The era of reconstruction in American history

Reconstruction

Regarding the report of the joint committee on reconstruction -- can it be considered the first major event after reconstruction? The answer is yes, this report was the first major event and in fact it led to the reentry of the Confederate States back into the Union of the United States with certain requirements prior to that reentry. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation is thought of in terms of what happened first, in fact the Emancipation Proclamation was delivered by President Lincoln before the war had officially ended. Hence, it would seem fair to contend that this committee report the first major event in the era of reconstruction.

What does this report ask the nation to do in terms of the task of reconstruction of the former confederacy? The report from the fifteen elected officials (nine members from the House of Representatives and six United States Senators) asked that the Confederate States agree to and sign what turned out to be the Fourteenth Amendment prior to being readmitted to the United States of America. The report also asked the nation to be vigilant against any potential further action by states that disagree with the laws and of the Constitution. In effect the report puts in motion the political and legal aspects of the United States that need to be upgraded and amended to start a national rehabilitation movement.

The Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction

The opening thoughts that are put into print by the committee -- also known as the Joint Committee of Fifteen -- rejected the notion that following the end of the Civil War the Confederate States should somehow be admitted back into the Union of the United States of America with all the representatives and senators on board as they were prior to the secession. In their opening narrative, the committee made many bold assertions based on their research and the research of their committees, and they were clearly not willing to accept the reentry of the Confederate States into the Union without some serious changes to the U.S. Constitution.

The committee did not mince words in damning the acts of the Confederate States. Those states were "insurgent" states, the committee asserted, and indeed the thought of those states being welcomed back into the Union would be, "if not unconstitutional, at least unjustifiable and oppressive." The committee did not mention the number of deaths that resulted from the Civil War, but clearly the extraordinary carnage, the rampant killing of tens of thousands, the ghastly and bloody battle scenes -- and the wholesale destruction of cities, towns, crops, railroad facilities and factories -- led the committee to fiercely condemn the Confederate States for their part in the Civil War. Without asking the Confederate States to come to terms with the enormous amount of destruction and death that the war produced, the committee could not imagine just blanket forgiveness.

The war "…into which they [Confederate States] had plunged the country had materially changed their relations to the people of the loyal States," the committee explained, and moreover the result of the war was that slaves, "instead of mere chattels," had become by Constitutional amendment free men and citizens." But the point to be considered following the end of hostilities, the committee continued, was not to simply forgive the slave masters that that fought against the Union. Those that fought to continue slavery must be asked to abide by new Constitutional guidelines.

Those that fought the war should be punished in a severe way, the committee suggested at the opening of their report. The government "…thus outraged had a most perfect right to exact indemnity for the injuries done," the committee asserted. And looking ahead the government could see that there would need to be "…security against the recurrence of such outrages in the future." To protect the United States of America from future "outrages" would seem "too clear for dispute," the committee insisted.

The four pivotal points that the committee presented are as follows. One, the fact is clear that the rebel states -- following the conclusion of the Civil War -- were "disorganized communities" that had no civil authorities governing them. Also, without legal documents or a constitution that binds them to the federal government, these States were basically just political entities floating along with no links to any other entity.

Two, Congress cannot reasonably be expected to recognize "as valid the election of representatives from disorganized communities," the committee asserted. In other words, even if these disorganized communities from the Confederate States sought to elect new representatives, those elected officials would not be recognized as valid by the existing federal government. Previously those representatives were linked to the federal government but they gave up those rights when the Confederate States seceded from the United States and hence "were unable to present their claim to representation." '