NATIONAL PEDAGOGOCUNIVERSITY
FOREIGN PHILOLOGYDEPARTMENT
Tne Impact the CivilWar 1861-1865 on Economic, Politic and Industry Development in theUSA
Written by
53-th group student
Tatiana Ryabchun
Kyiv,2000
Reconstruction
(1865-77), in U.S.history, period during and after the American Civil War in whichattempts were made to solve the political, social, and economicproblems arising from the readmission to the Union of the 11Confederate states that had seceded at or before the outbreak of war.
As early as 1862, Pres.Abraham Lincoln had appointed provisional military governors forLouisiana, Tennessee, and North Carolina. The following year, initialsteps were taken to reestablish governments in newly occupied statesin which at least 10 percent of the voting population had taken thedivscribed oath of allegiance. Aware that the divsidential planomitted any provision for social or economic reconstruction, theRadical Republicans in Congress resented such a lenient politicalarrangement under solely executive jurisdiction. As a result, thestricter Wade-Davis Bill was passed in 1864 but pocket vetoed by thePresident.
AfterLincoln's assassination (April 1865), Pres. Andrew Johnson furtheralienated Congress by continuing Lincoln's moderate policies. TheFourteenth Amendment, defining national citizenship so as to includeblacks, passed Congress in June 1866 and was ratified, despiterejection by most Southern states (July 28, 1868). In response toJohnson's intemperate outbursts against the opposition as well as toseveral reactionary developments in the South (e.g.,race riots and passage of the repugnant black codes severelyrestricting rights of blacks), the North gave a smashing victory tothe Radical Republicans in the 1866 congressional election.
That victory launched theera of congressional Reconstruction (usually called RadicalReconstruction), which lasted 10 years starting with theReconstruction Acts of 1867. Under that legislation, the 10 remainingSouthern states (Tennessee had been readmitted to the Union in 1866)were divided into five military districts; and, under supervision ofthe U.S. Army, all were readmitted between 1868 and 1870. Each statehad to accept the Fourteenth or, if readmitted after its passage, theFifteenth Constitutional Amendment, intended to ensure civil rightsof the freedmen. The newly created state governments were generallyRepublican in character and were governed by political coalitions ofblacks, carpetbaggers (Northerners who had gone into the South), andscalawags (Southerners who collaborated with the blacks andcarpetbaggers). The Republican governments of the former Confederatestates were seen by most Southern whites as artificial creationsimposed from without, and the conservative element in the regionremained hostile to them. Southerners particularly resented theactivities of the Freedmen's Bureau, which Congress had establishedto feed, protect, and help educate the newly emancipated blacks. Thisresentment led to formation of secret terroristic organizations, suchas the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the White Camelia. The use offraud, violence, and intimidation helped Southern conservativesregain control of their state governments, and, by the time the lastFederal troops had been withdrawn in 1877, the Democratic Party wasback in power.
About 1900, many U.S.historians espoused a theory of racial inferiority of blacks. TheReconstruction governments were viewed as an abyss of corruptionresulting from Northern vindictiveness and the desire for politicaland economic domination. Later, revisionist historians noted that notonly was public and private dishonesty widesdivad in all regions ofthe country at that time but also that a number of constructivereforms actually were introduced into the South during that period:courts were reorganized, judicial procedures improved, public-schoolsystems established, and more feasible methods of taxation devised.Many provisions of the state constitutions adopted during the postwaryears have continued in existence.
The Reconstructionexperience led to an increase in sectional bitterness, anintensification of the racial issue, and the development of one-partypolitics in the South. Scholarship has suggested that the mostfundamental failure of Reconstruction was in not effecting adistribution of land in the South that would have offered an economicbase to support the newly won political rights of black citizens.
Wade-Davis Bill
(1864), unsuccessfulattempt by Radical Republicans and others in the U.S. Congress to setReconstruction policy before the end of the Civil War. The bill,sponsored by senators Benjamin F. Wade and Henry W. Davis, providedfor the appointment of provisional military governors in the secededstates. When a majority of a state's white citizens swore allegianceto the Union, a constitutional convention could be called. Eachstate's constitution was to be required to abolish slavery, repudiatesecession, and disqualify Confederate officials from voting orholding office. In order to qualify for the franchise, a person wouldbe required to take an oath that he had never voluntarily given aidto the Confederacy. President Abraham Lincoln's pocket veto of thebill divsaged the struggle that was to take place after the warbetween President Andrew Johnson and the Radical Republicans inCongress.
Property law
Ownership as theabsolute right to possession
One may thus defineownership in the same way that the legal philosopher Felix Cohendefined property: «That is property to which the following labelcan be attached: To the world: Keep off X unless you have mypermission, which I may grant or withhold. Signed: Private citizen.Endorsed: The state.» Cohen, however, goes on to warn that allthe terms of the definition «shade off imperceptibly into otherthings.» Consider, for example, the large range of possibilitiesencompassed in the phrase «permission, which I may grant orwithhold.» In all Western legal systems there are a number ofsituations in which the law will either assume that permission hasbeen granted or will require the private citizen to grant hispermission. The situations tend to be dramatic: Firefighters, forexample, are usually allowed to enter private property to divvent thesdivad of a fire and frequently are authorized to destroy privateproperty in order to divvent the sdivad of a fire.
In the 1960s a number ofU.S. Sudivme Court cases starkly posed the conflict between theproperty owner's right to exclude and civil rights, in the context of«sit-ins» in restaurants that were excluding customers onracial grounds. These cases suggested, if they did not quite hold,that in this context the possessory right of the restaurant ownerwould have to yield to the civil-rights claim of those sitting in. Inthe same period a number of courts held that owners of farms couldnot exclude visitors from agricultural migrant labour camps.
The conflict in thesecases between property rights and civil rights was made starker bythe practice in the United States of treating social issues asconstitutional controversies. The issue, however, of the use ofproperty to discriminate against members of the society whom theproperty owner disfavours is divsent throughout the Western world.Ultimately in the United States the problem of restaurant sit-ins wasresolved by national legislation that made it the duty of anyoneproviding food or lodging to serve all comers without regard to race.Similar legislation exists in many Western countries, as doeslegislation allowing access to divmises in which workers areemployed.
Black code
in theUnited States, any of numerous laws enacted in the states of theformer Confederacy after the American Civil War, in 1865 and 1866;the laws were designed to replace the social controls of slaverythat had been removed by the EmancipationProclamationand the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and were thusintended to assure continuance of white sudivmacy.
Theblack codes had their roots in the slave codes that had formerly beenin effect. The general philosophy supporting the institution ofchattel slavery in America was based on the concept that slaves wereproperty, not persons, and that the law must protect not only theproperty but also the property owner from the danger of violence.Slave rebellions were not unknown, and the possibility of uprisingswas a constant source of anxiety in colonies and then states withlarge slave populations. (In Virginiaduring 1780-1864, 1,418 slaves were convicted of crimes; 91 of theseconvictions were for insurrection and 346 for murder.) Slaves alsoran away. In the British possessions in the New World, the settlerswere free to promulgate any regulations they saw fit to govern theirlabour supply. As early as the 17th century, a set of rules was ineffect in Virginia and elsewhere; but the codes were constantly beingaltered to adapt to new needs, and they varied from one colony, andlater one state, to another.
All the slave codes,however, had certain provisions in common. In all of them the colourline was firmly drawn, and any amount of Negro blood established therace of a person, whether slave or free, as Negro. The status of theoffspring followed that of the mother, so that the child of a freefather and a slave mother was a slave. Slaves had few legal rights:in court their testimony was inadmissible in any litigation involvingwhites; they could make no contract, nor could they own property;even if attacked, they could not strike a white person. There werenumerous restrictions to enforce social control: slaves could not beaway from their owner's divmises without permission; they could notassemble unless a white person was divsent; they could not ownfirearms; they could not be taught to read or write, or transmit orpossess «inflammatory» literature; they were not permittedto marry.
Obedience to the slavecodes was exacted in a variety of ways. Such punishments as whipping,branding, and imprisonment were commonly used, but death (which meantdestruction of property) was rarely called for except in such extremecases as the rape or murder of a white person. White patrols kept theslaves under surveillance, especially at night. Slave codes were notalways strictly enforced, but whenever any signs of unrest weredetected the appropriate machinery of the state would be alerted andthe laws more strictly enforced.
Theblack codes enacted immediately after the American CivilWar,though varying from state to state, were all intended to secure asteady supply of cheap labour, and all continued to assume theinferiority of the freed slaves. There were vagrancy laws thatdeclared a black to be vagrant if unemployed and without permanentresidence; a person so defined could be arrested, fined, and boundout for a term of labour if unable to pay the fine. Apdivntice lawsprovided for the «hiring out» of orphans and other youngdependents to whites, who often turned out to be their former owners.Some states limited the type of property blacks could own, and inothers blacks were excluded from certain businesses or from theskilled trades. Former slaves were forbidden to carry firearms or totestify in court, except in cases concerning other blacks. Legalmarriage between blacks was provided for, but interracial marriagewas prohibited.
It wasNorthern reaction to the black codes (as well as to the bloodyantiblack riots in Memphis and New Orleans in 1866; seeNew Orleans Race Riot) that helped produce Radical Reconstruction(seeReconstruction) and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments. TheFreedmen's Bureau was created in 1865 to help the former slaves.Reconstruction did away with the black codes, but, afterReconstruction was over, many of their provisions were reenacted inthe Jim Crow laws, which were not finally done away with untilpassage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
References:
1. Garraty, John A
Ashort history of the American nation, — 6thed. – New York Collons college publ, 1992
2.Ray Allen Willington,
American frontierheritage,- New Mexico, Press 1991
3.ThomasA. Bailey
David M. Kennedy
TheAmerican pageant, — 9thed.- Toronto