essays on the civil war and reconstruction

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Reconstruction

By: History.com Editors

Updated: January 24, 2024 | Original: October 29, 2009

Reconstruction (1865-1877), the turbulent era following the Civil War, was the effort to reintegrate Southern states from the Confederacy and 4 million newly-freed people into the United States. Under the administration of President Andrew Johnson in 1865 and 1866, new southern state legislatures passed restrictive “ Black Codes ” to control the labor and behavior of former enslaved people and other African Americans. 

Outrage in the North over these codes eroded support for the approach known as Presidential Reconstruction and led to the triumph of the more radical wing of the Republican Party. During Radical Reconstruction, which began with the passage of the Reconstruction Act of 1867, newly enfranchised Black people gained a voice in government for the first time in American history, winning election to southern state legislatures and even to the U.S. Congress. In less than a decade, however, reactionary forces—including the Ku Klux Klan —would reverse the changes wrought by Radical Reconstruction in a violent backlash that restored white supremacy in the South.

Emancipation and Reconstruction

At the outset of the Civil War , to the dismay of the more radical abolitionists in the North, President Abraham Lincoln did not make abolition of slavery a goal of the Union war effort. To do so, he feared, would drive the border slave states still loyal to the Union into the Confederacy and anger more conservative northerners. By the summer of 1862, however, enslaved people, themselves had pushed the issue, heading by the thousands to the Union lines as Lincoln’s troops marched through the South. 

Their actions debunked one of the strongest myths underlying Southern devotion to the “peculiar institution”—that many enslaved people were truly content in bondage—and convinced Lincoln that emancipation had become a political and military necessity. In response to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation , which freed more than 3 million enslaved people in the Confederate states by January 1, 1863, Black people enlisted in the Union Army in large numbers, reaching some 180,000 by war’s end.

Did you know? During Reconstruction, the Republican Party in the South represented a coalition of Black people (who made up the overwhelming majority of Republican voters in the region) along with "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags," as white Republicans from the North and South, respectively, were known.

Emancipation changed the stakes of the Civil War, ensuring that a Union victory would mean large-scale social revolution in the South. It was still very unclear, however, what form this revolution would take. Over the next several years, Lincoln considered ideas about how to welcome the devastated South back into the Union, but as the war drew to a close in early 1865, he still had no clear plan. 

In a speech delivered on April 11, while referring to plans for Reconstruction in Louisiana, Lincoln proposed that some Black people–including free Black people and those who had enlisted in the military –deserved the right to vote. He was assassinated three days later, however, and it would fall to his successor to put plans for Reconstruction in place.

Andrew Johnson and Presidential Reconstruction

At the end of May 1865, President Andrew Johnson announced his plans for Reconstruction, which reflected both his staunch Unionism and his firm belief in states’ rights. In Johnson’s view, the southern states had never given up their right to govern themselves, and the federal government had no right to determine voting requirements or other questions at the state level. 

Under Johnson’s Presidential Reconstruction, all land that had been confiscated by the Union Army and distributed to the formerly enslaved people by the army or the Freedmen’s Bureau (established by Congress in 1865) reverted to its prewar owners. Apart from being required to uphold the abolition of slavery (in compliance with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution ), swear loyalty to the Union and pay off war debt, southern state governments were given free rein to rebuild themselves.

As a result of Johnson’s leniency, many southern states in 1865 and 1866 successfully enacted a series of laws known as the “ black codes ,” which were designed to restrict freed Black peoples’ activity and ensure their availability as a labor force. These repressive codes enraged many in the North, including numerous members of Congress, which refused to seat congressmen and senators elected from the southern states. 

In early 1866, Congress passed the Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights Bills and sent them to Johnson for his signature. The first bill extended the life of the bureau, originally established as a temporary organization charged with assisting refugees and formerly enslaved people, while the second defined all persons born in the United States as national citizens who were to enjoy equality before the law. After Johnson vetoed the bills—causing a permanent rupture in his relationship with Congress that would culminate in his impeachment in 1868—the Civil Rights Act became the first major bill to become law over presidential veto.

Radical Reconstruction

After northern voters rejected Johnson’s policies in the congressional elections in late 1866, Radical Republicans in Congress took firm hold of Reconstruction in the South. The following March, again over Johnson’s veto, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which temporarily divided the South into five military districts and outlined how governments based on universal (male) suffrage were to be organized. The law also required southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment , which broadened the definition of citizenship, granting “equal protection” of the Constitution to formerly enslaved people, before they could rejoin the Union. In February 1869, Congress approved the 15th Amendment (adopted in 1870), which guaranteed that a citizen’s right to vote would not be denied “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

By 1870, all of the former Confederate states had been admitted to the Union, and the state constitutions during the years of Radical Reconstruction were the most progressive in the region’s history. The participation of African Americans in southern public life after 1867 would be by far the most radical development of Reconstruction, which was essentially a large-scale experiment in interracial democracy unlike that of any other society following the abolition of slavery. 

Southern Black people won election to southern state governments and even to the U.S. Congress during this period. Among the other achievements of Reconstruction were the South’s first state-funded public school systems, more equitable taxation legislation, laws against racial discrimination in public transport and accommodations and ambitious economic development programs (including aid to railroads and other enterprises).

Reconstruction Comes to an End

After 1867, an increasing number of southern whites turned to violence in response to the revolutionary changes of Radical Reconstruction. The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations targeted local Republican leaders, white and Black, and other African Americans who challenged white authority. Though federal legislation passed during the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant in 1871 took aim at the Klan and others who attempted to interfere with Black suffrage and other political rights, white supremacy gradually reasserted its hold on the South after the early 1870s as support for Reconstruction waned. 

Racism was still a potent force in both South and North, and Republicans became more conservative and less egalitarian as the decade continued. In 1874—after an economic depression plunged much of the South into poverty—the Democratic Party won control of the House of Representatives for the first time since the Civil War.

When Democrats waged a campaign of violence to take control of Mississippi in 1875, Grant refused to send federal troops, marking the end of federal support for Reconstruction-era state governments in the South. By 1876, only Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina were still in Republican hands. In the contested presidential election that year, Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes reached a compromise with Democrats in Congress: In exchange for certification of his election, he acknowledged Democratic control of the entire South. 

The Compromise of 1876 marked the end of Reconstruction as a distinct period, but the struggle to deal with the revolution ushered in by slavery’s eradication would continue in the South and elsewhere long after that date. 

A century later, the legacy of Reconstruction would be revived during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, as African Americans fought for the political, economic and social equality that had long been denied them.

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Origins of Reconstruction

Presidential reconstruction, radical reconstruction.

• The end of Reconstruction

What was the Reconstruction era?

What were the reconstruction era promises, was the reconstruction era a success or a failure.

• Who was W.E.B. Du Bois?
• What did W.E.B. Du Bois write?

Reconstruction

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• American Battlefield Trust - Reconstruction: An Overview
• Texas State Historical Association - The Handbook of Texas Online - Reconstruction
• PBS LearningMedia - Michael Williams: Reconstruction
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• Florida State College at Jacksonville Pressbooks - African American History and Culture - Politics of Reconstruction
• New Jersey State Library - The Reconstruction Era, 1865-1877
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• Reconstruction - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• Reconstruction - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

The Reconstruction era was the period after the American Civil War from 1865 to 1877, during which the United States grappled with the challenges of reintegrating into the Union the states that had seceded and determining the legal status of African Americans . Presidential Reconstruction, from 1865 to 1867, required little of the former Confederate states and leaders. Radical Reconstruction attempted to give African Americans full equality.

Why was the Reconstruction era important?

The Reconstruction era redefined U.S. citizenship and expanded the franchise, changed the relationship between the federal government and the governments of the states, and highlighted the differences between political and economic democracy.

While U.S. Pres. Andrew Johnson attempted to return the Southern states to essentially the condition they were in before the American Civil War , Republicans in Congress passed laws and amendments that affirmed the “equality of all men before the law” and prohibited racial discrimination, that made African Americans full U.S. citizens, and that forbade laws to prevent African Americans from voting.

During a brief period in the Reconstruction era, African Americans voted in large numbers and held public office at almost every level, including in both houses of Congress . However, this provoked a violent backlash from whites who did not want to relinquish supremacy. The backlash succeeded, and the promises of Reconstruction were mostly unfulfilled. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were unenforced but remained on the books, forming the basis of the mid-20th-century civil rights movement .

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Reconstruction , in U.S. history, the period (1865–77) that followed the American Civil War and during which attempts were made to redress the inequities of slavery and its political, social, and economic legacy and to solve the problems arising from the readmission to the Union of the 11 states that had seceded at or before the outbreak of war. Long portrayed by many historians as a time when vindictive Radical Republicans fastened Black supremacy upon the defeated Confederacy , Reconstruction has since the late 20th century been viewed more sympathetically as a laudable experiment in interracial democracy . Reconstruction witnessed far-reaching changes in America’s political life. At the national level, new laws and constitutional amendments permanently altered the federal system and the definition of American citizenship. In the South , a politically mobilized Black community joined with white allies to bring the Republican Party to power, and with it a redefinition of the responsibilities of government.

The national debate over Reconstruction began during the Civil War. In December 1863, less than a year after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation , Pres. Abraham Lincoln announced the first comprehensive program for Reconstruction, the Ten Percent Plan. Under it, when one-tenth of a state’s prewar voters took an oath of loyalty, they could establish a new state government. To Lincoln, the plan was an attempt to weaken the Confederacy rather than a blueprint for the postwar South. It was put into operation in parts of the Union-occupied Confederacy, but none of the new governments achieved broad local support. In 1864 Congress enacted (and Lincoln pocket vetoed) the Wade-Davis Bill , which proposed to delay the formation of new Southern governments until a majority of voters had taken a loyalty oath. Some Republicans were already convinced that equal rights for the former slaves had to accompany the South’s readmission to the Union. In his last speech, on April 11, 1865, Lincoln, referring to Reconstruction in Louisiana , expressed the view that some Blacks—the “very intelligent” and those who had served in the Union army—ought to enjoy the right to vote .

Following Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, Andrew Johnson became president and inaugurated the period of Presidential Reconstruction (1865–67). Johnson offered a pardon to all Southern whites except Confederate leaders and wealthy planters (although most of these subsequently received individual pardons), restoring their political rights and all property except slaves. He also outlined how new state governments would be created. Apart from the requirement that they abolish slavery, repudiate secession, and abrogate the Confederate debt, these governments were granted a free hand in managing their affairs. They responded by enacting the Black codes , laws that required African Americans to sign yearly labour contracts and in other ways sought to limit the freedmen’s economic options and reestablish plantation discipline . African Americans strongly resisted the implementation of these measures, and they seriously undermined Northern support for Johnson’s policies.

When Congress assembled in December 1865, Radical Republicans such as Rep. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and Sen. Charles Sumner from Massachusetts called for the establishment of new Southern governments based on equality before the law and universal male suffrage. But the more numerous moderate Republicans hoped to work with Johnson while modifying his program. Congress refused to seat the representatives and senators elected from the Southern states and in early 1866 passed the Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights Bills. The first extended the life of an agency Congress had created in 1865 to oversee the transition from slavery to freedom. The second defined all persons born in the United States as national citizens, who were to enjoy equality before the law.

A combination of personal stubbornness, fervent belief in states’ rights , and racist convictions led Johnson to reject these bills, causing a permanent rupture between himself and Congress. The Civil Rights Act became the first significant legislation in American history to become law over a president’s veto. Shortly thereafter, Congress approved the Fourteenth Amendment , which put the principle of birthright citizenship into the Constitution and forbade states to deprive any citizen of the “equal protection” of the laws. Arguably the most important addition to the Constitution other than the Bill of Rights , the amendment constituted a profound change in federal-state relations. Traditionally, citizens’ rights had been delineated and protected by the states. Thereafter, the federal government would guarantee all Americans’ equality before the law against state violation.

In the fall 1866 congressional elections, Northern voters overwhelmingly repudiated Johnson’s policies. Congress decided to begin Reconstruction anew. The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 divided the South into five military districts and outlined how new governments, based on manhood suffrage without regard to race , were to be established. Thus began the period of Radical or Congressional Reconstruction, which lasted until the end of the last Southern Republican governments in 1877.

By 1870 all the former Confederate states had been readmitted to the Union, and nearly all were controlled by the Republican Party. Three groups made up Southern Republicanism. Carpetbaggers , or recent arrivals from the North, were former Union soldiers, teachers, Freedmen’s Bureau agents, and businessmen. The second large group, scalawags , or native-born white Republicans, included some businessmen and planters, but most were nonslaveholding small farmers from the Southern up-country. Loyal to the Union during the Civil War, they saw the Republican Party as a means of keeping Confederates from regaining power in the South.

In every state, African Americans formed the overwhelming majority of Southern Republican voters. From the beginning of Reconstruction, Black conventions and newspapers throughout the South had called for the extension of full civil and political rights to African Americans. Composed of those who had been free before the Civil War plus slave ministers, artisans , and Civil War veterans, the Black political leadership pressed for the elimination of the racial caste system and the economic uplifting of the former slaves. Sixteen African Americans served in Congress during Reconstruction—including Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce in the U.S. Senate—more than 600 in state legislatures, and hundreds more in local offices from sheriff to justice of the peace scattered across the South. So-called “Black supremacy” never existed, but the advent of African Americans in positions of political power marked a dramatic break with the country’s traditions and aroused bitter hostility from Reconstruction’s opponents.

Serving an expanded citizenry, Reconstruction governments established the South’s first state-funded public school systems, sought to strengthen the bargaining power of plantation labourers, made taxation more equitable, and outlawed racial discrimination in public transportation and accommodations. They also offered lavish aid to railroads and other enterprises in the hope of creating a “New South” whose economic expansion would benefit Blacks and whites alike. But the economic program spawned corruption and rising taxes, alienating increasing numbers of white voters.

Meanwhile, the social and economic transformation of the South proceeded apace. To Blacks, freedom meant independence from white control. Reconstruction provided the opportunity for African Americans to solidify their family ties and to create independent religious institutions, which became centres of community life that survived long after Reconstruction ended. The former slaves also demanded economic independence. Blacks’ hopes that the federal government would provide them with land had been raised by Gen. William T. Sherman ’s Field Order No. 15 of January 1865, which set aside a large swath of land along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia for the exclusive settlement of Black families, and by the Freedmen’s Bureau Act of March, which authorized the bureau to rent or sell land in its possession to former slaves. But President Johnson in the summer of 1865 ordered land in federal hands to be returned to its former owners. The dream of “ 40 acres and a mule” was stillborn. Lacking land, most former slaves had little economic alternative other than resuming work on plantations owned by whites. Some worked for wages, others as sharecroppers, who divided the crop with the owner at the end of the year. Neither status offered much hope for economic mobility. For decades, most Southern Blacks remained propertyless and poor.

Nonetheless, the political revolution of Reconstruction spawned increasingly violent opposition from white Southerners. White supremacist organizations that committed terrorist acts, such as the Ku Klux Klan , targeted local Republican leaders for beatings or assassination. African Americans who asserted their rights in dealings with white employers, teachers, ministers, and others seeking to assist the former slaves also became targets. At Colfax, Louisiana, in 1873, scores of Black militiamen were killed after surrendering to armed whites intent on seizing control of local government. Increasingly, the new Southern governments looked to Washington, D.C. , for assistance.

By 1869 the Republican Party was firmly in control of all three branches of the federal government. After attempting to remove Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton , in violation of the new Tenure of Office Act , Johnson had been impeached by the House of Representatives in 1868. Although the Senate, by a single vote, failed to remove him from office, Johnson’s power to obstruct the course of Reconstruction was gone. Republican Ulysses S. Grant was elected president that fall ( see United States presidential election of 1868 ). Soon afterward, Congress approved the Fifteenth Amendment , prohibiting states from restricting the right to vote because of race. Then it enacted a series of Enforcement Acts authorizing national action to suppress political violence. In 1871 the administration launched a legal and military offensive that destroyed the Klan. Grant was reelected in 1872 in the most peaceful election of the period.

Slavery, Abolition, Emancipation and Freedom

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Reconstruction, 1865-1877

Donald Brown, Harvard University, G6, English PhD Candidate

No period in American history has had more wide-reaching implications than Reconstruction. However, white supremacist mythologies about those contentious years from 1865-1877 reigned supreme both inside and outside the academy until the 1960s. Columbia University’s now-infamous Dunning School (1900-1930) epitomizes the dominant narrative regarding Reconstruction for over half of the twentieth century. From their point of view, Reconstruction was a tragic period of American history in which vengeful White Northern radicals took over the South. In order to punish the White Southerners they had just defeated in the Civil War, these Radical Republicans gave ignorant freedmen the right to vote. This resulted in at least 2,000 elected Black officeholders, including two United States senators and 21 representatives. In order to discredit the sweeping changes taking place across the American South, conservative historians argued this period was full of corruption and disorder and proved that Black Americans were not fit to leadership or citizenship.

Thanks to the work of a number of Black and leftist historians—most notably John Roy Lynch, W.E.B. Du Bois, Willie Lee Rose, and Eric Foner—that negative depiction of Reconstruction is being overturned. As Du Bois famously wrote in Black Reconstruction in America (1935), this was a time in which “the slave went free; stood for a brief moment in the sun; and then moved back again toward slavery.” During that short time in the sun, underfunded biracial state governments taxed big planters to pay for education, healthcare, and roads that benefited everyone. There is still much more to be unpacked from this rich period of American history, and Houghton Library contains a wealth of material to further buttress new narratives of that era.

Reconstructing Reconstruction

While some academics, like those of the Dunning School, interpreted Reconstruction as doomed to failure, in the years immediately following the Civil War there were many Americans, Black and White, who saw the radical reforms as being sabotaged from the outset. Writer and civil rights activist Albion W. Tourgée published his best selling novel Bricks Without Straw in 1880. Unlike most White authors at the time, Tourgée centered Black characters in his novel, showing how the recently emancipated were faced with violence and political oppression in spite of their attempts to be equal citizens.

In this period, two of the most iconic amendments were implemented. The Fourteenth Amendment ratified several crucial civil rights clauses. The natural born citizenship clause overturned the 1857 supreme court case, Dred Scott v. Sandford , which stated that descendants of African slaves could not be citizens of the United States. The equal protection clause ensured formerly enslaved persons crucial legal rights and validated the equality provisions contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Even though many of these clauses were cleverly disregarded by numerous states once Reconstruction ended, particularly in the Deep South, the equal protection clause was the basis of the NAACP’s victory in the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed another important civil right: the right to vote. No longer could any state discriminate on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. At Houghton, we have proof of the exhilarating response Black Americans had to the momentous progress they worked so hard to bring about: Nashvillians organized a Fifteenth Amendment Celebration on May 4, 1870. And once again, during the classical period of the Civil Rights Movement, leaders appealed to this amendment to make their case for what became the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The Reign of Kings Alpha and Abadon

Lorenzo D. Blackson's fantastical allegory novel, The Rise and Progress of the Kingdoms of Light & Darkness ; Reign of Kings Alpha and Abadon (1867), is one of the most ambitious creative efforts of Black authors during Reconstruction. A Protestant religious allegory in the lineage of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress , Blackson's novel follows his vision of a holy war between good and evil, showing slavery and racial oppression on the side of evil King Abadon and Protestant abolitionists and freemen on the side of good King Alpha. The combination of fantasy holy war, religious pedagogy, and Reconstruction era optimism provide a unique insight to one contemporary Black perspective on the time.

It is important to emphasize that these radical policy initiatives were set by Black Americans themselves. It was, in fact, from formerly enslaved persons, not those who formerly enslaved them, that the most robust notions of freedom were imagined and enacted. With the help of the nation’s first civil rights president, Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877), and Radical Republicans, such as Benjamin Franklin Wade and Thaddeus Stevens, substantial strides in racial advancement were made in those short twelve years. Houghton Library is home to a wide array of examples of said advancement, such as a letter written in 1855 by Frederick Douglass to Charles Sumner, the nation’s leading abolitionist. In it, he argues that Black Americans, not White abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison, founded the antislavery movement. That being said, Douglass was appreciative of allies, such as President Grant, of whom he said: “in him the Negro found a protector, the Indian a friend, a vanquished foe a brother, an imperiled nation a savior.” Houghton Library also houses an extraordinary letter dated December 1, 1876 from Sojourner Truth , famous abolitionist and women’s rights activist, who could neither read nor write. She had someone help steady her hand so she could provide a signed letter to a fan, and promised to also send her supporter an autobiography, Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Bondswoman of Olden Time, Emancipated by the New York Legislature in the Early Part of the Present Century: with a History of Her Labors and Correspondence.

In this hopeful time, Black Americans, primarily located in the South, were determined to use their demographic power to demand their right to a portion of the wealth and property their labor had created. In states like South Carolina and Mississippi, which were majority Black at the time, and Louisiana , Alabama, and Georgia , with Black Americans consisting of nearly half of the population, the United States elected its first Black U.S. congressmen. Now that Black Southern men had the power to vote, they eagerly elected Black men to represent their best interests. Jefferson Franklin Long (U.S. congressman from Georgia), Joseph Hayne Rainey (U.S. congressman from South Carolina), and Hiram Rhodes Revels (Mississippi U.S. Senator) all took office in the 41st Congress (1869-1871). These elected officials were memorialized in a lithograph by popular firm Currier and Ives. Other federal agencies, such as the Freedmen’s Bureau , also assisted Black Americans build businesses, churches, and schools; own land and cultivate crops; and more generally establish cultural and economic autonomy. As Frederick Douglass wrote in 1870, “at last, at last the black man has a future.”

Black Americans quickly took full advantage of their newfound freedom in a myriad of ways. Alfred Islay Walden’s story is a particularly remarkable example of this. Born a slave in Randolph County, North Carolina, he only gained freedom after Emancipation. He traveled by foot to Washington, D.C. and made a living selling poems and giving lectures across the Northeast. He also attended school at Howard University on scholarship, graduating in 1876, and used that formal education to establish a mission school and become one of the first Black graduates of New Brunswick Theological Seminary. Walden’s Miscellaneous Poems, Which The Author Desires to Dedicate to The Cause of Education and Humanity (1872) celebrates the “Impeachment of President Johnson,” one of the most racist presidents in American history; “The Election of Mayor Bowen,” a Radical Republican mayor of Washington, D.C. (Sayles Jenks Bowen); and Walden’s own religious convictions, such as in “Jesus my Friend;” among other topics.

Black newspapers quickly emerged during Reconstruction as well, such as the Colored Representative , a Black newspaper based in Lexington, KY in the 1870s. As editor George B. Thomas wrote in an “Extra,” dated May 25, 1871 : “We want all the arts and fashions of the North, East and Western states, for the benefit of the colored people. They cannot know what is going on, unless they read our paper.... Now, we want everything that is a benefit to our colored people. Speeches, debates, and sermons will be published.”

Reconstruction proves that Black people, when not impeded by structural barriers, are enthusiastic civic participants. Houghton houses rich archival material on Black Americans advocating for civil rights in Vicksburg, Mississippi , Little Rock, Arkansas , and Atlanta, Georgia , among other states, in the forms of state Colored Conventions and powerful political speeches . For anyone interested in the long history of the Civil Rights Movement, these holdings are a treasure trove waiting to be mined. Though the moment in the sun was brief, the heat exuded during Reconstruction left a deep impact on progressive Americans and will continue to provide an exemplary political model for generations to come.

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• Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction and related topics,
• Dunning, William Archibald, 1857-1922

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• New York, Macmillan, 1904.
• The Constitution of the United States in civil war.--The Constitution of the United States in reconstruction.--Military government in reconstruction.--The process of reconstruction.--The impeachment and trial of President Johnson.--Are the states equal under the Constitution?--The undoing of reconstruction.
• -  Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877)
• -  United States--Politics and government--1865-1869
• -  Constitutional history--United States
• -  "The final essay in the first edition has been omitted, and for it has been substituted the essay on The undoing of the reconstruction, which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1901."--Note.
• -  Also available in digital form.
• ix, 397 p. 20 cm.

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• United States
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• Reconstruction (U.S. History,)

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Dunning, William Archibald. Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction and related topics . New York, Macmillan, 1904. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/16013891/.

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Dunning, W. A. (1904) Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction and related topics . New York, Macmillan. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/16013891/.

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Dunning, William Archibald. Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction and related topics . New York, Macmillan, 1904. Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/16013891/>.

Civil War and Reconstruction

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln struggled to preserve the American constitutional republic and Union that ensured liberty and equality for all Americans. To that end, Lincoln brought the country to fight fought to preserve the Union against the secession of the South at his election in 1860. Lincoln also fought to end the moral disgrace of slavery and issued the Emancipation Proclamation during the war in 1863 as a war measure based upon his presidential war powers to weaken the South. At the end of the war, several amendments to the Constitution were ratified to advance the natural and civil rights republic of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution for African-Americans.

On March 4, 1865, President Lincoln delivered his Second Inaugural Address. The speech expressed the moral purposes of the war: “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword” (Abraham Lincoln, “Second Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1865).

In the speech, Lincoln struck a tone of moderation and reconciliation with the South in restoring the Union. He also hoped that both sides would recognize the importance of equal rights for all Americans. “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds…to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations”(Abraham Lincoln, “Second Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1865).

President Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans in Congress sought to secure an abolition amendment for several reasons. First, they wanted it to be the law of the land in the Constitution. Secondly, they knew that Lincoln’s executive authority over slavery would expire at the end of the war. Thirdly, the Emancipation Proclamation would probably face legal challenge in the courts and possibly be overturned. Fourthly, even if the proclamation survived, slavery would be unaffected in the border states of Kentucky, Missouri, and Delaware, not covered in the Emancipation Proclamation. Only a constitutional amendment would decisively end slavery in America, though it would not be easy since amending the Constitution required large majorities in Congress and the states. In April 1864, the Senate passed a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, but it narrowly failed to achieve the requisite two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives.

In June 1864, Lincoln ran for re-election and demanded that the Republican party adopt a resolution for the abolition amendment in its platform. He succeeded, and the platform stated that, “as [slavery] must be, always and everywhere, hostile to the principles of Republican Government, justice and the National safety demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic,” this “gigantic evil” would be forever prohibited in the United States(Republican National Platform, 1864).

Lincoln won re-election in November1864, and he quickly tried to win support for the proposed amendment in his annual State of the Union message. Lincoln told the Congress and American people that the election results were a mandate for the amendment. “Of course the abstract question is not changed; but an intervening election shows almost certainly that the next Congress will pass the measure if this does not”(Abraham Lincoln, “Annual Message,” December 6, 1864)

On January 6, 1865, the House of Representatives took up debate on the amendment, while Lincoln and his Cabinet members traded political favors behind the scenes to secure votes. On January 31, the House narrowly passed the amendment by three votes. The following day, President Lincoln submitted a resolution to the states for ratification. Lincoln’s home state of Illinois ratified that day, and eighteen states ratified the amendment before the month ended.  On December 6, 1865, after Lincoln’s death, with the concurrence of several southern states, the amendment was ratified and became the law of the land.

The Thirteenth Amendment states: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” (The United States Constitution, Thirteenth Amendment, 1865).

At the expense of more than 600,000 deaths in a bloody Civil War, the promise of liberty in the Declaration of Independence had finally been achieved for African-Americans. Slavery was expurgated from the country though much work was to be done before African-Americans enjoyed full equality in law and in custom.

Abraham Lincoln lived to see General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant but would not live to see the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment. Lincoln was shot by an assassin on April 14, 1865 and died the following day. Among the many consequences of his death was the uncertain outcome of the Reconstruction, as it was called. Lincoln believed that the South had never left the Union and that southerners were rebels or insurrectionists. Therefore, he had favored a moderate plan of reconstruction whereby ten percent of the people of the Confederacy had to sign an oath of allegiance to the Union and the abolition amendment had to be ratified. Contrary to this mild proposal, the “Radical Republicans” in Congress demanded that the South be punished and passed the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864. This plan required an oath of loyalty by a majority of voters in each state, a ban on suffrage or office-holding by high-ranking Confederates, and the abolition of slavery. President Lincoln vetoed the bill. After Lincoln died, President Andrew Johnson supported a more lenient plan than Lincoln’s in which southern states would only have to repudiate the principle of secession and ratify the Thirteenth Amendment.

The division between President Johnson and the Radical Republicans in Congress set off a long struggle between the respective branches in government and affect the outcome of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments as well as the lives of African-Americans. Even as state legislatures were ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment, Southern states were passing “Black Codes,” that severely curtailed freedmen’s civil rights and reduced them to a state closely resembling slavery. In addition, President Johnson challenged the Radical Republicans in Congress over reconstruction and vetoed nearly any bill aiding in the equality of African-Americans or expressing congressional control over reconstruction. The Radical Republicans also believed (against Lincoln) that the southern states had left the Union and could only be readmitted by agreeing to grant African-Americans full civil equality. President Johnson had other ideas and, in February 1866, vetoed the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, which would have started a federal agency intended to help freed slaves transition to freedom with education and jobs, and then a civil rights bill a month later. Congress overrode both vetoes, but black equality and liberty after the Civil War were lost amidst the constitutional struggle.

In order to guarantee black civil rights from the recalcitrant states and president, in June 1866, Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment by a two-thirds majority in both houses and submitted it to the states for ratification without the courtesy of notifying President Johnson. In March 1867, Congress took even harsher steps to punish the South and enacted the Reconstruction Act, which divided the region into five military districts. The states would be readmitted into the Union when they ratified the Fourteenth Amendment and protected the rights of African-Americans. President Johnson vetoed the bill, but Congress overrode the veto.

In March, Congress also passed the Tenure of Office Act, which prevented President Johnson from circumventing the Reconstruction Act by removing officials governing the military districts. The president vetoed the measure, and Congress overrode the veto, but this was the last straw for Congress. The Radicals started to explore impeachment proceedings in the House Judiciary Committee.

Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution states, “The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” (The United States Constitution, Article I, Section 4, 1787).

The rationale for impeaching Johnson for misusing the presidential veto was weak because the evidence for high crimes did not exist.  As a result, the impeachment attempt was not succeeding.  In the summer of 1867, Johnson sought to remove Secretary of War Edwin Stanton from office, and Congress moved to impeach the president.

On February 21, 1868, President Johnson officially removed Stanton from office. Two days later, the House voted to impeach Johnson by a vote of 128 to 47. In order to be constitutionally removed from office, the Senate would have to hold a trial against the president presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court according to Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution. “The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present” (The United States Constitution, Article I, Section 3, 1787). When the vote was taken, moderate Republicans broke ranks because of the weakness of the argument and evidence, and Johnson kept his office by a single vote. Former Union general Ulysses S. Grant was elected president months later.

In July 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified by three-fourths of the states.  It provided national citizenship, the protection of privileges and immunities within the states, a due process clause, and equal protection of the laws.

Section 1 read: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” (The United States Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1, 1866).

In February 1869, Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment, and it was ratified by three-fourths of the states one year later. It stated, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (The United States Constitution, Fifteenth Amendment, 1869). Although African-Americans soon made up the majority of voters in some southern states and even elected some black representatives to Congress, the right to vote was curtailed by southern states through a several legal devices including poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses, as well as by plain intimidation of blacks attempting to vote. Paying taxes or passing a reading test to vote hurt poor, illiterate whites (though it was not always administered against them) as well as blacks. The grandfather clause hurt only African-Americans and banned anyone from voting whose grandfather had been a slave, which effectively banned most freed men from voting.

Despite the great successes of the Civil War Amendments in winning liberty and equality for African-Americans, they found themselves suffering many restrictions of their rights in the decades after the Civil War. They lived in perpetual debt with sharecropper farming, violence by groups like the Ku Klux Klan, voting restrictions, and even legal segregation (separation of the races) in Jim Crow laws and the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Supreme Court decision which ruled in favor of the constitutionality of those statutes of inequality.  Separate was held to be acceptable if the institutions were equal, though they relegated African-Americans to an inferior status.

In the original debate over the Constitution, James Madison feared that the greatest threat to liberty in a republic came from popular majorities.

“Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression,” Madison wrote, “In our Governments the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended…from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents” (James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, October 17, 1788).

He also feared popular passions in a republic. African-Americans in the post-Civil War-South discovered first-hand the dangers of majority tyranny in a republic whatever constitutional protections they had won. It would be almost a century until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 arguments for liberty and equality for African-Americans would win acceptance as, in Madison’s words, “fundamental maxims of free government” (James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, October 17, 1788).

Related Content

Explore the impact the Civil War amendments had on African-Americans during Reconstruction and beyond.

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Primary Sources on Slavery Winter 2004

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69 | The Reception and Impact of the Declaration of Independence, 1776-1826 | Winter 2023

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The Reconstruction Amendments: Official Documents as Social History

By eric foner.

Like other Radical Republicans, Stevens believed that Reconstruction was a golden opportunity to purge the nation of the legacy of slavery and create a "perfect republic," whose citizens enjoyed equal civil and political rights, secured by a powerful and beneficent national government. In his speech on June 13 he offered an eloquent statement of his political dream—"that the intelligent, pure and just men of this Republic . . . would have so remodeled all our institutions as to have freed them from every vestige of human oppression, of inequality of rights, of the recognized degradation of the poor, and the superior caste of the rich." Stevens went on to say that the proposed amendment did not fully live up to this vision. But he offered his support. Why? "I answer, because I live among men and not among angels." A few moments later, the Fourteenth Amendment was approved by the House. It became part of the Constitution in 1868. The Fourteenth Amendment did not fully satisfy the Radical Republicans. It did not abolish existing state governments in the South and made no mention of the right to vote for blacks. Indeed it allowed a state to deprive black men of the suffrage, so long as it suffered the penalty of a loss of representation in Congress proportionate to the black percentage of its population. (No similar penalty applied, however, when women were denied the right to vote, a provision that led many advocates of women’s rights to oppose ratification of this amendment.) Nonetheless, the Fourteenth Amendment was the most important constitutional change in the nation’s history since the Bill of Rights. Its heart was the first section, which declared all persons born or naturalized in the United States (except Indians) to be both national and state citizens, and which prohibited the states from abridging their "privileges and immunities," depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying them "equal protection of the laws." In clothing with constitutional authority the principle of equality before the law regardless of race, enforced by the national government, this amendment permanently transformed the definition of American citizenship as well as relations between the federal government and the states, and between individual Americans and the nation. We live today in a legal and constitutional system shaped by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment was one of three changes that altered the Constitution during the Civil War and Reconstruction. The Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in 1865, irrevocably abolished slavery throughout the United States. The Fifteenth, which became part of the Constitution in 1870, prohibited the states from depriving any person of the right to vote because of race (although leaving open other forms of disenfranchisement, including sex, property ownership, literacy, and payment of a poll tax). In between came the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which gave the vote to black men in the South and launched the short-lived period of Radical Reconstruction, during which, for the first time in American history, a genuine interracial democracy flourished. "Nothing in all history," wrote the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, equaled "this . . . transformation of four million human beings from . . . the auction-block to the ballot-box." These laws and amendments reflected the intersection of two products of the Civil War era—a newly empowered national state and the idea of a national citizenry enjoying equality before the law. These legal changes also arose from the militant demands for equal rights from the former slaves themselves. As soon as the Civil War ended, and in some places even before, blacks gathered in mass meetings, held conventions, and drafted petitions to the federal government, demanding the same civil and political rights as white Americans. Their mobilization (given moral authority by the service of 200,000 black men in the Union Army and Navy in the last two years of the war) helped to place the question of black citizenship on the national agenda. The Reconstruction Amendments, and especially the Fourteenth, transformed the Constitution from a document primarily concerned with federal-state relations and the rights of property into a vehicle through which members of vulnerable minorities could stake a claim to substantive freedom and seek protection against misconduct by all levels of government. The rewriting of the Constitution promoted a sense of the document’s malleability, and suggested that the rights of individual citizens were intimately connected to federal power. The Bill of Rights had linked civil liberties and the autonomy of the states. Its language—"Congress shall make no law"—reflected the belief that concentrated power was a threat to freedom. Now, rather than a threat to liberty, the federal government, declared Charles Sumner, the abolitionist US senator from Massachusetts, had become "the custodian of freedom." The Reconstruction Amendments assumed that rights required political power to enforce them. They not only authorized the federal government to override state actions that deprived citizens of equality, but each ended with a clause empowering Congress to "enforce" them with "appropriate legislation." Limiting the privileges of citizenship to white men had long been intrinsic to the practice of American democracy. Only in an unparalleled crisis could these limits have been superseded, even temporarily, by the vision of an egalitarian republic embracing black Americans as well as white and presided over by the federal government. Constitutional amendments are often seen as dry documents, of interest only to specialists in legal history. In fact, as the amendments of the Civil War era reveal, they can open a window onto broad issues of political and social history. The passage of these amendments reflected the immense changes American society experienced during its greatest crisis. The amendments reveal the intersection of political debates at the top of society and the struggles of African Americans to breathe substantive life into the freedom they acquired as a result of the Civil War. Their failings—especially the fact that they failed to extend to women the same rights of citizenship afforded black men—suggest the limits of change even at a time of revolutionary transformation. Moreover, the history of these amendments underscores that rights, even when embedded in the Constitution, are not self-enforcing and cannot be taken for granted. Reconstruction proved fragile and short-lived. Traditional ideas of racism and localism reasserted themselves, Ku Klux Klan violence disrupted the Southern Republican party, and the North retreated from the ideal of equality. Increasingly, the Supreme Court reinterpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to eviscerate its promise of equal citizenship. By the turn of the century, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments had become dead letters throughout the South. A new racial system had been put in place, resting on the disenfranchisement of black voters, segregation in every area of life, unequal education and job opportunities, and the threat of violent retribution against those who challenged the new order. The blatant violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments occurred with the acquiescence of the entire nation. Not until the 1950s and 1960s did a mass movement of black southerners and white supporters, coupled with a newly activist Supreme Court, reinvigorate the Reconstruction Amendments as pillars of racial justice. Today, in continuing controversies over abortion rights, affirmative action, the rights of homosexuals, and many other issues, the interpretation of these amendments, especially the Fourteenth, remains a focus of judicial decision-making and political debate. We have not yet created the "perfect republic" of which Stevens dreamed. But more Americans enjoy more rights and freedoms than ever before in our history.

Eric Foner , the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, is the author of numerous books on the Civil War and Reconstruction. His most recent book, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (2010), has received the Pulitzer, Bancroft, and Lincoln Prizes.

Suggested Sources

Books and printed materials.

A selection of relevant books by the author of this essay: Foner, Eric. Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction. New York: Knopf, 2005.

Foner, Eric. Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007.

Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1807. New York: Perennial Classics, 2002.

On the adoption of the Reconstruction Amendments: Maltz, Earl M. Civil Rights, the Constitution, and Congress, 1863–1869 . Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990.

The Reconstruction Amendments’ Debates: The Legislative History and Contemporary Debates in Congress on the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments . Richmond: Commission on Constitutional Government, 1963.

Richards, David A. Conscience and the Constitution: History, Theory, and Law of the Reconstruction Amendments. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.

On Thaddeus Stevens: Stevens, Thaddeus. The Selected Papers of Thaddeus Stevens. Beverly Wilson Palmer and Holly Byers Ochoa, eds. 2 vols. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997.

Internet Resources

Yale University’s "Avalon Project" for a multitude of documents related to American legal and constitutional history:  http://avalon.law.yale.edu/default.asp

For images of manuscript copies of the amendments, transcripts of their texts, and brief background information, see the National Archives’ "Our Documents" site: http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=40 [Thirteenth Amendment] http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=43 [Fourteenth Amendment] http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=44 [Fifteenth Amendment]

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Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction and Related Topics . By William Archibald Dunning , Ph.D., Professor of History in Columbia University. (New York: The Macmillan Company. 1898. Pp. ix, 376)

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Frederick W. Moore, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction and Related Topics . By William Archibald Dunning , Ph.D., Professor of History in Columbia University. (New York: The Macmillan Company. 1898. Pp. ix, 376), The American Historical Review , Volume 3, Issue 4, July 1898, Pages 761–763, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/3.4.761

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Essay winners: Juneteenth lets us remember nation's past while striving for better future

Correction: Erin Mauldin is an associate professor at the University of South Florida. Her name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.

Three 2024 high school graduates were honored this week as winners of the Juneteenth Scholarship essay contest. Their essays are below.

Juneteenth is chance to acknowledge both legacy and unfinished work

It is June 19, 1865, and over 250,000 enslaved Africans are gathered in Galveston, Texas, watching the United States Union Troops approach the bay to announce that after 400 years, they are free. Just a few months prior, Abraham Lincoln had announced the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing those enslaved in Confederate territory, but not all of them were made free.

This day is known as “Freedom Eve” or “Emancipation Day” and took place on January 1, 1865. The Emancipation Proclamation might not have cemented the actual liberation of African American people in the U.S., but it was a critical turning point that led up to the country’s second Independence Day, known as Juneteenth. Understanding what Juneteenth is and recognizing its importance and the intentions of other celebrations like it is essential. 

Juneteenth, deriving from the words “June” and “Nineteenth”, is the day that marks the annual celebration of a huge step towards racial reckoning in the United States. Texas was the first state to make it a holiday in 1980, motivating other states to do the same in the years following. Finally, in 2021, Juneteenth became a national holiday. However, we must see this celebration as an obstacle that was overcome, rather than a destination. There is still much work to be done. Victories like this one encourage us to continue the fight.

Associate professor Erin Mauldin at the University of South Florida, an expert on civil war and reconstruction, talks about how “Juneteenth is neither the beginning nor the end of something.” The same article states that “the end of the Civil War and the ending of slavery didn't happen overnight and was a lot more like a jagged edge than a clean cut.” It is imperative to realize that the road ahead could be just as long as the road behind us. 

In today’s age, the celebration of Juneteenth holds a higher significance than ever before, as we take time to honor the struggles endured but also acknowledge that many of those struggles are ongoing, as it pertains to racial inequality and systemic issues that create numerous disparities for African Americans. The historical injustices we suffered had only just begun to be accounted for by the rest of the country’s population. Juneteenth holds the purpose of reminding us of progress made thus far and is a chance for our community to move forward as a whole and help each other rebuild. This holiday gives millions of African Americans an opportunity to rejoice and give thanks to God for releasing them from years of suffering and captivity. The day creates a country-wide social awareness of the journey to equality and the abolishment of slavery’s awful oppression. Additionally, observing this day as a united front inspires self-development and is a chance to reconnect to one’s roots that were all but erased during slavery and go on to encourage African Americans to keep striving for a brighter future. 

In France, Bastille Day acknowledges the fight and patience undergone to eventually reach freedom. July 14, 1880, is the day the citizens of France finally overcame King Louis XVI and his monarchy’s rule over them. Each year, they cherish this as a day of reclamation for their lives.

Every July 18th since 2010, the historical moment when Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first black president, is recognized. This day is known as Mandela Day. Mandela transformed their democracy into a more diverse selection of administration, breaking down the white power held over the country for centuries. After being elected, he shared to his citizens this powerful message; “I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.” Just as those countries continue to commemorate those momentous turning points in history, we must continue to honor Juneteenth’s significance. 

Like Juneteenth, these important moments in history represent coming out on the other side of trials and tribulations, as well as salvaging their heritage. Universally, it is important to continue the recognition and cultivation of knowledge about Juneteenth and other celebrations akin to it, so we can mend communities back together who were violently ripped apart by domination subjugation. Breakthroughs didn’t happen without countless setbacks, but celebrations like these serve as a notion to never give up hope regardless. Juneteenth has the purpose and effect of uplifting hearts and minds to keep fighting, until justice and humanity are restored.  

Hailey Perkins is co-winner of the Taylor Academic Talent Scholarship. She is a graduate of Okemos High School and will attend Howard University.

Celebrations of freedom offer history lessons 

I imagine the words, “Ain’t nobody told me nothing!” came out of many mouths, minds and hearts when freed slaves found out they stayed in bondage 2 ½ years after other slaves had been set free.  Slavery in Texas continued 900 hundred days after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.    

In I863, the Civil War was in its third year. Many lives had been lost, and the end was nowhere in sight.  On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln enforced the signed Emancipation Proclamation.  The Emancipation Proclamation stated, “That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.“

This proclamation freed slaves that were in states that had left the union. This proclamation could only be enforced if the North won the war.  After continued fighting and the loss of many more lives, the Union won the war April 9, 1865. Then on June 19, 1865, in the state of Texas, more than 250,000 slaves were finally set free.  Their freedom came 2 ½ years after everyone else’s.  While gaining freedom was a dream come true, delayed freedom is symbolic of the continued struggle for Black Americans.   

There are many opinions regarding the celebration of Juneteenth. Many people celebrate it as the end of slavery, others don’t celebrate it at all, while others fall somewhere in between. Although Juneteenth has been celebrated for many years, it was only in 2021 that it became a national holiday.

The importance of celebrating Juneteenth is because America needs to know. Celebrating Juneteenth provides the opportunity to educate and inform our communities. Celebrating this holiday is more than remembering the past but it gives an opportunity to discuss race relations today. It allows people to have difficult conversations about hard subjects.  Ultimately, celebrating Juneteenth allows us to examine the mistakes of the past and do better in the future.

Celebrating this holiday makes us ask tough questions about the beginning of our country, our values, and our rights. Celebrating Juneteenth since the murder of George Floyd has made many people question, “Are Black people really free?” 

Juneteenth celebrations are now opportunities to discuss systemic racism, policy change, politics and ways to make sure that our lives do matter. Most importantly, it forces us to take an honest look at race relations in America, ask how are we really doing?    

There are many celebrations of freedom and independence across the world. India celebrates its freedom from British rule. Ghana celebrates its freedom from the United Kingdom. But the country whose freedom celebration identifies with me the most is the Philippines.  My paternal grandfather’s wife is from the Philippines. She shared much about her birthplace and its culture with our family. The country celebrates its freedom from Spanish rule with a celebration called Araw ng Kalayaan. 

The celebration is filled with parades, music, food and family bonding. But the Philippines has another celebration for freedom. After the Spanish rule ended, the Philippines came under the rule of America. But it was a nation that wanted to be free.  The road to independence for the Philippines is similar to the Juneteenth celebration, and the delay in freedom. The Philippines nation was supposed to become independent in 1944.  But World War II occurred and like Juneteenth that freedom was delayed for 2 full years.

On July 4, 1946, the Philippines became fully free from United States. Today, the citizens of the Philippines celebrate not one but 2 days of independence and freedom. A sign of their perseverance. These celebrations remind us to never give up.    

It is vital to continue the celebration of Juneteenth and other cultural celebrations of freedom around the world because “knowledge is power.” These celebrations symbolize more than just freedom. They are evidence that major changes in society can happen despite the odds. They provide motivation for people to stand up for basic human rights and against injustice. 

Most importantly these celebrations give us hope. They are evidence that we can be part of the change that we want to see in the world. When I think back to the first Juneteenth, that moment when the slaves realized they were enslaved 900 days longer than everyone else. That moment when they had to think, “Ain’t nobody told me nothing!” 

Well today, I told you something.  Never forget the lesson of Juneteenth or the other cultural celebrations of freedom.

Zachary Barker is co-winner of the Taylor Academic Talent Scholarship. He is a graduate of Okemos High School and will attend Michigan State University.   

The importance of why we celebrate Juneteenth

Juneteenth, also known as Juneteenth Independence Day or Freedom Day, is an annual holiday recognized on June 19th in honor of the enslavement of oppressed African Americans in the United States. The festival started in Galveston, Texas, where on June 19, 1865, Union soldiers conveyed the news of the Emancipation Proclamation to the state's last surviving enslaved people, thereby ending slavery in the United States.

On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which announced that all enslaved individuals in Confederate-held territory would be set free. However, it wasn't until the Civil War ended and Union forces landed in Texas that the word of freedom reached the remaining enslaved people. Understanding the history of Juneteenth is important, including its connection to other countries, the significance of learning about it as a child, and how it is celebrated today. 

While Juneteenth is uniquely American, it bears shared characteristics with other cultural celebrations of liberty and independence across the world. Many countries have their own celebrations, which are cultural and historical events. For example, India celebrates its independence from British dominion on August 15th of each year, remembering the day in 1947 when the country gained freedom after years of struggle and sacrifice. Similarly, Mexico commemorates its independence from Spanish colonial rule on September 16th, often known as "El Grito de Dolores." These cultural celebrations of sovereignty and liberty contain common themes such as determination and the pursuit of justice. They remind us of the challenges that persecuted populations have experienced throughout history, as well as the significance of preserving and respecting their tales. By connecting Juneteenth to other cultural celebrations, we may get a more comprehensive understanding of their significance. 

Juneteenth was recently given new attention and significance as a result of the ongoing battle for racial equality and social justice in the United States. The Black Lives Matter movement and rallies against police brutality have drawn attention to the systems of prejudice and inequality that persist in American society. As a result, recognizing and remembering Juneteenth has never been more crucial. 

At the high school level, students ought to learn about and participate in cultural celebrations of freedom and independence, such as Juneteenth. By understanding the history and significance of these festivals, students may develop a better understanding of different individuals' perspectives as well as the continued effect of historical events on our modern society. Studying Juneteenth and other cultural festivals of independence allows students to critically assess problems of race, power, and privilege. By discussing the historical foundations of systematic racism and oppression, students may obtain a better understanding of social justice concerns and the need of speaking up against injustices in their own communities. Incorporating conversations and activities about cultural celebrations of freedom and independence into the curriculum for high school can help students extend their viewpoints and get a better grasp of the complexity of history and culture. These abilities are critical for creating a more inclusive and equitable society in which all people are respected, appreciated, and celebrated. 

To summarize, Juneteenth's historical significance as a celebration of liberation and freedom for African Americans is firmly anchored in the history of slavery and the ongoing battle for equality and justice. By commemorating and celebrating Juneteenth, we recognize the significance of remembering history, comprehending the present, and working for a more fair and equitable future for everyone. Studying and recognizing these events in high school, students may get significant insights into the experiences of other groups, as well as the ongoing efforts for freedom and equality.

In today's world, when the fight for racial equality is ongoing, commemorating Juneteenth is more vital than ever, as it serves as an important awareness of the African American community's continued struggle for justice and perseverance. 

Glorie Clay is the winner of the University of Olivet Academic Talent Scholarship. She is a graduate of Lansing Christian High School and will attend Olivet.

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Essays On The Civil War And Reconstruction And Related Topics Kindle Edition

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• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00633UHYM
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Double D (November 2, 2011)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 2, 2011
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
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Guest Essay

The 19th-Century Club You’ve Never Heard of That Changed the World

By Jon Grinspan

Dr. Grinspan is a curator of political history at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the author of “ Wide Awake : The Forgotten Force That Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War.”

George Kimball was ready for war as soon as the first brick hit his head.

The 20-year-old printer was listening to an abolitionist lecture in Boston’s Bowdoin Square during the 1860 presidential campaign, when a pro-slavery throng tried to shut it down. Kimball was prepared, present as part of a torch-bearing, black-clad bodyguard called the Wide Awakes, who beat the brick-throwers back using their torches as clubs.

As Kimball walked home, blood in his eyes, he wanted “war declared at once.” Years later, having fought his way through from Bull Run to Gettysburg to Petersburg, he still considered that Boston brickbat, “as much a casus belli as was the firing upon Fort Sumter.” For him, it was the embattled right to publicly protest slavery that sparked the conflict — a fight over free speech brought on the war.

Today, our starkest political debates often turn on similar questions of public speech and public violence. Across diverse conflicts, from college campuses to the Capitol’s steps, we keep asking where the line is between heated words and aggressive deeds. Though framed as a legal question concerning the First Amendment, more often it’s a conundrum for our political culture.

In a democracy, how far is too far?

It’s a question that fueled America’s bloodiest war. The Civil War was fought over slavery (anyone who says it wasn’t is just wrong). But how did American slavery, which began in 1619, spark a conflict in 1861? How did a long-running debate turn into a shooting war? Where, exactly, was that dynamic moment when an argument became a fight?

George Kimball’s Wide Awakes help make sense of it all. That half-forgotten movement provides a missing link between the election and the war. In the presidential campaign of 1860, hundreds of thousands of diverse young Americans joined companies of Wide Awakes, marching in militaristic uniforms, escorting Republican speakers, fighting in defense of antislavery speech. Their grass-roots rising helped elect Abraham Lincoln as president but also began the spiral into war.

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Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction and Related Topics

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