Louis P. Masur. 's Last Speech: Wartime Reconstruction and the Crisis of Reunion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. xv + 247 pp. $24.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-021839-3.

Reviewed by Nicole Etcheson

Published on H-Law (November, 2015)

Commissioned by Michael J. Pfeifer (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York)

Two days after the Confederate surrender at social systems, that is, the abolition of slavery and Appomattox, President spoke the establishment of black rights. But such a thor‐ from the balcony of the White House. It was not oughgoing reconstruction entailed giving the fed‐ the victory speech the audience had gathered to eral government powers over the states that it hear. Although Lincoln complimented the armed had not previously possessed. Radicals thus con‐ forces, his focus was reconstruction. It is tempting structed constitutional rationales for such author‐ to classify Louis P. Masur’s new book with the ity: that the southern states were conquered prov‐ genre of books about Lincoln’s speeches. The most inces of the North or that they had committed a notable of these is Douglas L. Wilson’s Lincoln’s mass “state suicide” and reverted to the relation‐ Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words ship of territories vis à vis the federal govern‐ (2007). But Masur is less interested in textual anal‐ ment. Lincoln dismissed these rationales as “per‐ ysis and more in the historical context of Lincoln’s nicious abstractions.” He insisted that the Confed‐ April 11 speech. erate states had never been out of the Union. But Although Americans began speaking of recon‐ he also insisted on some measure of reconstruc‐ struction even before the fring on Fort Sumter, tion of their political systems as well as the legiti‐ they did not agree—had not agreed by the time macy of emancipation. The states had never been Lincoln died—on what it entailed, how it would out of the Union, in Lincoln’s thinking, but many proceed, or even who would carry it out. Conser‐ people in those states had been engaged in rebel‐ vative northerners advocated a reconstruction lion. Reconstruction thus necessitated giving that merely meant restoration of the southern Unionists power within those states and allowing states to their place in the Union. Radical Republi‐ them to shape the new state governments to be cans, however, saw in reconstruction an opportu‐ formed after the war. nity for remaking the southern states’ labor and H-Net Reviews

Lincoln relied on the pardon power to restore Three days after his last speech, Lincoln went white Southerners to the Union. Those who took a to the theater. Masur’s epilogue quickly summa‐ loyalty oath would be pardoned (with exceptions rizes the expectations surrounding his successor, for certain classes of Confederates such as high- , the former military governor of ranking diplomatic, political, or military ofcials). Tennessee, and his reconstruction policy. Under When 10 percent had been restored to their politi‐ Johnson, the split between president and Con‐ cal rights and property (except for slaves), they gress over Reconstruction became an unbridge‐ could elect a constitutional convention which able chasm. Masur wisely refrains from speculat‐ would write a new state constitution. One of the ing too much on how Lincoln’s reconstruction noteworthy aspects of the April 11, 1865, speech policies might have evolved if he had lived, large‐ was that Lincoln mentioned the possibility of suf‐ ly confning himself to quoting Frederick Dou‐ frage for educated black men or black soldiers. glass to the efect that Lincoln would have done Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan, announced in his an‐ more for the freedmen. This is an elegantly writ‐ nual message in December 1862, had used only ten, carefully argued book that sheds light on an white Southerners to reconstitute the government understudied portion of Civil War and Recon‐ of former Confederate states. Although emancipa‐ struction history. tion was irrevocable, there was no provision for economic or political rights for freedpeople. Masur details the split between the president and Congress over the authority to carry out re‐ construction. When Lincoln spoke on April 11, he especially wanted to urge the readmission of Lou‐ isiana, reconstructed under his Ten Percent Plan. Congress, however, had refused to seat the repre‐ sentatives elected from that state. Although Lin‐ coln acted as if reconstruction were the presi‐ dent’s purview, some congressmen argued that it was Congress’s authority to ensure that each state had a republican government. After Lincoln put forward his Ten Percent Plan, congressional Re‐ publicans crafted a diferent plan, the Wade-Davis bill, which required a stricter oath and a higher percentage, 50 percent, before a state’s residents could rewrite their state constitutions, elect ofce‐ holders, and be restored to the Union. Congress did have the upper hand in the contest with the president, however, because only that body could admit its members. Lincoln could and did recon‐ struct states—Louisiana and Arkansas—but Con‐ gress possessed and used the power to refuse to seat their representatives. By the time Lincoln died, no southern state had been reconstructed.

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Citation: Nicole Etcheson. Review of Masur, Louis P. Lincoln's Last Speech: Wartime Reconstruction and the Crisis of Reunion. H-Law, H-Net Reviews. November, 2015.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=44845

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