The Post – War Times. 1866 Civil Rights.

On the night of April 13. 1865. crowds of people moved through the brightly lit streets of Washington to celebrate Lee's surrender at Appomattox. A man who was there wrote in his diary: "Guns are firing, bells ringing, flags flying, men laughing, children cheering, all, all are jubilant."

At exactly 10:13. when the play was part way through. A pistol shot rang through the darkened theatre. As the President slumped forward in his seat, a man in a black flet hat and high boots jumped from the box on to the stage. He waved a gun in the air and shouted "Sic semper tyrannist”  and then ran out of the theatre. It was discovered later that the gunman was an act or named John Wilkes Booth. He was captured a few days later, hiding in a barn in the Virginia countryside. The president Lincoln was assassinated. Lincoln was succeed ed as President by his Vice President. Andrew Johnson. The biggest problem the new President faced was how to deal with the defeated South. Lincoln had made no secret of his own ideas ab out this. Only a few weeks before his death he had begun his second term of office as President. In his inaugural address he had asked the American people to help him to "bind up the nation's wounds" and rebuild their war-battered homeland. Lincoln blamed individual southern leaders or the War rather than the people of the seceding states as a whole. He intended to punish only those guilty individuals and to let the rest of the South's people play a full part in the nation's life again.  Johnson had similar ideas. He began to introduce plans to reunite the South with the rest of the nation. He said that as soon as the citizens o f the seceded states promised to be loyal to the government of the United States they could elect flew state assemblies to run their affairs. When a state voted to accept the 13th Amendment to the Constitution (the one that completely abolished slavery) Johnson intended that it should be accepted back into the Union as a full and equal member. But white southerners were determined to resist any changes that threatened their power to control the life of the South. They were especially horrified at the idea of giving equal rights to their former black slaves. The assembly of the state of Mississippi expressed the way they felt in these blunt words: "Under the pressure of federal bayonets the people of Mississippi have abolished the institution of slavery. The negro is free whether we like it or not. To be free, however, does nor make him a citizen or entitle him to social or political equality with the white mall."The other former Confederate states shared this attitude. All their assemblies passed laws to keep blacks in an inferior position. Such laws were called "Black Codes. " "Federal bayonets" might have made the blacks free, bur the ruling whites intended them to remain unskilled, uneducated and land less, with no legal protection or rights of their own. Black Codes refused blacks rile vote. They forbade them to give evidence in court against a white man. In Mississippi blacks were not allowed to buy or to rent farm land. In  Louisiana they had to agree to work for one employer for a whole year and could be imprisoned and made to do forced labour if they refused. With no land, no money and no protection from the law, it was almost as if blacks were still slaves. In July 1866, despite opposition from the President, Congress passed a Civil Rights Act. It also set up all organization called the Freedmen's Bureau. Both these measures were intended to ensure that blacks in the South were not cheated of their rights. Congress then introduced the 14^th  Amendment to the Constitution. The 14^th  Amendment gave blacks full fights of citizenship, including the right to vote. All the former Confederate states except Tennessee refused to accept the 14^th  Amendment. In March 1867, Congress replied by passing the Reconstruction Act. This dismissed the white governments of the southern states and placed them under military rule. They were told that they could again have elected governments when they accepted the 14th Amendment and gave all black men the vote. By 1870 all the southern states had new "Reconstruction" governments. Most were made up of blacks, a few white southerners who were willing to work with them an white men from the North. Most white southerners supported the Democratic political party. These southern Democrats claimed that the Reconstruction governments were in competent and dishonest. There was some truth in this claim. Many of the new black members of the state assemblies were inexperienced and poorly educated. Some carpetbaggers were thieves. In Louisiana. For example, one carpetbagger official was accused of stealing 100.000 dollars from state funds in his first year of office. None of these Improvements stopped southern whites from ha ting Reconstruction. This was not because of the incompetence or dishonesty of its governments. It was because Reconstruction aimed to give blacks the same rights that whites had. Southern whites were determined to prevent this. They organized terrorist groups to make white men the masters once more. The main aim of these groups was to threaten and frighten black people and prevent them from claiming their rights. The largest and most feared terrorist group was a secret society called the Ku Klux Klan. Its members dressed themselves in white sheets and wore hoods to hide their faces. They rode by night through the southern countryside. Beating an d killing any blacks who tried to improve their position. Their sign was a burning wooden cross. which they placed out side the homes of their intended victims. Southern blacks were treated more and mere as "second class citizens" – that is, they were not given equal treatment under the law. Most serious of all, they were robbed of their right to vote.

Reconstruction had not been for nothing. It had been the boldest attempt so far to achieve racial justice in the United Stares. The 14^th Amendment was especially important. It was the foundation of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and made it possible for Martin Luther King to cry our eventually on behalf of all black Amcricans:

"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty. We

are free at last!"

Bibliography:

1.     The Norton Anthology of American Literature.

2.     A History of American Literature, A. Grey

3.     An Outline of American History.

4.      An Illustrated History of the USA.