These notes are part of the Black Reconstruction Reading Group‘s study material.
The price of the disaster of slavery and civil war was the necessity of quickly assimilating into American democracy a mass of ignorant laborers in whose hands alone for the moment lay the power of preserving the ideals of popular government; of overthrowing a slave economy and establishing upon it an industry primarily for the profit of the workers. It was this price which in the end America refused to pay and today suffers for that refusal
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Abolition-democracy demands for Negroes physical freedom, civil rights, economic opportunity and education and the right to vote, as a matter of sheer human justice and right. Industry demands profits and is willing to use for this end Negro freedom or Negro slavery, votes for Negroes or Black Codes. p.325
Andrew Johnson had a populist policy in the West, and a reactionary one in the South. p.325
The former Southern oligarchs opposed extending the vote, but wanted the additional power of numbers in Congress from the increase of Black citizens. p.325
“The American Abolitionists were typical bourgeois-democratic revolutionists … They felt their movement linked up with the great humanitarian causes of the day (the ‘labor question,’ the ‘peace question,’ the emancipation of women, temperance, philanthropy)… of which the antislavery agitation in America was another part.'” 2 p.327
“bourgeois-democratic revolutionists” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeois_revolution Overthrow of the monarchy, with establishment of capitalism and democracy.
“Under the leadership of Stevens and Sumner, they were beginning to realize the economic foundation of the revolution necessary in the South. … If now they could get the industrial North, not simply to give the Negro the vote, but to give him land and give him schools, the battle would be won.” p. 327 (They attempted to get all three, but got only the vote. The Reconstruction bill passed Congress with difficulty. It was vetoed by Johnson. Then Congress overrode the veto. March 1867 p.333)
(This is a development of understanding that democracy must rest on a base of capital/land reform and education of the working class.)
“The South was in the midst of industrial, civil and political anarchy. Crime, force, and murder, disorganized and wandering laborers, unorganized industry, were widely in evidence. The United States as a sovereign nation could declare the Southern states, where rebellion had occurred, unorganized territory, and could rule them by civil government, backed by Federal police.” p.328
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Acts
From 1864 to 1868, a large majority supported Reconstruction policies.
“Eight states accepted the Thirteenth Amendment, but five of these and the three which accepted on condition, acted under pressure from Johnson, and their action expressed the opinion of a minority of the former voting population, and for this reason these states feared to refer their action to popular approval.” p.329
Reconstruction Amendments: 13th, 14th, 15th.
In the administration of the Reconstruction, Johnson took counter-revolutionary action to undermine the goals of Abolition-democracy: relaxed rules to enable disloyal generals; installed generals sympathetic with the South into power; extended a full pardon to Confederates (Proclamation of Amnesty);
Sumner and Stevens continued to push forward. Attempted a housing bill. Attempted the Confiscation Act, the 40 acres and a mule act.
Johnson continued to support the South.
“Clemenceau said, “The best point of attack for the Democrats is the Negroes. Any Democrat who did not manage to hint in his speech that the Negro is a degenerate gorilla, would be considered lacking in enthusiasm. The idea of giving political power to a lot of wild men, incapable of civilization, whose intelligence is no higher than that of the animal! That is the theme of all Democratic speeches.” 10 With this, of course, went fetich worship of the Constitution.” Fall 1867 p.340
Fetich worship of the Constitution – DuBois term to describe narrow readings of the Constitution, a kind of “fundamentalism” argument to prevent Reconstruction.
R B Hayes ran agaist Thurman, on a Negro suffrage platform, and won narrowly.
These notes are part of the Black Reconstruction Reading Group‘s study material.
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