Reconstruction: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly | 5 Minute Video
The period immediately following the Civil War (1865 -1877) is known as Reconstruction. Its promising name belies what turned out to be the greatest missed opportunity in American history. Where did we go wrong? And who was responsible? Renowned American history professor Allen Guelzo has the surprising answers in this eye-opening video.
This video was made in partnership with the American Battlefield Trust. Learn more about the Reconstruction at Battlefields.org: http://bit.ly/2NzppkE
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Script:
The American Civil War ended in 1865. And a new conflict immediately began.
The North won the first war. The South won the second. To truly understand American history, one needs to understand how this happened, and why.
The years immediately following the end of the Civil War—1865 to 1877—are known in American history as “Reconstruction.” What should have been a glorious chapter in America’s story—the full integration of 3.9 million freed slaves—instead became a shameful one.
It began with the assassination of Republican president Abraham Lincoln. One week after the Civil War effectively ended, the one man with the political savvy and shrewdness to have guided Reconstruction was gone.
His successor was Vice-President Andrew Johnson, a Tennessee Democrat. Johnson was the rare Southern politician who stayed loyal to the Union during the Civil War. Lincoln added him to his reelection ticket in 1864 as a gesture of wartime bi-partisanship. But Johnson was wholly unprepared for the task.
Under his Reconstruction plan, the defeated rebels would be allowed to return to power, almost as if they had never left. The only requirement to rejoin the Union was that they agree to ratify the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery.
This was fine with the old Southern Democratic ruling class. By agreeing to abolish slavery, they would actually increase their political power. Whereas the Constitution’s old 3/5ths clause limited slave states to counting only 3/5ths of their slaves for the purpose of determining representation in Congress, after the Civil War, the Southern states were able to count 100% of the freed slaves.
This would ensure the return to Congress of Southern Democrats, and in even greater numbers than before the rebellion, allowing them—with the help of their Democratic Party allies in the North—to fight Republican efforts to secure the citizenship rights of the former slaves.
Johnson’s plan set off three years of bitter political warfare. The Republicans in Congress created their own Congressional Reconstruction plan. Still in the overall majority there, they reorganized ten of the Southern states into military occupation zones, requiring them to write new state constitutions that recognized black civil rights before they could be readmitted to the Union.
Over fierce Democratic opposition, the Republicans also managed to pass two new amendments to the Constitution—the 14th and 15th Amendments—guaranteeing due process in law and voting rights in elections. Those rights enabled the former slaves to help elect new state governments, to hold office, and even to send the first black representatives and senators to Congress—all Republicans.
Most important, in 1869, with the help of 500,000 votes from newly-enfranchised blacks, a new Republican president, Ulysses S. Grant, took office. Grant was solidly behind the Congressional Reconstruction plan.
But a new problem arose: Disgruntled Southern whites organized themselves into ad hoc militias to terrorize Southern blacks and their white Republican supporters into silence. The largest and most famous of these militias went by a still-familiar name: the Ku Klux Klan.
For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/video/reconstruction-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly
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Crazy how blacks still vote Democrat when literally white liberal was killing them from the start if the voted for the early republican party
A philosophy professor named Allen Guelzo discovered in 1995 that one way out of academic obscurity (where most philosophy professors reside) is to become a "Lincoln scholar." He began writing books that tell the same old, same old, line about Lincoln: he died on Good Friday; he supposedly died for the sins of America just as Jesus died for the sins of the world; etc., etc. His first book of this time is entitled "Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President." Seeking redemption for your sins? Then become a Lincoln worshipper, says Allen Guelzo.
they never teach it in college among other things (San Remo Conference). Shame on universities.
The disenfranchisement of the blacks did the occur until after 1888. Benjamin Harrison supported an anti-Jim Crow law that wood empower the 15th Amendment. BUT it was blocked by the Democrats aided by some Republicans. Harrison continued to support blacks after his defeat in 1892, but distracted by the Great Depression the Republican Party gave up trying,
In middle school there was an entire quarter dedicated to Johnson's presidency. I vividly remembered the teacher calling them the "Radical Republicans" over and over all quarter when they refereed to the members of Congress.
They were trying to indoctrinate even in the 80's.
How does this position gel with conservatism though? I guess that's what I struggle with because I thought PragerU was a conservative channel. No question what he's saying here are noble goals as it pertains to what the Union "should" have done following the war. But it seems to go directly against Goldwater and much of what conservatism has put forth the past 60 years ("this is not the federal government's role", "let the states figure this out for themselves", "it's not government's job to try and socially engineer society"). I feel like stationing millions of Union troops in the South indefinitely until blacks and whites finally "got along" sounds a lot like what US troops tried to do for years in South Vietnam or Iraq.
Great perspective, but why is that one “southerner” used when talking about the KKK made to look like Col. Sanders? Not cool.
So what did you imply that should have been done to the south. Occupy with military, federal rule over now not sovereign states. Give the south a reason to not capitulate
PRAGERU!!!!!
Preventing southerners from holding office would lead to the same problems the founders were trying to escape by rebelling against Britain. Maybe a limitation to how many positions they could hold over a specified period of time to reduce their power would have worked.
Thank you
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*missed the compromise of 1877
It’s my theory the union poisoned the wells and intentionally crippled the south during reconstruction. Considering the policies of broken Indian treaties and Mexican provocations to seize land by force, I really wouldn’t put it past them
I am truly impressed! What a voice sir! I can listen to the lectures for hours!
I just know I’m gonna see a liberal in the comment section screaming “pARtY sWiTcH pARtY sWItCh pARtY swITcH” 💀 while totally ignoring the fact that if there was a 2nd American civil war the liberals just like the 1st civil war would start burning the American flag screaming for secession…
Holy shit. The North were comprised of white supremacists. They didn't invade to free the slaves but to control the South's wealth. The South only became known as poor AFTER the war. They didn't want to occupy the South for generations in defense of black people, and the USA actually practiced federalism back then, so they left.
How you yall not talk about white people losing the right to vote as black people were getting the right to vote in the South? It kind of caused problems.
Good video, but if Reconstruction begins with Lincoln's assassination, yall should highlight that slavery was only abolished AFTER the war, instead of implying that the 13th Amendment had already passed.
Repuplicans back then were leftist liberals and Southern Democrats were staunchly, unabashedly conservatives. He leaves that crucial detail out, making it seem as if conservatives were on the right side of history. Very misleading. 🤨
Bro I have a quiz tmr and this 5 min video probably ensured a 90%+
How many this Johnson was a Confederate plant? Hey if we loose we got a guy if we win he is the ultimate spy!!!! He was plainly racist. I think Lincoln allowing Johnson to be his Vice not only cost him his life but ensured that the Southern way of life would live on even if it meant Black Codes, Jim Crowe and the Klan would have to terrorize freed slaves and deny them of their rights. Would anyone agree with me on this: Andrew Johnson who was a poor white southerner and a racist might just be our worst President ever.
One thing I will note as a start, I’m only looking at this as I watch this. It wasn’t Johnson’s plan to be lenient with the South’s readmission. It was Lincoln’s. In fact, Lincoln was the one who created the circumstances that 10% of the State had to swear loyalty to the Union and ratify the 13th Amendment. Lincoln was opposed by radical Republicans on this and constructed the Wade-Davis Act to increase that margin to 50% back in 1864, however Lincoln pocket vetoed that bill.
What could have been done differently? Maybe not weaponize slavery and the rights of the free blacks?
Never believe anything PragerU is involved in. This is an unaccredited white supremacist organization. Republicans were liberal, Southern Democrats were conservatives back then. Fk your lying ass organization.
There is no such thing as southern racism by northern democrats. The south was no longer the south it was populated by northern carpetbaggers and union solidiers, who made the jim crow laws, and who were supposed to free black people from slavery and bondage.which this is a lie. the civil war was about cotton and greed. and the fact that the south sold more so they made more money. Why historians tell these lies i believe is to appease people in power I believe if they do not stick to this narrative they wont have a job. The war was over the republicans placing a 40 percent tariff on southern cotton. a tax the planters rose up and killed the union soldiers when they tried to take 40 percent of their cotton. then they went to Fort Sumpter and killed all the soldiers there. The Union responded by commiting genocide and slaughtering the Confederates and starving them to death raping their wives and daughters. and putting the land and farms in whatever name they wanted to. and calling them owners. Their plan would have worked out but they encountered one problem cotton became worthless. other countries had stockpiled cotton so they had no need for it any longer.
The people from the south had their land stripped from them. the confederate soldiers were starved to death. or they got to see their wife and daughters raped on a daily basis by carpetbaggers and union soldiers. a few survivors rose up and tried to change things
The truth is, once Lincoln was assassinated the south proved reconstruction wouldn't work. The Union should have adjusted to a policy of purge and corrective punishment. Execution to all soldiers of the confederacy for treason. Internment for all slave owners and confederate politicians. Redistribute all plantation lands to freed slaves. The confederacy needed to have its back broken and heart ripped out before it could be reabsorbed into the United States.