RECONSTRUCTION Core Documents Core RECONSTRUCTION Core Documents his volume continues the Ashbrook Center’s collection of primary Tdocuments covering major periods, themes, and institutions in RECONSTRUCTION American history and government. It is the third of a planned trilogy on the conflict over slavery. Causes of the Civil War and The Civil War will follow. This volume begins with a letter Lincoln penned in the midst of the Civil War, as Union forces retook territory and the U.S. Government Core Documents had to decide how to deal with freedmen and former slaveholders in the subdued rebel territory. It concludes with Frederick Douglass’ reflections in 1883 on a nation still divided racially—still, as he saw it, half slave and Selected and Introduced by half free. The intervening documents tell the story of the effort to reunite the country while guaranteeing the rights of the freedmen, as well as of Scott Yenor the opposition in the South and North that doomed that effort. he Ashbrook Center restores and strengthens the capacities of the TAmerican people for constitutional self-government. Ashbrook teaches students and teachers across our country what America is and Selected and Introduced by and Introduced Selected what she represents in the long history of the world. Offering a variety of programs and resources, Ashbrook is the nation’s largest university-based educator in the enduring principles and practice of free government. Scott Yenor is a Professor of Political Science at Boise State University. ISBN 978-1-878802-45-3 Scott Yenor Scott 9 781878 802453 Reconstruction: Core Documents Reconstruction: Core Documents Selected and Introduced by Scott Yenor Ashbrook Press © 2018 Ashbrook Center, Ashland University Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Reconstruction: Core Documents; Selected and Introduced by Scott Yenor p. cm. Includes Index 1. United States – Politics and government. ISBN 978-1-878802-45-3 (pbk.) Cover Images, above the title, left to right: John Sartain, Andrew Johnson, 1865. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, NPG.85.166. https://goo.gl/E8iaMC. Hon. Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, photographed between 1865 and 1880. Brady-Handy photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-cwpbh- 04097. https://goo.gl/nv1xn2 Alexander Gardner, Abraham Lincoln, President of the US, February 5, 1865. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C., LC-DIG-ppmsca-19215. https://goo.gl/LvEAFQ. Hon. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, photographed between 1860 and 1875. Brady-Handy photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-cwpbh- 00460. https://goo.gl/WtA1RF George Kendall Warren, Frederick Douglass, 1876. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, NPG.80.28. https://goo.gl/hvgNLg Cover Image, below the title: Matt Morgan, Massacre of the Negroes at Colfax Court House, 1873. Courtesy of the Historic New Orleans Collection, 1995.10.4. https://goo.gl/aorY8j Ashbrook Center at Ashland University 401 College Avenue Ashland, Ohio 44805 www.Ashbrook.org About the Ashbrook Center The Ashbrook Center restores and strengthens the capacities of the American people for constitutional self-government. Ashbrook teaches students and teachers across our country what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world. Offering a variety of resources and programs, Ashbrook is the largest university-based educator in the enduring principles and practice of free government. Dedicated in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan, the Ashbrook Center is governed by its own board and responsible for raising all of the funds necessary for its many programs. Visit us online at Ashbrook.org, TeachingAmericanHistory.org, and 50coredocs.org. Contents General Editor’s Introduction.................................................................. i Introduction ................................................................................................ iii 1. President Abraham Lincoln to General Nathaniel Banks, August 5, 1863 ............................................................................................. 1 2. President Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, December 8, 1863 ....................................................... 3 3. Wade-Davis Bill and President Lincoln’s Pocket Veto Proclamation, July 2 and 8, 1864............................................................ 6 4. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, December 18, 1865 ....................................................................................................................... 11 5. President Lincoln's Last Public Address, April 11, 1865.......... 13 6. President Andrew Johnson, Proclamation on Reorganizing Constitutional Government in Mississippi, June 13, 1865 .......... 18 7. Richard Henry Dana, “Grasp of War”, June 21, 1865 ............... 21 8. Black Codes of Mississippi, October - December, 1865 .......... 25 9. President Andrew Johnson, First Annual Address, December 4, 1865 ............................................................................................................. 31 10. Carl Schurz, Report on the Condition of the South, December 19, 1865 ................................................................................. 37 11. Frederick Douglass, Reply of the Colored Delegation to the President, February 7, 1866 .................................................................. 47 12. Alexander Stephens, Address Before the General Assembly of the State of Georgia, February 22, 1866 ............................................ 50 13. An Act to Protect All Persons in the United States in Their Civil Rights, and Furnish the Means of their Vindication, April 9, 1866 ............................................................................................................. 56 14. Congressional Debate on the 14th Amendment, February - May, 1866 .................................................................................................. 59 15. Charles Sumner, “The One Man Power vs. Congress!”, October 2, 1866 ....................................................................................... 67 16. Thaddeus Stevens, Speech on Reconstruction, January 3, 1867 ............................................................................................................. 75 17. Reconstruction Acts, March 2 and 23, and July 19, 1867 ...... 80 18. President Andrew Johnson, Veto of the First Reconstruction Act, March 2, 1867 .................................................................................. 86 19. Thaddeus Stevens, “Damages to Loyal Men”, March 19, 1867 ....................................................................................................................... 91 20. Democratic and Republican Party Platforms of 1868, May 20, 1868 and July 4, 1868 ............................................................................. 96 21. Executive Documents on State of the Freedmen, November 20, 1868 .................................................................................................... 101 22. The 15th Amendment, February 2, 1870 .................................. 106 23. The Enforcement Acts, 1870, 1871 ........................................... 108 24. President Ulysses S. Grant, Proclamation on Enforcement of the 14th Amendment, May 3, 1871 ................................................... 115 25. Charlotte Fowler’s Testimony to Sub-Committee on Recon- struction in Spartanburg, South Carolina, July 6, 1871 .............. 117 26. Senator Carl Schurz, “Plea for Amnesty”, January 30, 1872 ..................................................................................................................... 123 27. Associate Justices Samuel Miller and Stephen Field, The Slaughterhouse Cases, The United States Supreme Court, April 14, 1873 .................................................................................................... 132 28. Colfax Massacre Reports, U.S. Senate and the Committee of 70, 1874 and 1875 ................................................................................. 140 29. Chief Justice Morrison Waite, United States v. Cruikshank, The United States Supreme Court, March 27, 1876 ................... 150 30. President Rutherford B. Hayes, Inaugural Address, March 5, 1877 ........................................................................................................... 155 31. Frederick Douglass, “The United States Cannot Remain Half- Slave and Half-Free”, April 16, 1883 ................................................ 159 Appendices .............................................................................................. 167 Appendix A: Declaration of Independence .................................... 169 Appendix B: Constitution of the United States of America ...... 174 Appendix C: Thematic Table of Contents ..................................... 188 Appendix D: Study Questions ........................................................... 191 Appendix E: Suggestions For Further Reading ............................. 204 i General Editor’s Introduction This volume continues the Ashbrook Center’s collection of primary documents covering major periods, themes, and institutions in American history and government. It is the third of a planned trilogy on the conflict over slavery. (The earlier volumes, Causes of the Civil War and The Civil War, will be published as they are completed.) This