Historians talks about what life was like for freedmen after the civil war and the overall successes and failures of reconstruction. They discussed Educational Opportunities, land redistribution, and Voting Rights as well as the politics behind these reconstruction measures. This panel was part of the annual lincoln forums symposium. It is about an hour in 15 minutes. The title of this panel may be a little deceiving. If i can read it here. [laughter] Voting Rights for black freedmen. What went right and what wrong. It seems to be couched in the terms of Voting Rights. It is really about reconstruction. I think you all know that and underminesuse what the whole progressive effort to reconstruction is the lack of freed rights for those net and women. We will expand this beyond voting. We just could not get there is a nation with the 13th amendment, with the Civil Rights Act of 1866. It did not give Voting Rights to the africanamericans. And neither did the 14th amendment with its equal protection and due process. They took the 15th amendment. And of course that is not work either because of every effort by some to deny africanamericans this great franchise of voting. Why do you think people come to this country . One of the things is the ability to choose their own representatives. We have a great panel. I dont say that every time we have a panel. [laughter] we have a great one today. Wa, a professor of history at ucla. What is so important impressing me is the groundbreaking work you do with the u. S. Grant american hero, american myth. As i told her more than once, it has done so much to restore the reputation of a real hero, ulysses grant. Egerton,ouglas professor of history at Lemoyne College in syracuse. He does not know it, although i tried to elude to it when i speak with him that he really has been a mentor to me an understanding about reconstruction with the legal, political and cultural implications. He did that through his the brief,ok violent history of americas most repressive era. The blackt the gates civil war regiments that redeemed america. And editor edna green m edford, executive member of the lincoln forum, chairman of the department and professor of history at Howard University. Coauthor of Abraham Lincoln and the emancipation proclamation reviews. So, before i ask each of them to make remarks, i have each to speak for three to five minutes and then i will give them some questions. Then we will open the floor for you. We hope there are many questions. But for many americans, reconstruction is still remembered if it is remembered at all as a period of racial anarchy, political failure and humiliation of the defeated south. It is probably there to say americans impressions of the era have been shaped, if only have consciously, by films such as birth of a nation and gone with the wind, with their caricatures of yankee carpetbaggers and scalawags more than bite details knowledge of what happened in the south between 1865 and 1876 and the years that followed. Inspiring buts more often deeply shocking story that reveals the nation at its best and worst, when newly freed slaves and idealists, both black and white, struggled heroically against white terrorism to reserve the rights the union armies had one on the battlefield. And that republican members of congress confirmed in the years after the war. I think we have to see oo not as badn t policy doomed by corruption and forwardence, but by a looking program that was subverted by organized violence, domestic terrorism. The central question about reconstruction is usually, why . Id it fail as opposed to ended it hints that the process was somehow flawed and contributed to its own passing. The first question from me to professor wa, did reconstruction fail . Good morning. First of all i will pander to the audience for one second and tell you how much i have enjoyed attending my first lincoln forum, both as a presenter and is a member of the audience. You are terrific. [applause] i will say that reconstruction fgreat and it always has in terms of history books. First, it was awarded a grant by the loss causes dorians and then by the 1950s and 60s historians and it is still being ied that great for the think it is something we should talk about. Students, and i think we can flush it out, that reconstruction is a qualified theft and a qualified failure. I mean it was a qualified failure in that it did not live up to the promise of equality that many africanamericans excepted at the end of the war and many white abolitionists wanted. Andas a qualified success, i may be a little outside the current consensus that the People Living at the time, the majority of the northerners who issues, reconstruction that the premier concern was with the union Stay Together would they union Stay Together after this terrible war. The United States persisted. They consider that a great, magnificent achievement. We have to understand, even if we dont agree that it was, we have to understand that was an overwhelming consensus conference in the elections of 1868, 1872 and 1876. I will leave you with that for now, but also i want to tell you it wase quote from originally not apply to reconstruction but i have applied it to reconstruction. That is by the novelist and social critic william howles. What the American Public always wants is a tragedy with a happy ending. That is what appomattox provides for generations to come. Discontentedwe are about an reconstruction. [applause] i think it begs the question unrelated the civil war end at appomattox . I think if you read the good work of professor michael vornb erg he wrote the book on the amendment, he has the opinion that appomattox and not really end our civil war. Egerton, we doug talk about Voting Rights being denied to africanamericans and people of color. What about any effect on Voting Rights in the north for example . Mr. Egerton let me survey echoing joan. We had dinner with president lincoln and that doesnt happen very often. Also last night my friend Catherine Ward biggest geeks slowly which is not one of my skills. Especially when youre given three minutes to answer a long question. I will probably talk fast. In my book i tried to write white, north, south, east, west, and you have conservatives like Andrew Johnson that dont use reconstruction. Then you have white republicans using the term reconstruction. Even the socalled radicals, when you asked what reconstruction is, they say its a policy for the defeated confederacy. Douglas,ask frederick it is a national policy. Douglas says this is a war for national reclamation. Mind, we had lincolns last speech at richmond. Believed Voting Rights was something to be earned. 00 men in blue,0 uniforms had earned that right. Lincolns modern critics are not impressed. Ok. There are 4 million freed americans at that moment, half of whom are men. 200,000 is a small drop in the bucket. We will put that in a larger context. When lincoln says those words on the eve of his assassination black men can vote on an equal basis and only five doing when states. Live, thewhere i quality that it is not impose on white. Frederick douglas who owns a house in business in rochester can vote, but his son is badly wounded at fort wagner cannot. Illinois, no blacks can vote in indiana. Of the 179,000 black men is served, 38,000 are born free and the north. Im sure you have seen glory. Wonderful film the gets all serving wrong. You get the impression all the soldiers were runaway slaves. The largest contention is from pennsylvania. Ohio was number three. Are serving, fighting and dying and living in states that did not allow them to vote. They comes down to whether this is a success or a failure, if youre a black soldier going back to ohio, you never lose the right to vote. It is one of the things that reconstruction gets right. In fries in in franchising blackman across the north. Ms. Williams thank you very much. Green medford, what was the reaction to what was going on after appomattox . Was there anything positive about what was dreamed about or anticipated in the efforts to reconstruction or restoration ms. Williams ms. Medford i would like to i never remember to do that. Sentiment ofo the my fellow panelists. Place this isial in the special audience you are. In the 21 years of this organization i have been here for 19. I always return because [applause] at the end of the war africanamerican suspect its full citizenship. Expected fullservice and should. It also meant all the rights that other americans had shared for all the years of the nation had existed. They expected to be of the control their own destinies. They expected economic independence. They wanted an education. To be allowednted to exercise their american birthright. We all agree that reconstruction was tragic. It was tragic not because thats not necessarily because no one had a plan for the free people. There was a plan developed eventually, but it was because the kinds of accomplishments that occurred were not sustained. It is easy to say that everything went wrong, but everything did not go wrong. There were many accomplishments during this period. One of the most important was after people got their freedom. They were able to at least attempt to reconstitute their families. There were so many people who have been separated during slavery. One of the first things they were attempting to do was find loved ones. They were not always successful. In many instances they were not successful. But they were at least trying to do that. Men could now at least have the expectation of taking care of their families, of protecting their families. That expectation was not always realize because of violence and all the other things that happened of a negative sort during this period. There were some people who did get economic independence. They were able to do it by becoming subsistence farmers. They did not want to enter the commercial market because that would make them beholden to white men. They were able to acquire a small piece of land. Soldiers had bounties. They use those funds and they pooled resources with other africanamericans and were able to purchase land. That is not the case for most africanamericans, but it is true for a few of them depending on what part of the country they lived in. Education was extremely important and possible at this time. As a consequence of a great deal of effort by the freedmens bureau, the american missionary association, other organizations, and largely by the freed people themselves, schools were established. Not just elementary and secondary schools, but schools of Higher Learning as well. We know some of those early schools that called themselves colleges were really not. They were normal schools to train teachers, but i was extremely important. At least one of them, Howard University had to give that plug. I do want to go back to work on monday. Howard was established at the universe as a university. School, ad a divinity law school, middle School School a medical school, almost for the very beginning. People realized there were some africanamericans who were ready to get that level of education. Most were not because they had been denied literacy while they were enslaved, but there were a few who had been freeborn. Some enslaved people within able to get an education who were ready for this advance in education. Ms. Williams thank you very much. Make a commentto on, speed by your fellow panelists . I think it is true that reconstruction dominated grants presidency. Unlike many, he knew it brought liberation not occupation, and empowered or should have empowered africanamericans in states where they were a majority or a large minority. Comment on what role in the president grant whole issue of reconstruction and the progressive philosophy that it was intended to provide or give . Do i have three minutes for this . Mr. Williams yes, you do. Yes, i can comment. Richard current, a historian said this about grant. He was commanderinchief during the reconstruction phase of a continuing civil war. Andmind the audience emphasize its important to know, think, to put this in your pipe and smoke it that after the chaotic few months after appomattox the Confederate Army disbanded. The Confederate States of america was gone and there was nothing to replace it. The majority of enslaved people were still not officially free, and in many states their owners tried to tell them they were not free. It isa period really dramatic and fascinating. The fate of africanamericans themselves, slaves in the south, as well as southern whites theined in the hands of politicians in washington, d. C. And elections. Tennis game back and forth is fascinating. To me it is always been one of the most exciting periods in American History. As far as grant was concerned, last night and yesterday i heard a lot of people say, well, he of course including mr. Williams say he was utterly unprepared for the presidency. What president is . You know the most prepared president i am going on a rant. I need to stop. [laughter] the most prepared president in American History was james buchanan. Excellent job, james. [laughter] how could you not be prepared . You are a Senior Commander in the union army, taking in general by the end it was identified as winning the war for the United States and cast with not only fighting tasked with not only fighting and developing strategy, but dealing with politicians from washington and policy that changed from one day to another in your occupation of various territories. You dealt with issues of emancipation. Andnew it would not be easy he was also commanderinchief during reconstruction, overseeing military reconstruction. He brought to his presidency eight or nine months of being the interim secretary of war in a comic opera situation where stanton was removed. As reputation of grant president has been deeply influenced by the loss causes story ends who found him a dictator, a caesar as he was called by the democrats of that an utterly incompetent and stupid. The view now since the 1960s is that he did not do enough. If we can read the volumes of the u. S. Grant papers now presided over by the brilliant slick in his crew in mississippi, how great is that, he struggled. No president elected to the office doesnt feel that he is walking into to use a 20th century term the helicopter propeller. You are bloodied, in pieces, but you learn in your job. I would argue u. S. Grant did learn on the job. He did have a hard task. A hard task facing the people who believed in bringing civil rights and Voting Rights to africanamericans in the south. He had to face the fact that beyond emancipation there was no on what could be done in terms of civil rights and Voting Rights. Reconstruction was to figure that out. The premier goal of reconstruction was to reunite the United States. How could you do that incorporating reunion, restoration, reconciliation . With embittered white southerners who were still the majority of the population and still have the power. This was a very difficult task that grant had before him when he was elected president in 1868. 14th andto enforce the especially the 15th amendments. That made the election of 1872, which used the federal government coming down in Southern States where the kkk was suppressing the vote as we like to say and putting the force of the federal government and breaking up the kkk allowing the freest and fairest election that can be imagined or possible in 1872. A quickly broke down. Thate himself believed africanamericans, once given the suffrage, you could not take it away from them and he should not. He kept with that for the rest of his he tried to put it in the policy the rest of his presidency. It is such a complicated story. I have already got over my three minutes. Mr. Williams yes you have. [laughter] in my court the buzzer would have rung. But this is a court of equity. We try to be totally fair. So, moving to another subject we will come back to grant because he is such an important and telling figure. About the factor of their being this war in the americans,l native now called american indians, versus the troops that were required for reconstruction duty in the south . What affect does this have on either one theater or the other . Mr. Egerton it had a huge impact. Historians tend to put. As asian on American History puritization on American History. They all overlap. One of the main sources i used were for Freedmen Bureau reports. I would look at black counties on the eeo elections. Eve of elections. Wereers in the south saying please dont send soldiers out west. We cant have free and Fair Elections in alabama unless we have more soldiers. 1876, bighorn happens in reconstruction is not yet over. That is one of the things that hurts reconstruction. They need a military presence in the south. Part of it is the war is over and soldiers want to go home. They want to go back to their farms, businesses, families and wives. They mustered out in the army becomes disproportionately lacked because a lot of these. Ormer slaves they stay in the army but they stay out west. We are all told in gradeschool one of the deals made by hayes in 1876 is the white house demands the withdraw the federal army. But it is symbolic. Are 2800f 1876 they soldiers in all of the south. There are more cops in philadelphia announced in the south in 1876. Gestureand a symbolic that the federal government is walking away from black soldiers and black southerners. Wars in the dakotas that her reconstruction. The soldiers are needed down there to enforce Voting Rights in alabama, mississippi, and not out in the west. That really hurts reconstruction a lot. Mr. Williams thank you very much. Na, whether in these significant economic gains achie