Reconstruction

Andrew Johnson became the President of the USA after Lincoln. The biggest problem the new President faced was how to deal with the defeated South. Lincoln blamed individual southern leaders for the war, rather than the people of the southern states. He intended to punish only those guilty individuals and to let the rest of the South's people play a full part in the nation's life again. Johnson had similar ideas. He said that as soon as the citizens of the south states promised to be loyal to the government of the United States they could elect new state assemblies to run their affairs. But white southerners were determined to resist any changes. They were especially horrified at the idea of giving equal rights to their black slaves. The assembly of the state of Mississippi expressed the way it felt in these words: «Under the pressure of federal bayonets the people of Mississippi have abolished the institution of slavery. The negro is free whether we like it or not. To be free, however, does not make him a citizen or entitle him to social or political equality with the white man» The other southern states shared this attitude. They refused blacks the vote, said that they could not serve on juries, forbade them to give evidence in court against a white. In Mississippi blacks were not allowed to buy or to rent farm land. With no land, no money and no protection from the law, it was almost as if blacks were still slaves.

By 1870 all the southern states had new «Reconstruction» government. Most were made up of blacks, a few white southerners who were willing to work with them and white men from the North. Reconstruction governments contained honest men who tried to improve the South. They passed the laws to provide care for orphans and the blind, to encourage new industries and the building of railroads, and to build schools for both white and black children.

None of these improvements stopped southern whites from hating Reconstruction. It was because Reconstruction aimed to give blacks the same rights that whites had. Southern whites were determined to prevent this. They organized terrorist groups to make white men the masters once more. The main aim of these groups was to threaten and frighten black people.

The largest terrorist group was a secret society called the Ku Klux Klan. Its members dressed themselves in white sheets and wore hoods to hide their faces. They rode by night through the southern countryside, beating and killing any blacks who tried to improve their position. Their sign was a burning wooden cross, which they placed outside the homes of their victims.

The life of blacks was difficult in the South. But Reconstruction had not been for nothing. It had been the boldest attempt so far to achieve racial justice in the United States.