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Books by
Jeffery Robenalt
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aftermath of the Civil War left much uncertainty in the minds of Texans.
Their economy was in ruins, their money was worthless, and they were
faced with drastic changes to their basic way of life. Reconstruction
was a long and burdensome process that affected the social, political,
and economic lives of all Texans. Social Reconstruction meant establishing
a new relationship between whites and former slaves, political reconstruction
involved writing a new state constitution that rejected the concepts
of secession and slavery, and economic reconstruction called for a
new labor system to replace the institution of slavery. |
Reconstruction
President Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet draft the Emancipation Proclamation
Wikimedia
Commons |
A
new era dawned for those held in bondage when President Abraham
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January
1, 1863. The proclamation granted freedom to all slaves in Confederate
states that remained in rebellion against the Union. However, since
Texas was not under the control of the
Federal government at the time the proclamation was issued, Texans
ignored the historic document until the Confederacy surrendered in
April 1865. On June 19, 1865, Federal troops under the
command of General Gordon Granger landed on Galveston Island,
and Granger, by the authority of the President, declared all slaves
to be free. Though news of emancipation spread slowly to the estimated
250,000 slaves in Texas, June 19,
now called Juneteenth,
has long been celebrated by African Americans in the Lone Star State
as the anniversary of their liberation.
Emancipation
did little to make life easier for the freedmen. Many left their former
masters and traveled to cities looking for work only to find themselves
without a home or a job. Once there, they often banded together and
established communities called “Freedtowns.” Others took to
the road in search of long-lost relatives, while some remained on
the plantations and worked for wages or a share of the crops they
produced. The U. S. Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen,
and Abandoned Lands, commonly referred to as the Freedman’s
Bureau, to assist former slaves in making the transition from
slavery to freedom. The Bureau provided food, shelter, and medicine
to the freedmen, and assisted them to find jobs or represented them
in court when necessary.
The Freedman’s Bureau began operations in Texas in September 1865
under the leadership of Major General Edgar M. Gregory. General
Gregory was an abolitionist and he interpreted his chief goal as establishing
a free labor system to replace the peculiar institution of slavery.
Despite the fears of white planters that Gregory and his successors
would overextend their authority, the actions of the Bureau proved
to be fairly conservative. They began by pressuring African Americans
to remain on the plantations and to sign contracts to work for wages
or for crop hares. With no land of their own and few employment opportunities
with others, the freedmen had little choice but to comply. While the
planters complained publicly about the actions taken by the Freedmen
Bureau, in private most of them found the sharecropper-owner relationship
acceptable. In truth, when indebtedness was used as an additional
control mechanism, the process of sharecropping was nearly as effective
at keeping the former slaves on the plantations as the institution
of slavery had been.
While most planters were in favor of the sharecropping system, other
measures enacted by the Freedmen Bureau failed to gain popular support.
For instance, the Bureau’s attempt to educate former slaves was often
seen by whites as potentially destructive of good order, although
the schools never received the financial support necessary to educate
such a large black population. Bureau courts, which were responsible
for adjudicating a wide range of matters from violence to breach of
labor contracts, were also heavily criticized in situations where
agents of the Bureau charged that blacks were being treated unjustly.
In reality, the courts accomplished little except to irritate the
whites who were brought before them.
The
reconstruction plan presented by President Andrew Johnson posed
a substantial threat to the status quo of Texas.
Under the plan, the President would appoint a provisional governor
for each former Confederate state. The provisional governor would
then call a convention to nullify succession, abolish slavery, and
repudiate the state’s Confederate debt. After the voters had ratified
the actions of the convention, they would elect a governor, other
state officials, and a legislature. The state would be fully restored
to the Union when the legislature ratified the Thirteenth Amendment
granting African Americans the right to vote. In the following election,
conservative James
W. Throckmorton defeated Unionist Elisha M. Pease, and the
Eleventh legislature met for the first time on August 6, 1866.
In the view of the Republican abolitionists who controlled the United
States Congress, the subsequent actions of the newly-elected Texas
legislature were a repudiation of Presidential Reconstruction and,
in effect, were designed to return the state as much as possible to
the ante bellum status quo. The Texas legislature not only refused
to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, but also enacted a series of “black
codes” designed to regulate the labor of freedmen through forced apprenticeships,
labor contracts, and vagrancy laws. In response, the Republicans in
Washington refused to seat the senators and representatives who had
been duly elected by Texas voters. Governor
Throckmorton also added to the growing tensions with his constant
complaints about United States Army interference in civil affairs
and his efforts to field ranging companies to protect the frontier
from marauding bands of Comanches.
The Congressional Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867,
brought Presidential Reconstruction to an end. Under the authority
of the Act, Congress declared all existing Southern governments to
be provisional and divided the South into five military districts
under the command of the United States Army. Texas
and Louisiana were placed in the Fifth Military District commanded
by General Philip H. Sheridan. On July 30, 1867, Sheridan
removed Governor
Throckmorton from office at the request of his immediate Texas
subordinate, General Charles Griffin. In his complaints to
Sheridan, Griffin cited Throckmorton’s
failure to cooperate in the punishment of individuals who had “committed
outrages against loyal men, white and black.”
Despite Governor
Throckmorton’s removal, complaints continued, and Griffin’s replacement,
General Joseph Reynolds, eventually issued a series of special
orders for the wholesale removal of hundreds of county officials across
Texas. The men who replaced these office
holders were required to take the “Test Oath” passed by Congress in
1862, stating that they had never voluntarily borne arms against the
United States or given “aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement
to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto.” This hit-and-miss
policy continued in place until General Edward R. S. Canby,
General Reynolds’ replacement, ordered that every county office filled
by a man incapable of taking the loyalty oath would be considered
vacant on April 25, 1869.
Under
the provisions of Congressional Reconstruction, a convention
once again met in Austin
on June 1, 1868. Delegates to the convention were elected by all male
citizens over the age of twenty-one, regardless of race, color, or
“previous condition of servitude.” Only felons and those who had lost
their right to suffrage for taking part in the rebellion were deemed
ineligible for participation in the election of delegates. Drafting
a new constitution produced political turmoil and uncovered a split
within the new Republican Party between the moderate wing and the
radical wing. The radical Republicans were in favor of greater rights
for blacks, more restrictions on former Confederates, and a cautious
program of economic development, but the moderates took control of
the convention and included a provision in the new constitution that
restored the franchise to former Confederates. The radicals appealed
to the administration of President Grant, but Grant refused
to delay the election.
In the December 1869 general election that soon followed the signing
of the Constitution, radical Republican Edmund J. Davis was
elected as the state’s fourteenth governor. On February 8, the elected
members of the Twelfth Legislature assembled in Austin
at the order of the military commander where they adopted the Thirteenth,
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and selected the state’s two new
United States senators. This completed the Presidential requirements
for readmission, and on March 30, 1870, President Grant signed
the act that readmitted Texas to the
Union.
Both the administration of Governor Davis and the Constitution of
1869 proved to be exceedingly unpopular and hard to digest among the
majority of Texans. After all, these were the very same people who
had recently turned “thumbs-down” to the ratification of the Thirteenth
Amendment. Now they were not only forced to abolish slavery, but they
were also required to grant African Americans full citizenship and
the right to hold public office. To make matters worse, these drastic
changes were forced down the throats of angry Texans while many of
their own traditional political leaders had been disenfranchised for
no more than aiding the Confederate effort.
The Constitution of 1869 called for an entirely different view
of government than had existed in Texas
before the war. The power of the government was expanded and centralized
in the office of the governor by lengthening the governor’s term of
office from two years to four years, increasing his salary significantly,
and giving him the power to appoint and remove elected officials.
Social welfare programs, including a new public school system financed
by taxation and the sale of public lands, were instituted for the
first time. Legislation was also enacted to integrate African Americans
more fully into the political system by granting them the franchise
and making it possible for them to hold public office. Such drastic
changes could never have occurred without the corrosive effects of
the loyalty oath on the voting ranks and leadership of the Democrats
and the restrictive umbrella of legislation imposed under Congressional
Reconstruction.
The administration of Governor Davis proved to be even more
unpopular than the Constitution of 1869. Davis was the first Republican
governor in the history of the state and the last that would hold
the office for more than a hundred years. Two of the most hated programs
enacted by the Twelfth Legislature under Davis’ tenure were the creation
of the State Militia and the State Police. The state militia system
was controlled by the Governor. He was empowered to use the organization
to maintain law and order whenever local officials either failed or
refused to take action. Unlike the militia, the State Police were
a permanent force with the authority to overrule local law enforcement
officials anywhere in the state. Although relatively efficient, the
organization was hated by the majority of Texans because much of the
force consisted of former slaves used to put down demonstrations that
opposed Reconstruction.
Another unpopular piece of Reconstruction legislation was the Enabling
Act. The Act permitted Governor Davis to fill nearly 8,500 government
jobs at every level that were left vacant by individuals who refused
to take the oath of allegiance to the Union. Such extensive authority
to appoint officials was unheard of in Texas
history where the concept of Jacksonian Democracy had always strictly
limited the power of the governor. Governor Davis’ also enraged many
Texans when he sent the State Police into Freestone, Hill, Limestone,
and Walker Counties under a declaration of martial law to put down
civil disturbances.
Given
the punitive atmosphere of Congressional Reconstruction, it is no
wonder that the Texas Constitution of 1869 and the administration
of Governor Davis were so unpopular. They were set in place through
the auspices of an army of occupation and a strong centralized government
when Texans had always favored decentralization and a small, inactive,
and cheaper government. The creation of the State Police and the State
Militia, and the use of martial law enraged the majority of Texas
Democrats, as did legislative control by the Republicans. Given this
situation, it is understandable that Texans began a movement to undo
everything associated with Reconstruction as soon as the state was
readmitted to the Union and the oath of allegiance and military occupation
came to an end.
The dismantling of Congressional Reconstruction began in October
1871 when Texans removed the state’s four members of the United
States House Representatives in a special election. Then in late
1872, the Democrats regained control of the Thirteenth Legislature
and immediately began to repeal most of the legislation enacted under
Reconstruction, including reestablishing limits on the governor’s
power. Governor Davis was also removed from office in 1873 and replaced
by Democrat Richard Coke. In 1875, Texans continued
their efforts to erase Reconstruction by holding a convention to replace
the Constitution of 1869. The undoing of Reconstruction was eventually
completed when the Constitution of 1876 was adopted.
© Jeffery
Robenalt, December 1, 2013 Column
jeffrobenalt@yahoo.com
More "A Glimpse of Texas Past"
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| Sources
Davis, Joe
Tom, Legendary Texans, Vol. 4 (Austin: Eakin Press, 1989).
Moneyhon, Carl
H., Republicanism in Reconstruction Texas (Austin: University
of Texas Press, 1980).
Moneyhon, Carl
H., “RECONSTRUCTION,” Handbook of Texas Online (http://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/mzr01)
accessed October 17, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical
Association.
Nunn, William
C., Texas under the Carpetbaggers (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1962).
Ramsdell, Charles
W., Reconstruction in Texas (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1910; rpt., Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1970).
www.austin.edu/lpatrick/his1693/reconstr.html
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