New Perspectives on Race and Slavery in America: Essays in Honor of Kenneth M. Stampp
Slavery in Virginia, 1619-1660 / Robert McColley -- Denmark Vesey's peculiar reality / William W. Freehling -- The Republican Party and the slave power / William E. Gienapp -- Race and politics in the northern democracy, 1854-1860 / Stephen E. Maizlish -- The creation of Confederate loyalties / Reid Mitchell -- Blues falling down like hail / Leon F. Litwack -- Grant and the freedman / Arthur Zilversmit -- The present becomes the past / James Oakes -- Firm flexibility / John G. Sproat -- The soul is fled / Joel Williamson.
General Phil Sheridan and Military Reconstruction in Louisiana
Following the surrender of the Confederate armies in 1865, Republican congressmen had argued with President Andrew Johnson about a suitable Reconstruction policy for the South. At first it appeared that Johnson wanted a "vindictive" policy, requiring the South to repudiate the misdeeds of secession and Civil War, punishing Confederate leaders, and granting fundamental civil rights to the former slaves. However, Johnson softened his early harsh statements on Reconstruction and developed his own mild policy, which neglected to mention rights for blacks, without consulting Republican congressional leaders. Southerners added to the bitterness of the immediate post-war months, committing a variety of indiscretions, such as the riots at Memphis and New Orleans, adopting the restrictive Black Codes, and electing former Confederate military and civilian leaders to important offices. Meanwhile, Johnson incurred the wrath of Republicans by vetoing the Freedmen's Bureau bill and a civil rights bill. Subsequently, the Republicans, bickering among themselves over the proper course of restoration, disavowed Johnson's plan and developed their own policy, which was embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Johnson opposed the amendment and encouraged the Southern states to reject it. Ironically, only Tennessee, Johnson's home state, ratified the amendment when it was first sent to the states in 1866. Therefore, by 1867 congressional Republicans, bolstered by victories in the election of 1866, decided to formulate a stern Reconstruction policy and planned to use the Army to implement its provisions. The Republicans passed the first Military Reconstruction Act on March 2, 1867, over President Johnson's veto. The law declared that the Southern state governments, which had been established or recognized by the President, were provisional and held no legal authority. Furthermore, the law divided the South into five military districts, whose commanders had to be either brigadier or major generals in the Regular Army. These generals, once selected by the President, would hold all power over civilian governments and
Reunion Without Compromise: The South and Reconstruction: 1865-1868
Part I. Conciliation and conflict: 1. Defiant optimism Part II. Encouraging Southern loyalty, 1865: 2. The Provisional Governors 3. Strategies for readmission 4. Discretion decentralized 5. Misrepresentation Part III. Seeking Southern co-operation, 1866: 6. Anticipation 7. The South courted 8. 'Masterly inactivity' Part IV. Determining Southern acquiescence 1867-1868: 9. Reconstruction enjoined - March to July 1867 10. Reconstruction resisted - July to December 1867.