Events
1865
Southern states begin to issue black codes
1866
Congress passes Civil Rights Act of 1866
Ku Klux Klan forms
1867
Radical Reconstruction begins
Congress passes First Reconstruction Act
1868
Fourteenth Amendment is ratified
1870
Fifteenth Amendment is ratified
1871
Congress passes Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871
The South After the War
While politicians in Washington, D.C., were busy passing
Reconstruction legislation in the late 1860s,
the South remained in upheaval, as the ruined economy tried to accommodate
newly emancipated blacks and political power struggles ensued. As
freed slaves tried to establish livelihoods for themselves and take
advantage of their new rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments, politicians and vigilantes used insidious legislation
and intimidation to try to maintain the prewar status quo.
Newly Emancipated Blacks
The Union Army’s advance deep into southern territory
in the final months of the Civil War freed thousands and thousands
of slaves. Although some of these slaves were emancipated officially
in the final days of the conflict, most freed themselves, simply
refusing to work or walking away from the fields to follow the Union
Army.
The end of the war meant that thousands of blacks could
search freely for family members from whom they had been separated when
they were sold or auctioned. Many black couples took the opportunity
to get married after being freed, knowing that they could never
again be lawfully separated. The number of black marriages skyrocketed.
Black Schools and Churches
Many freed blacks, previously forbidden to learn to read
or write, wanted their children to receive the education that they
themselves had been denied. The Congress-created Freedmen’s
Bureau, assisted by former abolitionist organizations in
the North, succeeded in establishing schools for thousands of blacks
during the late 1860s.
In addition, many former slaves established their own churches. White
southern clergymen had often defended slavery in their sermons in
the period before the Civil War. As a result, blacks distrusted
their white congregations, so they created their own as soon as
they had the opportunity.
Carpetbaggers and Scalawags
Meanwhile, some northerners jumped at the opportunity
to move to the South in the wake of the Confederacy’s defeat. Commonly known
as carpetbaggers because of their tendency to carry
their possessions in large carpetbags, some moved from the North
to promote education, others to modernize the South, and others
to seek their fortune. White southern Unionists, or scalawags,
attempted to achieve similar aims. Carpetbaggers and scalawags served
in state legislatures in every southern state during Reconstruction.
