The blacks under the Freedman's Bureau, and with US military protection, made great strides and over 800 were elected to public office between 1871-1876. Johnson was a poor politician and was not the type who had the greatness within him to rise to the high office he had achieved by accident. Johnson ended up very nearly impeached by congress in what was probably an unjust action. Johnson did not feel blacks had a place in Southern Reconstruction and he pardoned many Confederate leaders in his efforts to appease potential voters. As a result, he worked against many of the changes the Freedman's Bureau was making. Johnson wanted to keep the Presidency and felt that he needed the support of Southern democrats to do this. This was complicated further because millions of defeated white Southerners were living in chaos, deprived of their land and their forced labor to work it and shocked at the effrontery of the freed blacks who were no longer under their control.Ī group of 'Radical Republican' politicians were strong advocates for black male enfranchisement (right to vote) and making sure that the Freedmen, as they were called, reaped the benefits of their newfound liberty.īut things are never simple, and the first opposition to the Freedman's Bureau agenda came from President Andrew Johnson, whom Foner describes as 'incompetent.' Johnson was a pale shadow compared to Abe Lincoln and was opposed to the 14th Amendment (giving all male US citizens over age 21 the right to vote, among other things). Reconstruction was happening in the aftermath of Lincoln's assassination and it had all of the problems and growing pains one would expect after a country has fought a protracted Civil War and a group of millions of enslaved people were freed, with many lacking resources or the education and knowledge to adequately use this newfound freedom. President Lincoln had set up this bureau before his death. At the start, a 'Freedman's Bureau' was set up to assist newly-freed blacks in areas such as gaining literacy and a general education, the acquisition of property, familiarity and participation with the country's political system and helping freed blacks assert their legal rights in a country riven by a long, painful war. This sort of sums up Eric Foner's sad tale of the optimism generated at the start of America's Reconstruction after the Civil War and emancipation of all slaves. It was the best of times it was the worst of times, and then it got even worse. I need time to recover from this book! It may be a five-star book, but I don't possess a five-star mind.

Reconstruction by Eric Foner