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THE HISTORY OF TE X A S | ||||
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S T U D E N T E - S O U R C E C E N T E R | ||||
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Aftermath of the War
Nationally, reunion and Reconstruction in the aftermath of the War involved division and confrontation. Radical Republicans advocated full civil rights for freedpersons, to include citizenship, the franchise, and education. Moderate Republicans and northern Democrats held other views on the future of the post-Civil War union of states while Southern Democrats sought to reestablish pre-war political structures. In Texas, Confederate surrender led to disintegration of the army and government. Chaos prevailed as disbanding soldiers ransacked arsenals and government buildings along with confiscated Confederate public property. On the same day that U. S. troops occupied Texas, June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger declared all slaves free. In Texas, the day of emancipation became “Juneteenth,” a traditional holiday among black Texans today. During the war Texas played an important role in protecting slaveholders’ “property” by providing a safe place for bondspeople and Texas’ proximity to Mexico provided the Confederacy revenue from the sale of southern cotton. Although Texas emerged relatively unscathed physically from the war, the state still experienced financial distress as property values depreciated. Unionists and northern sympathizers, harassed and denied liberties during the war, sought revenge. The Beginnings of Reconstruction President Andrew Johnson, a Unionist Democrat from Tennessee, called upon all seceded states to declare secession null and void, to cancel the debt incurred during the fighting (acknowledging the wrongfulness of the war), and to approve the Thirteenth Amendment ending slavery. The majority of Texans were permitted to assume previous civil rights, but high-ranking former Confederates were ineligible to participate in the restoration of home rule. Just as the Republican party had been torn asunder, so the Democratic party divided into two distinct factions. At the national level Unionist Democrats resembled congressional Republicans in their support of freedmen civil rights and agreed that the U. S. Constitution did not permit secession. Conservative Unionists and Conservative Democrats “…opposed granting any freedoms to blacks beyond emancipation” (151) and defended the states’ right to secede. Unionist Democrats lost out when James W. Throckmorton, a Conservative Unionist, was chosen as convention chairperson in Texas. The convention declared secession illegal and repudiated the war debt. Although the convention accepted slavery’s demise, the Thirteen Amendment was not approved by the voters of the state until 1870. Blacks were denied the franchise and access to public office, jury participation and access to public schools. Conservative Democratic leaders worked to limit civil rights for blacks and stood against black equality. Racial tensions mounted in the South with enactment of “black codes” to maintain social and economic order. In Texas, the Constitution of 1866 further clarified restrictions imposed on freedmen, serving mainly to keep African-Americans “as a cheap and controllable labor force.” Northern Institutions in a Vanquished State, 1865 - 1867 Texans resisted change in the social and economic order; they also resisted the efforts of the Freedmen’s Bureau to aid African Americans in the transition from slavery to freedom. The Bureau, determined to build administrative centers at grass-roots level, encountered difficulties and local resistance; by 1870, however, significant strides had been made in the field of education. The bureau also attempted to provide relief and health care, and to rectify grievous instances of injustice. Some bureau agents were inept and disinterested in their work, but the majority provided “exemplary service in rendering needed assistance to the areas’ black communities” (160). Radical Congressional Reconstruction As Radical Reconstruction began in July 1867, five military districts were created in the former Confederacy. New constitutions required all races to participate, and former Confederate office holders were barred from voting. Historians once interpreted Radical Republican policies supporting complete civil and political rights for African Americans as an excuse to strengthen the Republican party and to neutralize southern racial hostility; today, most scholars support the theory that Radical Republicans did truly desire “to bring about a meaningful change in the South…” (158). Republicans in Texas invited black political participation. The most prominent black leader was George T. Ruby, a teacher and traveling agent for the Freedmen’s Bureau and organizer of local chapters of the Union League. However, violence against African Americans and intra-party conflict weakened the party. The issue of ab initio (ultimately decided in the Supreme Court in Texas vs. White, March 1869) aroused contentious debate at the constitutional convention. The Constitution of 1869 granted suffrage and general civil rights to black Texans, extended support for public education, increased the power of the governor, and prohibited land grants for internal improvements. Only about 4,500 federal troops served in Texas from 1867 to 1870. The Army, stigmatized as outsiders, helped register voters (black and white), protected freedmen and agents from the Ku Klux Klan, enforced martial law, and guarded against Indians in the western frontier forts. The 1869 Election and the Davis Administration Edmund J. Davis, a Radical Republican, was elected governor in December 1869. He supported ab initio and approval of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments by the seceded states. Davis barely edged out Andrew J Hamilton, a Moderate Republican who had fled North during the war. George T. Ruby’s efforts in marshaling the black vote through the efforts of the Union League resulted in over 37,000 blacks casting their ballots in 1869. Once the election results went to the U. S. Congress, a bill restoring Texas to the Union was produced. The Twelfth Legislature was composed of diverse elements: several Radical Republicans, Democrats, Moderate Republicans, two black senators and twelve black representatives. Two prominent black leaders/state senators were George T. Ruby and Matt Gaines, a self-educated former slave who became a Baptist lay preacher after the Civil War. Governor Davis’s top priority was restoring law and order. Other goals included funding a statewide school system for both blacks and whites, subsidizing internal improvements, and increasing frontier protection. Scalawags were prominent in the Davis administration; and with their support, Davis was able to accomplish the stated goals. Radical Republicans did not attempt to overturn “long-standing economic, political, and social mores” (164). They were not nearly as radical as they had previously been judged. Freedmen during Reconstruction Social segregation arose immediately after the war; not — as generally assumed — toward the latter part of the nineteen century. Social customs imposed social segregation, not legal dictates. Sharecropping kept blacks and whites enslaved to debt. Poverty diminished opportunities and provided dismal living conditions. Disease was prevalent; and without proper medical attention, mortality among blacks, particularly infants, was high. Blacks sought to strengthen the cohesiveness of their own communities and to “protect their cultural autonomy” (167) by building their own schools and founding their own religious institutions. While the bureau remained in place, black marriages were legalized, grievances were brought before the bureau courts, and blacks found some redress “from Republican district court judges appointed by Governor Davis between 1870 and 1873” (168). Democrats Regain Control Edmund J. Davis did much to strengthen the state’s economy and social infrastructure. During the gubernatorial race in 1873, Davis campaigned on the programs that he had initiated in office. Richard Coke, an ex-Confederate, ran on the promise of “redemption” — to “redeem” Texas from Republican rule, to restore strong states’ rights, and to overthrow the coalition of Republicans and freedmen. Coke appealed to business interests, endorsing railroad and industrial expansion while winning the support of the Patrons of Husbandry (Grange). Coke’s Redeemers blamed the Republicans for the agricultural depression of 1870. As Davis prepared to transfer his office to Coke, the election was declared illegal on January 5, 1874 by the Texas Supreme Court in the case of ex parte Rodriguez. While Coke and the Democrats pursued plans to take over the government immediately, Davis wired President Ulysses S. Grant. By the time Davis received Grant’s non-committal reply, Coke had already been sworn in as governor — Reconstruction was dead in Texas. Constitution of 1876 Hoping to eliminate all traces of Reconstruction and overturn Republican successes on behalf of blacks, conservative Democrats demanded a new constitution aimed at restoring states’ rights. In 1875 Coke called for a constitutional convention. The new Constitution of 1876 “included provisions that prohibited the state from chartering banks, empowered the state…to regulate corporations and railroad companies[;] establishing a state debt ceiling of $200,000, put a strict limit on the maximum ad valorem tax rate, and all but abolished the public school system” (170). The convention also chose biennial rather than annual legislative sessions and concluded its business by striking down a poll tax, repudiating voter registration, and denying women the vote, although male aliens were enfranchised. Both Grangers and conservative Democrats opposed compulsory school attendance and the property tax if it meant using tax money to educate black children. The convention did, however, mandate segregated schools; and in a positive sign for the future, endowed a permanent school fund with revenue from the public domain. The new constitution was approved by the electorate in a better than two-to-one margin. Although never considered a remarkable document, it still serves present-day Texas. Two serious attempts to write a new and more modern constitution have been vetoed. | |||
| Copyright © 2007, Harlan Davidson. All rights reserved |
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