As both a lover and teacher of American history, few things upset me more than when I hear some Confederacy apologist suggest that the Civil War was fought over “States’ Rights” and not “Slavery.” Whenever I hear or read such revisionist garbage, if I'm feeling charitable I simply respond: “The Civil War was fought over a State’s right to permit slavery, and territorial rights to allow slavery (out west) during their statehood application process.”
Today, April 9th, marks the 159th anniversary of that moment when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia, a move that formally ended the Civil War—still the bloodiest war in American history with over a million people killed in action or as a result of disease, starvation, or in the case of Black Union soldiers captured by the Confederacy, summary lynchings by murderous Southern war criminals.
Artistic rendering of Lee’s April 9th surrender
When Gen. Lee emerged from Appomattox as the vanquished military leader of the rebellion on that long ago April 9th, there were nearly four million enslaved Blacks in the south who suddenly were free men and women per President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. In fact, there's more than a hint of irony that the surrender terms were offered and accepted in the McLean House—a slave plantation—and that those Blacks enslaved on the farm that morning were free—at last—by early afternoon.
McLean Plantation House as it looks today
But after nearly three centuries in bondage, newly freed Blacks found themselves despised both by the defeated Confederate soldiers returning to their homes, and by many Union soldiers who wondered whether the masses of Black humanity now foraging for food and competing with them for jobs had been worth the price in blood paid after four years of war?
In my opinion, the Federal government had the right ideas about setting newly freed Blacks up for success; on March 3, 1865, Congress established within the War Department the "Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands," an agency that was shortened to the “Freedmen’s Bureau.”
The Freedmen’s Bureau was designed to be a temporary assistance agency; as Congress bitterly debated the nature of Reconstruction upon the war’s conclusion, one of the hot political sub-issues was precisely what levels of relief should be provided for those enslaved who had little education, social infrastructure, or job skills beyond those required for agriculture or domestic work.
Prior to being shot to death by Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Boothe (five days after Lee’s Appomattox surrender), President Abraham Lincoln had indicated his desire for a quick reconciliation with the South—one that included his proposal of facilitating a mass colonization of Blacks to Cuba, Panama, or West Africa. Upon Lincoln’s death his successor, Tennessee native Andrew Johnson, was tasked with trying to balance the desires of those Northern politicians who wanted to appease their Southern rivals turned countrymen once more, against those Northern politicians who wanted Southern whites to pay dearly for seceding and starting the Civil War.
Amid this backdrop, the Freedman's Bureau, then under the leadership of former Union General Oliver Otis Howard (namesake of Howard University in Washington, D.C.) provided clothes, food, shelter and education for the formerly enslaved. During its brief existence, the Bureau provided job training and placement, legal assistance, and redistribution of confiscated and/or abandoned Confederate property, while also establishing the first banking system (Freedman's Bank) for Black patrons.
The old Freedman's Bank in Tallahassee is now a part of the Florida A&M University Black Archives complex
In 1866, responding to the efforts of former Confederates to wrest power and property back from the former slaves, Congress passed a more extensive Freedmen’s Bill that allowed the Bureau to supervise labor contracts to help prevent Blacks from being tricked into a new form of “legal” slavery. President Johnson vetoed the Bill, citing concerns that the same infringed upon the rights of the sovereign states. Undaunted, Congress overrode Johnson’s veto and the Bureau continued in this vein until 1872—seven short years later—when Northern indifference led Congress to dissolve the Agency.
As for the aforementioned Freedmen’s Bank, its initial design was to provide services to Black Union soldiers but in time, many formerly enslaved people opened savings accounts as well. By the early 1870’s, the bank held assets totaling nearly $4 million dollars but during the economic panic of 1873, the bank suffered greatly and by June of 1874, it folded and ceased to exist and to this date, is considered one of Reconstruction’s worst failures.
Where Reconstruction was highly successful was in the establishment of Black schools across the United States, many of which would become the predecessors to the more than 100 Historically Black Colleges and Universities that still exist. These schools include my alma maters, Morehouse College and Florida A&M University; Hampton Institute, whose most famous graduate of the era, Booker T. Washington, later founded Tuskegee Institute (now University); Spelman College, Clark College and Atlanta University (Now Clark Atlanta University), Morris Brown College and many others.
Each of the Atlanta University Center schools, including Morehouse College (above), was founded during or immediately following Reconstruction
Similarly, Reconstruction saw newly freed Blacks in positions of political prominence with two, Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, serving in the United States Senate from Mississippi during the 1870’s. In Louisiana, P.B.S. Pinchback briefly served as that state’s 24th governor while across the South, most of the legislative bodies were filled with Black representatives since many of the white men at the time, loyal Democrats before the war and rebellious Confederates during the war, were still badly outnumbered by Black men at the ballot box.
In a harbinger of what was to come in the 20th and 21st Centuries, the backlash against Reconstruction was relatively swift and fierce—ending in 1877 after only twelve short years. By 1900, all of the Black political clout in the South has ceased to exist as Jim Crow laws placed Blacks in a disenfranchised second class status that would last until the Civil Rights Movement unofficially ended between 1964 and 1968 with the passage of the Civil Rights, Voting Rights, and Fair Housing Acts.
Today, we are witnessing much of the same backlash among those who wish to pretend that programs designed to ameliorate centuries of racial inequality prior to 1968, ones like Affirmative Action or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, somehow discriminate against whites who STILL hold the numerical advantage population wise and in leadership roles in every field of endeavor.
Thus, the importance of realizing that what was still remains in some forms; thus, the need to remain wary and focused on fighting the ideological descendants of the rebellious Confederates by every lawful and/or righteous means necessary!
I’m watching some of the events play out in Manhunt on Apple TV. I always learn something new from your excellent articles.