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However, in n effort to discredit the Republican Party, he only made a fool of himself, (famously known as Johnny’s “Swing Around the Circle”) and helped the Republican Party win 2/3rd of the seats in Congress, which gave them the majority to easily override Johnny’s vetoes. As a result, the Republicans could aid African Americans and put into place the Reconstruction Act Of 1 867, which was much more successful than Johnny’s presidential reconstruction. In fact, Congress’ efforts were so effective that the South felt the need fight Republican dominance.
For example, bulldozing, using physical violence as a means to discourage black men from voting, was extremely successful. In short, though reconstruction (especially presidential reconstruction), did have its limitations and was not a complete success, it was a step in the right direction. Lincoln overly generous Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, also known as the plan, was deliberately designed to make easy the process of absorbing the Confederacy back into the Union.
However, Radical Republicans, namely Charles Sumner and Thatched Stevens, did not think this was severe enough or actually secured freed slaves heir civil rights. They presented the Wade-Davis Bill, which made it harder for Confederate states to enter the Union, and gave less room for former Confederates to return to positions of power. Because Lincoln was more focused on healing the nation than punishing the Confederacy-??whom he believes never actually seceded, but instead were in a state of insurrection-??though, he pocket vetoed the bill.
Radical Republicans thus feared that the South could start reverting back to its old ways unless they worked to learn their lesson the hard way. Radical Republicans initially found ore favor with the next president, Andrew Johnson, who at first seemed like he would be more vindictive towards the South with his New Proclamation of Amnesty. However, Johnson, as a tailor’s son who never fit into Southern high society, was vulnerable to be wooed by the South into doing reconstruction even more leniently than Lincoln did! He pardoned 1 3,000 ingratiating Southerners.
What happened next was huge, and would violate the principles of the war that had just been fought. Former high Confederates were seated right back into Congress (just as Radical Republicans had feared), and they ride to maintain blacks in slavery under another name: Black Codes. Because blacks were granted freedom by the 13th amendment and that could not be changed, Southerners took the next best step and limited blacks’ freedom with the Black Codes, which practically contradicted everything the Union fought for in the Civil War and kept blacks in a state of “De facto slavery. Because blacks could not secure independent work, they found themselves sharecropping, or working under cash-poor landlords who provided housing, tools, and plant-seed, in return for 2/3rd of their harvest. However, this did not provide blacks with enough money to support themselves, and they became indebted to their landlords. In this light, reconstruction was extremely limited and hardly successful: Southerners bought Johnny’s favor with flattery, voted former Confederates in Congress, and then those Confederates slyly re-enslaved freedmen under the Black Codes. Blacks were enjoying neither liberty nor civil rights.
Another reason that presidential reconstruction was hardly successful was that Johnson continued to veto Congress’ bills. Not only was Johnson in new ties with the South, he was a racist Democrat. He rejected the Freedman’s Bureau, (which supported blacks with medical care, education, food, and courts), with the claim that the lazy blacks would only grow more lazy. He rejected the Civil Rights Act of 1 866, which granted citizenship and civil rights to black men, on the grounds that such an act exceeded Congress’ authority, and that such a phenomenon would only create racial strife.
However, Radical Republicans, joined by moderate Republicans, (who began to notice the pattern of Johnny’s vetoes), overrode the veto. Republicans, realizing that blacks’ freedom was still in danger, presented the fourteenth amendment, which ranted citizenship and civil rights to all those who are born in America, as well as guaranteed life, liberty, and property which could only be denied through due process, and lastly, Congressional authority to enforce the amendment.
Johnson, being a Democrat who saw the fourteenth amendment as being a violation Of states rights, convinced all Southern state legislatures, with the exception of his home state Tennessee, to not ratify the amendment. It is ironic that Johnson vetoed many bills and acts which were intended to grant blacks civil rights in order to protect states’ rights. Johnson did not fight or the liberty of men; he fought for the liberty of states. He was racist, and he was a Democrat. At this point, it was up to Congress to make for some effective reconstruction.
After Johnson humiliated himself in his “Swing Around the circle” and helped the Republicans gain 2/3rd of the seats in Congress, Republicans had the majority they needed to override his vetoes and start implementing laws that protected blacks. They enforced the Reconstruction Act of 1867, an entirely new plan of reconstruction to protect blacks, with the Bayonet Rule, by which Union troops deterred the oppression f blacks in the South. This was extremely effective. Blacks could now vote and hold office!
In time, the presence Of the Republican party dominated Of the South, and blacks stood right behind them. Furthermore, the fifteenth amendment secured black men’s right to vote (for the Republican Party! ). Congressional reconstruction was very successful and produced excellent results at first: extending universal male suffrage, disenfranchising ex- Confederates for a certain amount of time, requiring public schooling for blacks and whites, rebuilding infrastructure, and creating welfare programs or the poor.
The South criticized the Bayonet Rule with the myth of Negro Rule, which claimed that naive freedman elected depraved black politicians who permitted interracial marriage, though. They were outraged at the dramatic changes taking place in the South. In this time arose the UK Klux Klan, led by Nathan Bedford Forrest. The UK Klux Klan murdered all Republican Party supporters in an effort to crush Republican dominance in the South and reestablish the Democratic Party. And though they were indicted as a result of the Force Act of 1 871, few were convicted. This would e a mistake; more should have been convicted.