Texas History Part Three

8: Reconstruction in Texas

Dr. Butler

All images used in this slideshow which are not my own

photographs are either in the Public Domain or used under

the “Fair Use” provision of U.S. Copyright law.

The Beginning of Reconstruction in Texas

“Juneteenth” and Other Events

On June 8, 1865, Union forces took possession of Galveston.On June 2, 1865, Texas Confederate forces under the command

of General Edmund Kirby Smith, surrendered at Galveston.

Smith

On June 8, 1865, Union forces took possession of Galveston.

Granger

On June 19, 1865, while standing on the balcony of Ashton Villa in Galveston,

General Gordon Granger announced that the slaves in Texas were free.

Granger

Granger

The date has been celebrated ever since as “Juneteenth.”

1 min. 8 sec.

On June 23, 1865, President

Andrew Johnson lifted the

blockade of the Texas coast.

Presidential Reconstruction

1865-1866

In 1865 and 1866 President Johnson

re-admitted all the former Confederate

states to the Union under lenient terms.

• Write a new state constitution

repudiating slavery and secession

• Ratify the 13th Amendment

In order to regain their constitutional rights,

ordinary Southerners had to swear an oath

of allegiance:

Wealthy planters and politicians

had to personally petition the

president for amnesty.

“Radical Republicans” like Thaddeus Stevens and Charles

Sumner were outraged at Johnson’s leniency.

6 min. 01 sec.

Stevens Sumner

President Andrew Johnson

began his Reconstruction

policy by appointing

provisional governors.

A. J. Hamilton was

appointed provisional

governor of Texas. His

primary task was to

call a convention to

write a new state

constitution.

Although Texans repudiated slavery and secession, and

allowed the freedman certain rights, they devoted the

school fund to white children only. Anyone who had not

lived in Texas for five years was ineligible for public

office.

Although the Texas Constitution of 1866 gave freedmen

certain rights, they were barred from voting, and Texas

did not immediately ratify the 13th Amendment.

James W. Throckmorton of Collin County, who had voted

against secession but afterward supported the

Confederacy, was elected Governor on June 25, 1866. He

was inaugurated on August 9, 1866.

On August 29, 1866, Texas became the last of the former

Confederate states to be readmitted under Johnson’s plan

of Reconstruction.

The Plight of the Freedmen

The Civil War may have ended

slavery, but it did not destroy white

Southerners’ belief in White

Supremacy.

Unwilling to accept the freedmen as

equals, most white Southerners,

including Texans, did everything in

their power to assure that blacks

would continue to occupy a lesser

status in society. It was wasn’t until

the 1960s that this situation began to

change, and even then, the change

was met with stiff resistance.

In Texas, Freedmen feared for their

lives as embittered whites sought to

suppress, by force, any attempts by

blacks to secure their civil rights.

Whites who defended or tried to help

them were also targeted.

In 1865 Congress created a

Freedmen’s Bureau.

From 1865 to 1870 the Bureau tried to

help the newly-freed slaves, primarily

with labor contracts and education.

General Edgar M. Gregory initially

served as head of the Freedmen’s Bureau

in Texas. In 1866 Gen. Joseph Kiddoo

replaced him and in 1867 Gen. Charles

Griffin replaced Kiddoo.

Gregory

Kiddoo

Griffin

In respect to labor contracts, the

Freedmen’s Bureau’s success in Texas

was limited by the hostility of whites and

the mistrustfulness of blacks.

In the end, without any money to buy

land, many if not most freedmen became

tenant farmers or “share-croppers,”

paying landowners a percentage of the

value of any marketable commodity they

grew (usually cotton). They also had to

fear for their lives as embittered whites

sought to suppress, by force, any attempts

by blacks to secure their civil rights..

4 min. 58 sec.

Under the direction of Edwin M. Wheelock, the

Freedmen Bureau’s schools were its biggest success in

Texas, despite the often violent opposition of whites.

But “Black Codes” enacted by Southern states, including

Texas, restricted the rights of the Freedmen.

2 min. 09 sec.

Congressional or “Radical” Reconstruction

1867-1872

After the new postwar Texas government began functioning, the state

legislature appointed former republic president David G. Burnet and

future governor Oran M. Roberts as Texas’ new senators. But when they

arrived in Washington, D.C., in December 1865, Congress refused to seat

them or any other representatives from the former Confederate states.

Roberts

Burnet

In 1866, Congress passed the Fourteenth

Amendment and sent it to the states for

ratification. It said:

• All persons born in the U.S. are citizens

• States must treat all citizens equally

• States that exclude a sizeable proportion of

male citizens from voting will have their

congressional representation reduced

• No former Confederates can hold a federal

office

• The Confederate war debt is invalid and no

one is to be compensated for loss of slaves.

4 min. 4 sec.

In 1867, Congress enacted a Congressional Reconstruction plan. It was

prompted by:

• The election of former Confederates to Congress

• Black Codes enacted by former slave states

• The refusal of former slave states to grant the right to vote to the freedmen

• Johnson’s lenient Reconstruction Plan, which allowed unrepentant white

conservatives to reassume power

The 1867 Reconstruction Act (passed

over Johnson’s veto) annulled all

southern governments established under

Presidential Reconstruction and divided

the South into 5 military districts.

General Philip Sheridan was head

of the Fifth Military District, which

consisted of Texas and Louisiana,

with HQ in New Orleans.

Sheridan

During Congressional or “Radical” Reconstruction, former

Confederate states had to ratify the 14th Amendment and

write new constitutions giving black men the right to vote.

Former Confederates were barred from holding office and

anyone with questionable loyalty could not vote.

On July 30, 1867, General Sheridan appointed former Governor Elisha M.

Pease, a Republican, as Governor of Texas, in place of Throckmorton, who

was seen as “an impediment” to Congressional Reconstruction.

SheridanThrockmortonPease

During “Radical Reconstruction,” state

governments dominated by Republicans

were established in the former

Confederacy and several blacks were

elected to office (but not in Texas).

Southern Republican state governments championed public

schools, internal improvements, property rights for women,

equal rights for freedmen and universal male suffrage—the

last two bitterly opposed by conservative white Southerners.

10 min. 28 sec.

In Texas, a convention was held in 1868, to write a new

Constitution. Edmund J. Davis, who had served in the

Union Army during the Civil War, was elected president

of the convention.

Davis

In sharp contrast to the 1866 Constitution, the Texas Constitution

of 1869 extended the right to vote to all adult males, and when the

next election was held, Davis was elected governor, the last

Republican to hold that post until 1979.

Davis

Davis was able to win because most of the freedmen were

registered to vote and did so, whereas only about half of registered

white voters went to the polls. Even so, it was a close race.

Davis

In February 1870, shortly before Davis took office, the Texas

legislature finally ratified the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth

Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Davis

On March 30, 1870, President U.S. Grant approved an act of

Congress re-admitting Texas to the Union.

Grant

Laws enacted by the legislature during

Radical Republican rule:

• Created a state militia and a state police

force (40 percent of which was black) to

deal with lawlessness

• Increased judicial districts from 17 to 35

• Created a centralized public school

system to provide education for blacks

and whites alike

• Empowered the governor to fill vacant

public offices prior to an election

• Empowered the governor to appoint a

registrar of voters and a 3-man appeals

board for each county

• Postponed congressional and state

elections until 1872

• Created Texas A&M, the first public

college in Texas

Davis

The Restoration of Conservative Government

1873-1874

Although originally postponed until 1872,

U S. Congressional elections were held in

1871, with conservative Democrats winning

all four of Texas’ Congressional seats. In

1872, after Texas’ congressional

representation had increased to six (owing

to population growth revealed by the 1870

census, Democrats won all six seats.

In the 1872 election, Democrats also won

control of the state legislature.

In the presidential race, Texans favored

Horace Greeley over U.S. Grant.

The Restoration of Conservative Government in Texas

In 1873, the Democratic-controlled legislature refused to work with Davis,

raised taxes, and undid much of the previous legislature’s legislation,

(including the public school system), but voters didn’t care. In the

December 1873 gubernatorial race, Davis lost to Democrat Richard Coke.

DavisCoke

DavisCoke

Although Davis was not due to leave office until April 28, 1874, and also in spite of

the questionable legality of the election, Democrats used a militia company to seize

control of the capitol, and then inaugurated Coke on January 15. Unwilling to use

force to retain his office, and lacking support from President Grant, he resigned on

January 19. For four days, Texas had two governors!

Following the restoration of conservative government in Texas, Democrats effectively controlled

state politics for the next century. Over time, as the Democratic Party became the liberal party of the

nation, and especially after it championed equal rights for African-Americans in the 1960s,

Democrats in Texas and elsewhere in the South switched their party affiliation to Republican.

7 min. 20 sec.

The Texas Constitution of 1876

The “Redeemer” Constitution

In 1875, a Constitutional Convention was held in Austin to write a new

Constitution to the replace the one that was written during Radical Republican

rule. Voters ratified it in 1876.

Some differences between the 1869 and 1875 Texas

constitutions:

• Governor’s term of office reduced from four years to

two

• Governor has no control over other state or officials

• Governor's salary reduced

• Legislature to meet every two years instead of

annually

• District courts reduced from 35 to 26

• All judges to be elected

• State Supreme Court to hear civil cases only

• State indebtedness limited

• Abolished position of state superintendent of schools

• Public school system decentralized and state support

for schools reduced

• Replaced the no religious test statement with one

that’s contradictory

The Aftermath of Reconstruction in Texas

Truth vs. Myth

Throughout the South,

including Texas,

Reconstruction was

afterward viewed as a dark

chapter in its history, when

the state was run by

“carpetbaggers” (northerners

who came south after the

Civil War to seek new

opportunities) and

“scalawags” (Southerners

who supported Radical

Reconstruction) but the truth

does not match the myth.

Embittered by their defeat in the

Civil War, and unwilling to let go

of their belief in White Supremacy,

most white Texans, as well as most

other white Southerners, resented

the presence of U.S. troops and

state governments dominated by

Republicans that sought to make

sure that the freedmen enjoyed the

same rights as other citizens.

The Truth About Reconstruction

• Reconstruction was actually quite lenient:

• No one was imprisoned for supporting the Confederacy (except Jefferson Davis, and he was released after only two years).

• No one who participated in the rebellion or supported it, not even Robert E. Lee, was ever charged with and brought to trial for treason.

• No one who participated in the rebellion or supported it was hanged (except Henry Wirz, the commander of the Andersonville P.O.W. camp and that was for “war crimes,” not treason).

• No one who participated in the rebellion or supported it had their land permanently confiscated.

• Radical Reconstruction lasted only a short time in most states (about five years in Texas).