Once Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, the War Between the States came to represent the fight of decent people to end the horrors of slavery. It was a move of genius on Lincoln’s part that provided a surge in Union numbers when ‘freed’ blacks enlisted, depleted labor sources in the South when slaves fled to the North, and played up the immorality of slavery (and the immorality of those who defended it). When the war ended, Republican lawmakers realized that the newly freed blacks would vote for their party if enfranchised, especially if said party procured for them the right to vote. The Reconstruction period from 1863 to 1877 saw much legislation aimed at integrating blacks into society as equals to whites. Though promising, the opportunities for black advancement made during Reconstruction were stifled by state and local laws during the Jim Crow era that followed.
In 1865, after the Civil War ended, Reconstruction began with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution which abolished slavery and “involuntary servitude.” This meant that a lot of people who had once been property were now free individuals. That same year, Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (Freedmen’s Bureau). Its main goal was to aid former slaves in their adjustment to freedom, by finding them jobs and funding black schools and churches. The federal government had resistance in certain states, however, which passed ‘black codes.’ These laws placed restrictions on blacks, varied from state to state and effectively placed blacks in a subservient social class.
In opposition to these black codes, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, overriding President Andrew Jackson’s veto. The Act allowed blacks to enter contracts, bear witness in court and own property. In the same year, Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment and extended citizenship to virtually every colored person in the United States: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States…are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside…No state shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” Southern states had to ratify this amendment, which in theory made blacks and whites equal citizens, before they could be readmitted into the Union.
Slowly, begrudgingly, the Southern states crawled back to the Union. The first state to ratify the 14th Amendment was Tennessee, which ironically was the home of the first Ku Klux Klan members. When the amendment was finally ratified in 1868, blacks and whites were supposedly equal citizens. In 1869 Republican Reconstruction got a boost from the New Departure in the South. Democrats who were worried about the Radicals in office began to support more conservative Republican candidates as a first step towards policies more sympathetic to Southern interests. The 15th Amendment passed in 1870 used the strongest language yet to assert black equality, saying that the right to vote could not be denied on the basis of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
Despite opposition to Reconstruction (e.g. Mississippi Plan) civil rights reformers thought they had done enough. They had, after all, pushed through federal guarantees of black rights. So when the 1876 Hayes/Tilden election turned ugly and set a precedent for future recounts, the Northern Republicans effectively agreed to stop interfering in Southern politics if Democrats conceded the presidency. The Jim Crow laws that were subsequently passed not only exposed the loopholes left in reconstruction legislation, but demonstrated how determined many southerners were to keep blacks in an inferior social standing. The Compromise of 1877 marked the end of Reconstruction efforts to equalize blacks and jumpstarted the Jim Crow legacies of institutionalized segregation.
The South was energized by the notions of the Old South, or the Lost Cause, which portrayed plantation owners as kind, generous benefactors to the gracious and appreciative slaves that worked for their owners. This combined with the National American Women’s Suffrage Association’s distracting efforts and other failed abolitionist causes culminated in the ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson, which paved the way for segregation in school and eventually all forms of life. Jim Crow laws and grandfather clauses kept the voting population predominantly white (and Democratic) in the Southern states.
The Jim Crow era began in 1877, and probably lasted through the 1960’s. During this time, northern and southern whites were diverted from the plight of blacks by other, more pressing issues (those that affected whites). The Supreme Court decisions that dissolved the progress made during Reconstruction and encouraged segregation seemed to pass under the radar while the country worried about labor laws, industrial strikes, political corruption, imperialism/expansion, municipal reform and other progressive movements. Some were worse than others, but all southern states passed Jim Crow laws, the language of which was blatant and unapologetic about the racism that spawned them. Most states prohibited interracial marriages and required segregation in places such as bars, schools, libraries, bathrooms, parks, cemeteries, hospitals, theatres, railroad cars and even barber shops. North Carolina went so far as to prohibit white students from using any textbook that had been previously used by a black student, and vice versa.
In hindsight, it appears as though the gains during Reconstruction were only for show. If white men really cared about the rights of blacks (as they claimed to after the Civil War) then they certainly wouldn’t have allowed the Jim Crow laws to trample on their rights. In that light, the term “Gilded Age” seems highly appropriate.
