A Reconstruction Compromise

In 1876, Republican nominee Rutherford B. Hayes campaigned against the Democrat nominee Samuel J. Tilden. Tilden won the popular vote, and the candidates disputes the electoral college results (185 in favor of Tilden, 165 for Hayes and 20 disputes & uncounted votes from South Carolina, Louisiana, and you guessed it, Florida). Sound familiar (Bush/Gore 2000 anyone?). In such circumstances, the Constitution directs that the President of the Senate, with the Senate and House of Representatives present, will open the electoral certificates and count the votes.

Republicans claimed that this meant that the Senate President counted the votes alone with the rest of Congress acting as mere witnesses. Since the Senate President was a Republican, Democrats protested this conclusion. The Democrats wanted to only vote the contested votes by Congress, not the President. With the Democratic majority in the House, this meant they could through out just one votes and give Tilden the victory.

On January 29, 1877 Congress formed a Electoral Committee made up by five members from each house of Congress and the five members of the Supreme Court. This was meant to avoid the potential threat to the Constitution made arguing over its interpretation. The Commission

Why did the Commission sway in Hayes favor? The Compromise of 1877, the end of Reconstruction. While Tilden came from New York, his political party typically represented the Southern states, those who had lost the Civil War in 1865 and had felt repressed by Reconstruction in the intervening twelve years. In the House, the majority of Democrats came from Southern states and they wanted to end Reconstruction. (Reconstruction will have to be a topic for a post on another day). The Republicans, who had generally supported Reconstruction, offered to withdraw the federal troops from the South if the Democrats supported Hayes. Removing the troops essentially equated the end of Reconstruction, at least symbolically.

 

Another Blog Recommendation: Blog Divided

I just keep stumbling upon new great history-geared blogs, and how can I not share them with you. This blog, Blog Divided, is “for anyone teaching or studying the House Divided Era, 1840-1880.”

Well, I know lots of students and amateur historians (as well as professional ones) love to study, talk, and argue about the Civil War and the years leading up to and following it. Based on my initial skimming of the blog, this one seems to do the trick. Plus it has some great links as well. It’s based on an interesting project at Dickinson College.

The blog officially describes itself as the following:

This blog community is designed for teachers and students who are interested in nineteenth-century American history, especially the period before, during and after the Civil War.  This sectional era in American history, roughly 1840 to 1880, is the current focus of the House Divided Project at Dickinson College, an interdisciplinary effort that aims to help make this turbulent and complicated story more accessible within the nation’s classrooms.  We are at the beginning of a multi-year effort to build innovative web-based resources and to host intensive K-12 teacher training workshops on various topics from the period, especially in connection with a series of pivotal anniversaries –such as Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial (2009) or the 150th anniversary of the  Civil War (2011-2015).  We hope members of this community will join us in identifying breaking news, the latest scholarship, cool web sites, evocative field trips, useful lesson plans, powerful primary sources, rich images and any other important developments related to the period.  We also hope this space might provide a forum for posing questions, exchanging views and for debating interpretations.  Though we call it “Blog Divided,” however, we don’t really expect this virtual space to re-fight the Civil War.  Instead, we hope that all the members of the community are united in their passion for trying to explore and understand the issues and events that divided an earlier generation of Americans and quite nearly destroyed the republic.

I just added it to my blog roll. Let me know what you think of the blog!

Defining Citizenship

Today in 1868, the 14^th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution when Secretary of State, William Seward, issued a proclamation that certified the ratification of the amendment. The amendment had passed the Senate on June 8, 1866 (33 to 11) and passed the House on June 13, 1866 (120 to 32), but took over two years to receive ratification from the states (July 9, 1868). Ratification is necessary to make any changes to the Constitution.

The amendment granted citizenship to “all personals born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves that had been recently free. It was the first time African Americans could legally claim citizenship without reproach (many white Americans believed that African Americans were not fit for citizenship. The amendment continued, forbidding states from denying any person “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” or to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws.” The 14^th Amendment has been so important that it has been cited in more litigation than any other amendment

The amendment purposefully used broad language. By keeping the language broad it allowed for future Congresses and federal courts to give meaning to the guarantee of legal equality. Also, the ability for the Constitution define who was a citizen and giving the nation the power to restrict states from denying citizenship also greatly empowered the federal government.

Not surprisingly, the amendment created an intense division between the Republican and Democrat parties. Not a single Democrat in Congress voted for the amendment and only four of the 174 Republicans opposed it. Despite the lack of support from Democrats (who typically hailed from the South), the amendment had the potential to increase southern political power. Before the change, African Americans accounted for 3/5 of a person in the calculation of population that determined representation in the House. By claiming that African Americans were now citizens, they could each be counted as a full person, increasing the number of Southern Representatives in Congress. Democrats, full of rage from the lost Civil War and suffering a painful Reconstruction, failed to recognize this potential and saw only another way Republicans and Northerners were forcing the South to lose its identity.

The amendment made equality before the law regardless of race a fundamental right of all American citizens. However, African Americans still suffered as second class Americans, as the amendment did not give them suffrage. This would be provided to them in the 15^th Amendment ratified in 1870.