Constitutional rights given to africanamericans or as a failure because Racial Discrimination was legal and africanamericans remain unequal. So today, we are going to be talking about reconstruction. Right . So what is reconstruction . Its really the period immediately after the civil war. The period of reconstruction. Why is it called reconstruction . Because we are talking about the reconstruction of the union. Right . Of the seceded states that had formed the confederacy, theyre now defeated and the question then becomes is how do they reenter the union . How do we reconstruct the union . And that is why this period is known as reconstruction. It is not that well known in American History. As the civil war, so so far, we have been talking about the civil war, right, before the midterms, we covered the civil war. And everyone knows about the civil war. It has kind of a triumphant end. You know, at least if youre not a neoconfederate. The union wins. Slavery is destroyed. Reconstruction on the other hand does not have a happy ending. Its a great experiment in interrational democracy. Immediately after the war, but it is overthrown. And maybe we all like happy endings, and thats one of the reasons that we dont know that much about reconstruction. But it is really a crucial period in American History. Extremely crucial because many of our modern ideas about citizenship, what constitutes democracy, about equality, all comes from reconstruction. In a way, it is like the second founding of the American Republic. You have three constitutional amendments. You dont have that since the bill of rights, right . Thats just when the constitution is adopted. And the founding moment of the American Republic. So its a crucial period that, one, i think americans would, should be more aware of. Okay. So what are the issues of reconstruction that really are still pertinent today . Okay. Heres an image from harpers weekly. And it sort of personifies, i think, some of the central issues involved in this period of reconstructing the union. Some of the questions that had raises. So have a look at it. I dont know how clear it is for you. You may not be able to read all the writing. But here is clearly a freedman, he has, you know, something in his hand, a piece of paper. And on that you may not be able to read is written equal rights. Thats union army officer, the office of the u. S. Marshal that hes, you know, somewhat seems to be seeking protection, and there are a bunch of southern whites there with placards saying kkk, call home your troops. They want federal troops to leave the south, et cetera. Just looking at that image, can you think of what may have been some of the issues of reconstruction . Anyone . Ryan. Probably was the like need for federal troops to secure rights in the south because they feared that confederates would retake or take back and try to like force slavery almost back on the newly freedmen and in all but name. Excellent. Excellent. You know, thats exactly what i think the picture illustrates, right . That there may be a danger that once the federal troops leave that southern whites would want to go back to the way things were. So then what was the war fought about . That is a real danger. And the fact that the rights of black people are so connected with the presence of the federal government, of these troops in the south, tells you something about the issues of reconstruction. Black citizenship, you know, what would freedom mean for black people . They are no longer slaves. Are they going to be citizens . Are they going to be given equal rights . What is their status in the American Republic . The presence of the federal government, of the union army, the u. S. Marshals office there, quite clearly, we are getting a new sense of the nation state, of the federal government. Old ideas about federalism, which is the principle of dividing political power between the federal government and the state governments are going to be revisited, right . These states, they seceded from the union. What will the status of these rebel states now be . The federal government is sort of a symbol of the victorious union. How are they going to negotiate these rights again . Will the expansion of the National Government or the federal government as the face of the victorious union be connected to the issue of black rights . Clearly here, that seems to be the imagery. This is an image right from the middle of reconstruction. This is the issue that is being represented in the north. That the federal government is closely connected to this issue of black rights and that the issue of federalism does involve a renegotiation virtually or a reimagining of what is states rights. What are the powers of the federal government, renegotiation of that relationship. Why do you think states rights would be somewhat discredited now . Any ideas . The idea of states rights, the states have certain rights. Remember, who are the people who have evoked states rights before . And for what purpose . Before the war. Yeah, abbey. Wait for the mic. Make sure the mic is close to you so that everyone can hear your intelligent questions and responses. Maybe, i mean, before the civil war, it was southern planter politicians evoking states rights, but that was fundamentally to do with slavery. So some politicians like in the secession of south carolina, in their statement, they evoked states rights in terms of sovereignty between the states, but now the federal government has like won, that idea cant stand anymore because now theyre having toreintrodu reintroduc reintroduced. The federal government has precedent. Absolutely. Very good. Thats exactly why states rights is somewhat discredited, that idea. Because first, it had been used to defend slavery by Southern States. They didnt want the federal government to interfere with slavery, okay, and second, it was also used to secede from the union. The right of the state to secede from the union in order to protect slavery. So states rights is really a connected with the institution of slavery and with secession and civil war. Its somewhat of a discredited philosophy at this time. So these issues, of course, as i say, are the issues of reconstruction are something that is still with us. When i introduce the period to you, i said this is the period when you have far reaching federal laws being passed on civil rights, in fact, there are cases being fought in the Supreme Court today that evoke the laws of the reconstruction era. Far reaching amendments to the constitution. You may not have heard of the 14th amendment to the u. S. Constitution. But it has been so important in our times, right . The right to privacy, Marriage Equality, you know, roe v. Wade. All of those decisions that have been made that have been constantly expanding rights in the United States for different groups evoke the 14th amendment. So its really this moment in history that forms our modern notions of equality and citizenship and what democracy in america should look like. Right . And so yes, its extremely important period, but its also a contested period. You can see that in the picture. You can see the contestation there. Does the defeated south look or the defeated confederacy people who form that, does it look as if they have accepted defeat, at least in this northern representation . Is there going to be peace after the war . No. Right . This looks like a contestation. Why would the army even be needed in the south . Right . To protect black rights if there was not going to be contestation. This notion that there was no peace after the war, that somehow the issues that define the war were still being contested in the south is something that is really important to understand reconstruction. It is in fact one of the most contentious periods in American History. Jenson, and we can have the mic here. I also find interesting that Andrew Johnson was also very prostate rights when he was doing reconstruction. So it also made it hard to implement federal rights for reconstruction as well, like it also made it hard because the president during reconstruction wasnt really in favor of so much federal outreach and so much federal power. So its interesting too, i think. Excellent point. You know, Andrew Johnson presents a big problem for us. Hes a states rights democrat before the war. And because of an assassins bullet, he becomes president. Hes clearly not on board with the Republican Program of black rights. And he is clearly not onboard with this expansion of the federal government in order to insure black rights and insure the rule of law in the south. Hes not going to go with that. And that would create one of the biggest constitutional crises in American History. Its the first time that american president is brought up on articles of impeachment. And he, you know, but we are getting ahead of ourselves here. But im glad you brought up johnson because we will be talking about that today. So today in the lecture, were going to be talking about these issues raised up by reconstruction. Were going to talk about johnson and president reconstruction, and eventually how congress implements a program of reconstruction based on the idea of black citizenship. And comes close to impeaching Andrew Johnson. Now, this is, as i said, a very fraught period because of the contention taking place in the south, contention taking place in washington, d. C. Between the president and congress. Hes kind of disowned by hiown party in a way, but how have historians understood this period . Remember, we talked about the civil war and deferring interpretations. We talked about slavery and differing interpretations of slavery, and the same is true of reconstruction. Historians have interpreted this period in very different ways. And much of this is not in the reading that you have done for today, but it is in the introduction to the book, a short history of reconstruction, and some of it will be new. Some of it i add to that. Now, the historography of reconstruction was defined by what is known as the Dunning School, named as a Columbia University historian, and i have to apologize for my alma mater because this was a very pernicious construction of reconstruction put forward by william a. Dunning and john burgess, if you want the exact spellings of the name, it is in the introduction to the book. And a bunch of their students. And they basically said that this was like a terrible period in American History. Reconstruction was awful. Because of vindictive northern radical republicans forcing black rights onto the south. That it was a period of corruption. It was a period of misrule, incompetent, former slaves were suddenly given political power, and they wreaked havoc on the defeated south. So the sympathy is all with the south. Its a very racist view of that period. Because if you just read dunning and burgess, this kind of crude upfront racism that they have, you know, there are people relapsing into barbarism, people simply incompetent because theyre black people, because they are of african descent. This is a period of black supremacy. According to the Dunning School, giving equal rights to black people meant hurting southern whites. That we were somehow experimenting and that was just a failure. There was no achievement, really. Nothing redeeming about this period at all. And the pernicious thing, of course, is dunning and his students pretty much dominated reconstruction historyography, just like the mythology seemed to dominate interpretations of the civil war for a long time. About states rights, not about slavery. States right to do what . To defend slavery. So this kind of pernicious sort of interpretation was really dominant for a very, very long time. A few challenges started coming up with the rise of the Progressive School of historians. You remember the Progressive School of historians . The mcpherson article on the civil war that talked about the civil war was a second american revolution. This idea was first put forward by the Progressive School. They used it to talk about the triumph of the industrial north versus the agrarian south, and mcpherson and others show that in fact we can keep that idea of the revolution but what we cant do is see it as some sort of economic conflict between the north and south. The real conflict was over slavery. And the revolution was getting end of slavery, getting rid of slavery, right . So the Progressive School of historians said, oh, you know, this whole race talk, you know, that was not really the real issue of reconstruction. Just as they saw the civil war as the result of differing economic interests, they saw reconstruction and republicans as trying to enforce northern capitalism onto the south. That these were the they were also looking for the economic selfinterests of people. What was the real economic race is just a window dressing for the real economic interests of the north and south. You get a double dose. You have been reading, and rightly so, you read a short history of reconstruction, but did you manage to read that article on the radical republicans . What does he say . Does he say that radical republicans are really arguing about, you know, if you have your book handy, you can even go quickly, check it out. Are there agents of northern capitalism . Do they have a unified Economic Policy that they want to implement in the south . You can have the mic here. So he said that there wasnt really a unified Economic Policy in the Republican Party, and that reconstruction or rather black rights and moving reconstruction forward was really the main policy, much more so than Economic Policy and Economic Policy took a back burner, i guess. Absolutely. Very good. He says what unites northern republicans at this time is no Economic Policy. Some of them are now were hearing a lot of protection of tariffs again. Some are for tariffs, some are for free trade. They dont have any unified policy. The thing that unites them is a civic ideology of rights and citizenship that they want to make sure is extended to former slaves. Maybe the moderates want to go with civil rights. But thats the ideology that holds the Republican Party together, the way antislavery did before the civil war. If they had an Economic Policy, it was what they called free labor ideology or what he calls free labor ideology, that people should be treated as free labor. They should have certain rights in the marketplace. They should be paid wages for their work. They should be allowed to leave their employer to find better wages and better conditions in another place. That they should not be enslaved, basically. Right . And that ideology may be some kind of economic ideology, but in terms of implemented some kind of economic ideology on the south, as many progressive historians argue, into a sort of colonial status, was simply not what happened. Now, besides these two you can understand also why the Progressive School of historians said this, right . They, of course, were dominant during the progressive era. And if you think of your u. S. History survey, progressive era is the era trying to address the problems of the gilded age, of rapacious capitalism, theres conflict, strike, mass immigration. This is a time when the idea that government should regulate the economy, we should have clean food, clean air, clean water, child labor is not a great thing, those sorts of things come into being. That was the progressive reforms, that government has a role to play. And you can understand why the Progressive School of historians influenced by that kind of reform attitude at that time are talking about Economic Issues far more than the issue of the war, which was slavery and race and questions about rights. Theres one person who dissents against this view. Not the progressive view so much, maybe a little the progressive view, too, but who dissented the Dunning School, which remains the dominant view. By the way, the Dunning School, even though you have these challenges coming up, you know, in terms of popular culture, they are dominant. Theres a journalist who writes a book called a tragic era. And he basically recaps the Dunning School for a broader audience. There are the birth of a nation which is basically the Dunning School, the first hollywood classic, is about reconstruction. Right . Has anyone seen the birth of a nation . Yeah. You dont want to see it. Talk about the propaganda of history, right . What was insidious about the Dunning School was that its view percolated into the popular culture. Into film, the first hollywood classic, which premiered, by the way, in the white house. Because the first southerner elected after the civil war was woodrow wilson. And wilson was a southerner. He was a progressive on Economic Issues. But when it came to race, he was really retrograde. Not only did he premiere the birth of a nation which was all about black men being rapist and the ku klux klan is redeeming the south, and its just like pretty horrendous to watch, kind of painful, if you have the time, you can have a look at it. It caricatures the radicals, especially thaddeus stevens. Woodrow wilson, who is progressive mostly in Economic Policy and maybe to a certain extent in international relations, is really retrogressive, and it comes to race. He institutes segregation in washington, d. C. He fires all black federal govern