived. Of everyone is trying to define what rates black people have now, what kind of freedoms today have. This is exactly the point. So even though eric foner calls it an unfinished revolution, reconstruction is overthrown, it will take 100 years at four acts and amendments for women to be implemented in america. To another great mass social movement, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. You can see that it takes a very long time to even implement. That is why it is so radical. It is radical because in the 19th century, people are not talking about black equality. Yet that is the topic. And it takes so long for these basic rights of black citizenship to be implemented in this country. Decides this synthesis of reconstruction, they were other people writing about it in the 19 seventies and eighties. They were a number of people, the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement thought reconstruction was not radical enough, land was distributed, people were constrained by the u. S. Constitution. The federal government could not exercise its power to the extent that it was needed because of the federalist principles of divided government. There is all kinds of ways to say it was not radical enough. But the people who lived through it, confederate, former slaves, northerners, thought it was terribly radical. They talk about living in revolutionary time. Changes are coming so fast and so quick and the country has to keep up with it. Now, in the aftermath there have been current revaluations. Articles coming out, a freedom narrative, books coming out like beyond freedom, saying you know, this was a period that was disappointing. There were a lot of failures. We need to look at other things, this linear narrative of slave and freedom and progress does not really working we have to look at all kinds of other problems during a reconstruction period. People talk about how planes indians were dispossessed after reconstruction. How america emerges as an imperial path. The putting down of philippine independence. These were not as radical as we thought. But these evaluations many times, they come with along reconstruction framework. They dont look at the period of reconstruction, they look at the period after reconstruction. They look at issues that did not really have much to do with the kind of things we are talking about, black rights, citizenship, etc. Maybe the expansion of the nation state . It grew so bake and powerful that they became imperial. That is another popular way of looking at it now. But, none of these ideas have replaced eric foner work. No alternative fences, it is still the Gold Standard in reconstruction history. Lets talk more about the specific issues of the period. Johnson, Andrew Johnson created one of the First Political crises of reconstruction. The first constitutional crises of constitution. Lincoln is often seen as the greatest president of the United States, him and washington but lincoln always gets the top. They have these rankings. There is an irony of history that lincoln was proceeded by buchanan, and then succeeded by a person who was always at the bottom also, Andrew Johnson. Andrew johnson, when he was put on the president ial ticket of the Republican Party in 1864, this is the election lincoln thought he was going to lose. The idea was that there would be a unity ticket. You would have a southerner and the take it and it would proclaim the unity of the nation. It was quite clear that the south was going to lose, at least most people think that this was the dying of confederate resistance. And johnson is put as lincolns Vice President , because he was a senator from tennessee and he was such a staunch unionist, that when the states secede from the unit all other southern congressman, there. Johnson is the only one who did not leave. He is a unionist, he is staunch. He said i am sticking with the union. And when the union occupies tennessee, he becomes the wartime governor of tennessee. He is from non slave origins, he owned slaves, a few slaves. But he is seen as someone who is more rags to riches than lincoln, he represents this poor whites, non slave owning whites. It was a predominantly non stable area. We talked about plantations. Here we have johnson, he is a man who is a staunch unionist, he said im going to make treason odious. People think hes going to be hard on those southern sections. I will be your moses. Lincoln never said that. Right . I will be your moses, i will lead to freedom. The republicans had also taken a risk, but johnson was a huge disappointment. He was a staunch state right democrat. He was never really part of the Republican Party. But his state right democratic roots are very strong. And he is very reluctant to use federal policy or force, black rates certainly. Or to have any federal part in reconstructing the south. What is interesting about johnson is he is a staunch racist. And this comes out during his reticencey. He cannot even contemplate about black people as equals. He is southern, he is whites, he hates the pontiff office. The prosouthern why but it is like black people even more we look at the policies of his reconstruction, you can see this. He at one point meets a delegation led by Frederick Douglass, who has been received politely by lincoln. Johnson meets him calls it the darky delegation. When they leave, his secretary records this now we have hot likes. A politicians sometimes say things that are really crude an awful, sometimes they just say it openly. But a secretary recorded this. And johnson said about this block delegation that a come to plead with him for black, writes the right to vote, led by the great Frederick Douglass. These are his exact words pardon my french he was a pretty crude guy. One of the crudest american president s actually. He says those sons of pitches thought they had me in a trap. I know that douglas. He just like any and word. He would soon or qatar cut a white mans throat and not. This is the president of the United States. Talking about a block delegation headed by Frederick Douglass coming to see him. Row rarely did president s talk in that manner. So his race isnt system is a. And johnson very quickly, he has these amnesty proclamations where the moment he comes to power, one republican said, this is rich for a man whos been may President Biden assassins bullet to be so arrogant. Congress is not in session, he issues these proclamations that the Southern States can reenter the union. As long as they opsec accept their against succession, they accepted slavery is dead and they repudiate the confederate debt. There are no conditions put on, no conditions for black, rights for civil rights, for anything. They can just commit. They can just come into the union. Its a very lenient policy and absolutely no conditions put upon southerners. There is this myth the johnson is simply continuing lincolns policy of president ial action. Daaq that lincoln put forward, his 10 plan. These are just a warm time measure for those 10 of the white populations, loyal they can reenter the union. There were hardly any conditions for several are black rights, and radicals in congress were upset about that. They had their own bill called away davids ball which they set is going to get black people some civil rights but even that didnt give blackmon the right to vote. That does not mean though lincoln was opposed to black rights. Remember his last speeches . He is in support of black rights. He writes a letter to the governor of louisiana saying consider giving the right to vote to those who are very intelligent, those who served in the union army, those who are educated. He is clearly a person who is moving towards black rights. Johnson. Never. In fact he digs into his position that this is simply an impossibility right. The other way that lincoln says a difference is that hes a power party leader. He leads the Republican Party very successfully through the war and in the last year of the war, he works with republicans in congress to achieve quite a. But the most important was the passage of the friedmans bureau bill in 1865. This is a federal Government Agency. The has the federal some federal government as she agency. Its official agency the federal Government Agency that oversee the transition from slavery to freedom in the south. And it was there not just to protect the rights of free people. It was actually giving food and shelter and sometimes opening up its hospitals and sometimes schools to even to southern whites. But it was portrayed as this awful overreach by most southerners of the federal governor that was only helping black people. Actually, they were doing a whole lot of things. They ended up being identified mainly with the fried people called the friedman spiral. This is a contemporary illustration of the freemans bureau. It has to views of the fried onions bureau. What does this tell you . Heres a man, is in the uniform. He couldve been a friedmans bureau agent or the union army. What does this tell you a little bit about the role of the friedmans bureau . In the post civil war south. Any takers . Ryan sorry tasha. A lot touching oversee hasnt spoken as yet. Kind of that it was trying to halt the division between the blocks in the whites, keep the peace for the most part just because there was no other federal agency and obviously johnson peoples children being whipped, them being whipped, you could appeal to the friedmans bureau. It was the first social Welfare Agency formed by the United States government. It literally was going to go down south, and had hundreds of agents. Sometimes the agents were pretty racist. But as a whole, the friedmans bureau was an alternative source of authority and southern whites hated it. They hated people intervening in their quota masticate fares. In the way that they wanted to run their state despite being of course defeated in the civil war. Blacks welcomed it. The boys wrote essays on the friedmans bureau showing how important intervene for africans americans to be able to appeal to the government to protect the rights. So freedmans freedmans became bureau became very important. It cooperates with the republicans to pass the Freedmans Bureau bill in the 1865. In terms of lincolns plans for reconstruction we will never know because he was killed but he actually helped form this agency work with republicans in congress to do this. The second thing that he worked with congress on to say anyone remember that . Its the first reconstruction amendment. Does anyone remember what that amendment was . Ryan . Im a 13th amendment that abolish slavery. Absolutely. So we worked with congress to abolish slavery. The 13th amendment to the constitution in 1860. Five slavery now no one servitude should exist in this country except if you were duly convicted in a court of law. The second section of this amendment is very important. It says the Congress Shall have the power to enforce this amendment. So clearly the 13th amendment saying congress should be deciding and how to implement black freedom. They should pass laws in congress to implement this. What is johnson think . Johnson is not buying this. Hes a statesrights guy. He does not think congress should have anything to do with reconstruction. It is banning black Union Army Troops. Hes issuing his own plan for reconstruction. He says anyone ordering more than 20,000 dollars worth of property shall not be pardoned. But what happens . Hes people, representatives of the he issues wholesale pardons. 14,000 people. He just pardons immediately. So what happens with the new governments being formed in the south. E not many of them are succession years when they were unionists. These unions had opposed to succession of their states but they had also gone with their state and many had fought for the confederacy unoccupied high office in the confederacy. Most important of them was of course Alexander Stevens, the Vice President of the confederacy. So the state governments that are formed in the south of full of these former confederate symptoms still werent wearing or confederate uniforms generals. Dissenting the same guys back to congress under johnsons plan. Andrew Alexander Stevens is elected senator from georgia. So than any other country these people might have been executed or jailed. In fact some people were jailed for crimes committed against the United States government. Jefferson davis was governed jailed for sometime. But none of them really suffered. Jefferson davis writes a siege memoir saying that it is olive statesrights and had nothing to do the same slavery, the civil war. They propagated their own views and theyre really not punished that hard. Do you have a question . Jeremy yeah. The 13th amendment originally stated there should be no slavery accept as a punishment for crime. So how significant did that play for the souths part in enforcing the black codes in that type of thing . Very good question jeremy. Were talking a black codes right . Southerners use all sorts of legal and constitutional loopholes to undermine reconstruction and the project for black rights. People use criminality. They start convicting black people for minor crimes and using them as convict labor. There are serious about mass incarceration taxation to this is where it all starts. Actually, the former people wrote this 13th amendment did not have that in mind at all. It was just a common, english kamala exception to write some privileges. Meeting if youre duly convicted, your rights can be taken away from your feud imprisoned. That is a common sort of exception. The black codes, its not coming out so much from the 13th amendment. These are the codes that i want you to talk and implied you raised. You can be talking about the senate johnson. Slander the states governments that are government dominate by unionists and went with their states all and up and preventing these black codes which causes a real problem. Im gonna be talking about that very shortly. Ryan you had a question. I think the politics of johnson are very interesting but im kind of confused in his motives. During the war, he was very harsh on treaties and so angry against a six exodus. But following the worries seems to allied self with them. Would you say thats more because he wanted their support in his reelection . Who was more power hungry . Because he seemed changes politics even. Shifting to a lot less harsh. Would you say thats more cars his power hungry and wants to be reelected or because he had those views before didnt ex