Replies to post #1282 on NO QUARTER FOR CORRUPTION (Focussing on The Fed./F

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Reconstruction


RECONSTRUCTION [Reconstruction] 1865-77, in U.S. history, the period of readjustment following the Civil War. At the end of the Civil War , the defeated South was a ruined land. The physical destruction wrought by the invading Union forces was enormous, and the old social and economic order founded on slavery had collapsed completely, with nothing to replace it. The 11 Confederate states somehow had to be restored to their positions in the Union and provided with loyal governments, and the role of the emancipated slaves in Southern society had to be defined.

Lincoln's Plan

Even before the war ended, President Lincoln began the task of restoration. Motivated by a desire to build a strong Republican party in the South and to end the bitterness engendered by war, he issued (Dec. 8, 1863) a proclamation of amnesty and reconstruction for those areas of the Confederacy occupied by Union armies. It offered pardon, with certain exceptions, to any Confederate who would swear to support the Constitution and the Union. Once a group in any conquered state equal in number to one tenth of that state's total vote in the presidential election of 1860 took the prescribed oath and organized a government that abolished slavery, he would grant that government executive recognition.

Lincoln's plan aroused the sharp opposition of the radicals in Congress, who believed it would simply restore to power the old planter aristocracy. They passed (July, 1864) the Wade-Davis Bill, which required 50% of a state's male voters to take an "ironclad" oath that they had never voluntarily supported the Confederacy. Lincoln's pocket veto kept the Wade-Davis Bill from becoming law, and he implemented his own plan. By the end of the war it had been tried, not too successfully, in Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Virginia. Congress, however, refused to seat the Senators and Representatives elected from those states, and by the time of Lincoln's assassination the President and Congress were at a stalemate.

Johnson's Plan

Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, at first pleased the radicals by publicly attacking the planter aristocracy and insisting that the rebellion must be punished. His amnesty proclamation (May 29, 1865) was more severe than Lincoln's; it disenfranchised all former military and civil officers of the Confederacy and all those who owned property worth $20,000 or more and made their estates liable to confiscation. The obvious intent was to shift political control in the South from the old planter aristocracy to the small farmers and artisans, and it promised to accomplish a revolution in Southern society.

With Congress in adjournment from April to Dec., 1865, Johnson put his plan into operation. Under provisional governors appointed by him, the Southern states held conventions that voided or repealed their ordinances of secession, abolished slavery, and (except South Carolina) repudiated Confederate debts. Their newly elected legislatures (except Mississippi) ratified the Thirteenth Amendment guaranteeing freedom for blacks. By the end of 1865 every ex-Confederate state except Texas had reestablished civil government.

The control of white over black, however, seemed to be restored, as each of the newly elected state legislatures enacted statutes severely limiting the freedom and rights of the blacks. These laws, known as black codes , restricted the ability of blacks to own land and to work as free laborers and denied them most of the civil and political rights enjoyed by whites. Many of the offices in the new governments, moreover, were won by disenfranchised Confederate leaders, and the President, rather than ordering new elections, granted pardons on a large scale.

Early Congressional Legislation

An outraged Northern public believed that the fruits of victory were being lost by Johnson's lenient policy. When Congress convened (Dec. 4, 1865) it refused to seat the Southern representatives. Johnson responded by publicly attacking Republican leaders and vetoing their Reconstruction measures. His tactics drove the moderates into the radical camp. The Civil Rights Act (Apr. 9, 1866), designed to protect African Americans from legislation such as the black codes, and the Freedmen's Bureau Bill (July 16), extending the life of that organization (see Freedmen's Bureau ), were both passed over Johnson's veto. Doubts as to the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act led the radicals to incorporate (June, 1866) most of its provisions in the Fourteenth Amendment (ratified 1868).

The newly created Joint Committee on Reconstruction reported (Apr. 28, 1866) that the ex-Confederate states were in a state of civil disorder, and hence, had not held valid elections. It also maintained that Reconstruction was a congressional, not an executive, function. The radicals solidified their position by winning the elections of 1866. When every Southern state (except Tennessee) refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and protect the rights of its black citizens, the stage was set for more severe measures.

The Reconstruction Acts

On Mar. 2, 1867, Congress enacted the Reconstruction Act, which, supplemented later by three related acts, divided the South (except Tennessee) into five military districts in which the authority of the army commander was supreme. Johnson continued to oppose congressional policy, and when he insisted on the removal of the radical Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton , in defiance of the Tenure of Office Act , the House impeached him (Feb., 1868). The radicals in the Senate fell one vote short of convicting him (May), but by this time Johnson's program had been effectively scuttled.

Under the terms of the Reconstruction Acts, new state constitutions were written in the South. By Aug., 1868, six states (Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida) had been readmitted to the Union, having ratified the Fourteenth Amendment as required by the first Reconstruction Act. The four remaining unreconstructed states—Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, and Georgia—were readmitted in 1870 after ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the Fifteenth Amendment, which guaranteed the black man's right to vote.

The Radical Republican Governments in the South

The radical Republican governments in the South attempted to deal constructively with the problems left by the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. Led by so-called carpetbaggers (Northerners who settled in the South) and scalawags (Southern whites in the Republican party) and freedmen, they began to rebuild the Southern economy and society. Agricultural production was restored, roads rebuilt, a more equitable tax system adopted, and schooling extended to blacks and poor whites. The freedmen's civil and political rights were guaranteed, and blacks were able to participate in the political and economic life of the South as full citizens for the first time.

The bitterness engendered by the Civil War remained, however, and most Southern whites objected strongly to the former slaves' new role in society. Organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan arose. Their acts of violence kept African Americans and white Republicans from voting, and gradually the radical Republican governments were overthrown. Their collapse was hastened by the death of the old radical leaders in Congress, such as Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner , and by the revelation of internal corruption in the radical Republican governments; the Grant administration was compelled to lessen its support of them because of growing criticism in the North of corruption in the federal government itself.

Reconstruction's End

By 1876 only Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana remained under Republican domination. The Republican presidential candidate that year, Rutherford B. Hayes , promised to alleviate conditions in the South, but the feeling there had already led to the formation of the "solid South" in support of his Democratic opponent, Samuel J. Tilden . In those three states the presidential contest was the occasion for a determined effort to throw off Republican rule, and on their electoral votes (and on one disputed electoral vote in Oregon) hung the fate of the famous disputed election of 1876. It is practically certain that at least one of the three gave a majority, and thus the presidency, to Tilden, but two sets of returns were sent in from each of the three states. A specially constituted electoral commission (composed of eight Republicans and seven Democrats) accepted the Republican returns, and Hayes was given the presidency.

Reconstruction officially ended as all federal troops were withdrawn from the South. White rule was restored, and black people were over time deprived of many civil and political rights and their economic position remained depressed. The radicals' hopes for a basic reordering of the social and economic structure of the South, beyond the abolition of slavery, died. The results, instead, were the one-party "solid South" and increased racial bitterness.

Bibliography

The literature on the Reconstruction is extensive and has shown sharp changes in interpretation. The first major historical writing on the period was done early in the 20th cent. It reflected the rising tide of nationalism that followed the Spanish-American War and incorporated the then current assumptions of black racial inferiority. Reconstruction was portrayed as a tragic era during which vindictive, scheming, radical Republicans imposed harsh military rule on a vanquished South and supported corrupt state governments dominated by unscrupulous carpetbaggers, scalawags, and uneducated freedmen. Typical examples of this school of historiography are J. W. Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution (1902, repr. 1970); W. A. Dunning. Reconstruction, Political and Economic (1907, repr. 1962); W. L. Fleming, The Sequel of Appomattox (1919, repr. 1921); C. G. Bowers, The Tragic Era (1929, repr. 1962); and E. M. Coulter, The South During Reconstruction (1947).

Author not available, RECONSTRUCTION., The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition 2006


Link: http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/R/Reconstr.asp

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Andrew Johnson




With the Assassination of Lincoln, the Presidency fell upon an old-fashioned southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced states' rights views. Although an honest and honorable man, Andrew Johnson was one of the most unfortunate of Presidents. Arrayed against him were the Radical Republicans in Congress, brilliantly led and ruthless in their tactics. Johnson was no match for them.

Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1808, Johnson grew up in poverty. He was apprenticed to a tailor as a boy, but ran away. He opened a tailor shop in Greeneville, Tennessee, married Eliza McCardle, and participated in debates at the local academy.

Entering politics, he became an adept stump speaker, championing the common man and vilifying the plantation aristocracy. As a Member of the House of Representatives and the Senate in the 1840's and '50's, he advocated a homestead bill to provide a free farm for the poor man.

During the secession crisis, Johnson remained in the Senate even when Tennessee seceded, which made him a hero in the North and a traitor in the eyes of most Southerners. In 1862 President Lincoln appointed him Military Governor of Tennessee, and Johnson used the state as a laboratory for reconstruction. In 1864 the Republicans, contending that their National Union Party was for all loyal men, nominated Johnson, a Southerner and a Democrat, for Vice President.

After Lincoln's death, President Johnson proceeded to reconstruct the former Confederate States while Congress was not in session in 1865. He pardoned all who would take an oath of allegiance, but required leaders and men of wealth to obtain special Presidential pardons.

By the time Congress met in December 1865, most southern states were reconstructed, slavery was being abolished, but "black codes" to regulate the freedmen were beginning to appear.

Radical Republicans in Congress moved vigorously to change Johnson's program. They gained the support of northerners who were dismayed to see Southerners keeping many prewar leaders and imposing many prewar restrictions upon Negroes.

The Radicals' first step was to refuse to seat any Senator or Representative from the old Confederacy. Next they passed measures dealing with the former slaves. Johnson vetoed the legislation. The Radicals mustered enough votes in Congress to pass legislation over his veto--the first time that Congress had overridden a President on an important bill. They passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which established Negroes as American citizens and forbade discrimination against them.

A few months later Congress submitted to the states the Fourteenth Amendment, which specified that no state should "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

All the former Confederate States except Tennessee refused to ratify the amendment; further, there were two bloody race riots in the South. Speaking in the Middle West, Johnson faced hostile audiences. The Radical Republicans won an overwhelming victory in Congressional elections that fall.

In March 1867, the Radicals effected their own plan of Reconstruction, again placing southern states under military rule. They passed laws placing restrictions upon the President. When Johnson allegedly violated one of these, the Tenure of Office Act, by dismissing Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the House voted eleven articles of impeachment against him. He was tried by the Senate in the spring of 1868 and acquitted by one vote.

In 1875, Tennessee returned Johnson to the Senate. He died a few months later.


Link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/aj17.html

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a "rump" Congress....


Tulane Law Review vol. 28 1953, The Dubious Origin Of The Fourteenth Amendment,
by Walter J. Suthon, Jr.

"How remote was this Hamiltonian concept from the events of 1867 and 1888, when a "rump" Congress arrogated to itself the power to force ratification of a rejected amendment, coercing ratifications by several of the rejecting States." page 26

"This submission was by a two-thirds vote of the quorum present in each House of Congress, and in that sense it complied with Article V of the Constitution. However, the submission was by a "rump" Congress. Using the constitutional provision that "Each House shall be the judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members..." each House had excluded all persons appearing with credentials as Senators or Representatives from the ten Southern States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. This exclusion, through the exercise of an unreviewable constitutional prerogative, constituted a gross violation of the essence of two other constitutional provisions, both intended to protect the rights of the States to representation in Congress." page 28

"Had these ten Southern States not been summarily denied their constitutional rights of representation in Congress, through the ruthless use of the power of each House to pass on the election and qualifications of its members, this amendment proposal would doubtless have died a-borning. It obviously would have been impossible to secure a two-thirds vote for the submission of the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, particularly in the Senate, if the excluded members had been permitted to enter and to vote. Of course, that was one of the motives and reasons for this policy of ruthless exclusion." page 28

"Assuming the validity of the submission of this amendment by a two-thirds vote of this "rump" Congress, there is no gainsaying the obvious proposition that whatever "contemplation" or "understanding" this "rump" Congress may have had, as to the intent, or the scope, or the effect, or the consequences of the amendment being submitted, was necessarily a "rump" contemplation or understanding. The ten Southern States, whose Senators and Representatives were all excluded from the deliberations of the "rump" Congress, could have had no possible part in the development or formation of any "contemplation" or "understanding" of what the consequences and effects of the proposed amendment were to be." page 29

"This created a situation which made impossible the ratification of the Amendment unless some of these rejections were reversed. With thirty-seven States in all, ten rejections were sufficient to prevent the adoption of the amendment proposal. The thirteen rejections, by the ten Southern States and three border States, were more than sufficient to block ratification even if all other States finally ratified." page 30

"This is the only action ever taken on the Fourteenth Amendment by a Louisiana Legislature exercising free and unfettered and uncoerced judgement and discretion as between ratification or rejection of the amendment proposal. The subsequent purported ratification of this Amendment in Louisiana was by a legislature of a puppet government, created by the radical majority of Congress to do the bidding of its master, and compelled to ratify this Amendment by the Federal Statute which had brought this puppet government into existence for this specific purpose."
page 30

"It is most interesting to read the proceedings of the Louisiana House of Representatives on February 6, 1867, whereby that body adopted the Joint Resolution ordaining the refusal of Louisiana to ratify the proposed Fourteenth Amendment--the Joint Resolution which became Act 4 of 1867. This Journal shows, by the roll call, that one hundred members voted out of a total House membership of one hundred and ten--and that the unanimous vote was one hundred against ratification and not in favor of it.

This was the last opportunity for a free and uncoerced expression of views on this amendment proposal by duly elected representatives of the people of Louisiana." page 31

"The Act dealt with these Southern States, referred to as "rebel States" in its various provisions. It opened with a recital that "no legal State government" existed in these States. It placed these States under military rule. Louisiana and Texas were grouped together as the Fifth Military District, and placed under the domination of an army officer appointed by the President. All civilian authorities were placed under the dominant authority of the military government." page 31

"The most extreme and amazing feature of the Act was the requirement that each excluded State must ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, in order to again enjoy the status and rights of a State, including representation in Congress. Section 3 of the Act sets fourth this compulsive coercion thus imposed upon the Southern States." page 32

"Senator Doolittle of Wisconsin, a Northerner and a Conservative Republican. During the floor debate on the bill, he said:

"My friend has said what has been said all around me, what is said every day: the people of the South have rejected the constitutional amendment, and therefore we will march upon them and force them to adopt it at the point of the bayonet, and establish military power over them until they do adopt it." page 32

"President Johnson vetoed the Reconstruction Act in an able message, stressing its harsh injustices and its many aspects of obvious unconstitutionality. He justifiably denounced it as "a bill of attainder against nine million people at once." page 33

"Notwithstanding this able message, the Act was promptly passed over his veto by the required two-thirds majority in each House. Military rule took over in the ten Southern States to initiate the process of conditioning a subjugated people to an ultimate acceptance of the Fourteenth Amendment." page 33

"Whatever justification for other portions of the Reconstruction Act may or may not be found in this constitutional provision, there could clearly be no sort of a relationship between a guarantee to a State of "a republican form of government" and an abrogation of the basic and constitutional right of a State, in its legislative discretion, to make its own choice between ratification or rejection of a constitutional amendment proposal submitted to the state legislatures by the Congress of the United States. To deny to a State the exercise of this free choice between ratification and rejection, and to put the harshest sort of coercive pressure upon a State to compel ratification, was clearly a gross infraction--not and effectuation--of the constitutional guarantee of "a republican form of government." page 37

Madison said in Federalist No. 43:

"....the authority extends no further than to a guaranty of a republican form government, which supposes a preexisting government of the form which is to be guaranteed. As long, therefore, as the existing republican forms are continued by the States, they are guaranteed by the federal Constitution. Whenever the States may choose to substitute other republican forms, they have a right to do so, and to claim the federal guaranty for the latter. The only restriction imposed on them is , that they shall not exchange republican for anti-republican Constitutions; a restriction which, it is presumed, will hardly be considered as a grievance." page 38

"The enactment of the legislature of the puppet government of Louisiana which ratified the Fourteenth Amendment is embodied in Act 2 of 1868. The legislative journals of that session reflect the presence and dominance of the military, all as provided for and contemplated by the Reconstruction Act." page 39

"The House Journal shows that on June 29, 1868, Colonel Batchelder opened the session by calling the roll and reading an extract form the order of General Grant. The Senate Journal for the same date shows the reading of instructions from General Grant to the Commanding Officer of the Fifth Military District emphasizing the supremacy of the power of the military over the provisional civilian government. It was under these auspices that the coerced ratifications of the Fourteenth Amendment in Louisiana was accomplished." page 40

"Also worth of note in this connection ins the holding in 1895 that the levying of an income tax by the Federal Government, without apportioning the tax among the States as a direct tax, violated the taxing-power provisions of the Constitution of the United States--although, thirty years prior to this judicial vindication of what the majority of the Court deemed to be fundamental and true Constitutional provisions, the Federal Government had levied and collected income taxes for several years on a large scale, and had financed a major war of vital consequences to a very considerable extent out of revenues so obtained." page 44

The United States is still a British Colony; Part 1

The United States is still a British Colony; Part 2

The United State is still a British Colony; Part 3

Return to American Patriot Network

Link: http://www.civil-liberties.com/books/colony32.html
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Link: http://newdeal.feri.org/court/moley.htm

8. We are told, in extenuation, that the Court has been packed in the past. If those who rely on this argument will read their history, they will find that the outstanding instance of Court-packing, a device to which even Jefferson in his anger at the Court did not resort, was the work of the Reconstruction Congress that followed the war between the states. That Congress, as history sees it now, was the most discredited, the most vicious Congress that this country has ever seen. It was, as every student of history knows, a rump Congress, representative not of the whole country, but of those states that had prevailed in the bloody war they have just passed through. It sought to dominate the Executive and, when he did not yield, it brought about his impeachment. It, too, sought to "unpack" the Court: it reduced its size to prevent President Johnson from appointing judges. Then, with Johnson out of the way, it "unpacked" it again by giving Grant two more judges. Thus it sought to bend the Court to its will. I am sure that no one who respects, as I do, the high personnel of this present Congress, can conceivably justify this proposal by comparing its method with that of the wretched Reconstruction Congress which followed the war between the states
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Link: http://www.rossde.com/editorials/edtl_rumpSenate.html

As the Revolutionary War drew to a close, our nation's founders were very much aware of the dangers posed by a strong government. As a result, they ratified the Articles of Confederation in 1781 to provide a weak government for the new nation. The national government proved too weak, impairing trade and commerce and creating a risk that we would be unable to defend the country against attacks by other nations.

In 1789, the Articles of Confederation were therefore replaced by the Constitution. Heeding historical lessons of the abuse of government power seen in England, the Constitution still limited the federal government in the United States. For a long time (and continuing today), all government power in England belongs to the central government. One limit on our new government was created by listing the powers of the federal government in the Constitution; anything that was not explicitly listed belonged to the states.

Another very important feature was the separation of powers between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. For example, unlike the relationship between King and Parliament, if the President disagreed with Congress, he could not dissolve Congress and call new elections.

In 1640 in England (while English colonies were being established in what is today the United States), a new Parliament began meeting. It met for 20 years, long beyond the expiration of any mandate from the voters (at that time, only wealthy landowners). For obvious reasons, this was known as the Long Parliament, the members of which refused to consider new elections because they feared they would lose power and influence. To prevent such a situation in the United States, the Constitution provides for fixed terms and regular elections of members of both houses of Congress. The provision for fixed terms also means that the President cannot remove a Congress with which he disagrees.

While the Long Parliament was in session, in 1648, its leaders purged dissident members. For 12 more years, only a fraction of Parliament governed England. This truncation was derisively called the Rump Parliament because the rest of the body had been cut away. Thus, England was ruled by a minority of an already non-representative legislature. The authors of the U.S. Constitution clearly did not want a Rump Congress making laws.

Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Busine