AHC: Lincoln lives, successful Reconstruction, but move toward Parliamentary system?

A Companion to the Civil War and Reconstruction

edited by Lacy Ford, Wiley-Blackwell, 2005.

https://books.google.com/books?id=x...d established sexual or social mores"&f=false

' . . . a study of poor and yeoman women in three North Carolina Piedmont counties before and during the Civil War, . . . '

' . . . Poor white women who violated established sexual or social mores, most of whom lived in households without a male head, were seen as particularly "dangerous" to those who had a vested interest in preserving the status quo. As a consequence, North Carolina officials vigorously prosecuted women for bastardy, prostitution, and fornication offenses and used the apprenticeship laws to remove children born to unattached poor white women. . . (Unruly Women, Bynum 1992) . . . '
This is the authoritarian side of the south. Anyone who is different from some narrow "norm" is considered to be a problem.
 
During Reconstruction, some army and Republican officials may simply enforce the existing laws more efficiently. Yes, that's possible. Or they may adopt lukewarm "reforms" which hardly change a thing.

But it's also possible that many Republican officials will adopt the modern view that it is a really big deal to remove a child from his or her mother, and we're only going to do that when we really have to and don't have much of a choice. And if the only problem is poverty, well, we're going to help the mother and child. Not remove the child. And this would be even more the case in the late days of the Civil War and the early days of Reconstruction.
 
On page 2, I mentioned zigging and zagging at the right times, and that it takes smart people + good luck.

There may be a better way. If a Reconstruction official just takes medium steps, and then he or she can see what works. And things that work can become best practice throughout the south. You still need to frontload Reconstruction where a lot goes right at the beginning, but you don't need to get so lucky.
 
. . . Iirc Lincoln was on record as expressing relief that Congress would not be in session until December, so that he could get Reconstruction sorted out before they could interfere with it. That sounds as if he was hoping to get it done and dusted asap. . .
I'm glad you brought this up. :) This is one of the more remarkable facts of American history.

Congress was out of session from March 1865 all the way to December.* I'm thinking the most likely reason was war weariness. The idea that they had to wait for the president to call them back into session, to me that sounds like more of an excuse. Certainly not my idea of a co-equal branch of government and I don't think our Constitution is all that clear cut about it. Will try to look it up.

PS Lincoln needs radical Republicans active in Congress so that he can effectively play off of them as a moderate.

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http://www.paperlessarchives.com/civil-war-cogressional-record.html

The 38th Congress adjourned on March 3, 1865.

The new Congress elected in Nov. 1864--the 39th Congress--had a Special Session of the Senate for a week from March 4, 1865 to March 11, 1865. And then adjourned till they reconvened on Dec. 4, 1865 and stayed in session for about eight months.
 
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United States Constitution

Article I

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei

Section 1.
All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

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Section 4.
. . . The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.

Section 5.
. . . Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

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.

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So, Congress has to assemble at least once a year. And neither House can adjourn for more than three days without the consent of the other.
 
United States Constitution

Article II

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii

Section 1.
The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. . .

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Section 3.
. . . he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; . . .

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Yes, the president can call both Houses on extraordinary occasions. But nowhere does it say that Congress can only convene when the president calls them. And in the 1800s when Congress was often viewed ? as preeminent or at least as first among equals, I don't think most people would view it this way.
 
Yes, the president can call both Houses on extraordinary occasions. But nowhere does it say that Congress can only convene when the president calls them. And in the 1800s when Congress was often viewed ? as preeminent or at least as first among equals, I don't think most people would view it this way.

unless they shall by law appoint a different day.


Note the words "by law".

If they want to meet before December, they have to pass a law to that effect, as they were to do in 1867, but which of course they can only do whilst in session. And since the old Congress had expired in March 1865, it was already too late for this to be done.

That's why Congress had to remain recessed until December, however much some of its members might have liked to reconvene sooner to express their disagreements with Andrew Johnson. They could not pass a law to bring this about as they were already recessed, so unless Johnson saw fit to convene them sooner, there was nothing they could do except wait.

If you think otherwise, can I trouble you to clarify how they would do so, who other than the POTUS would have a legal right to convene them, and what law confers that power?.
 
A surviving Lincoln's motivation might come from wanting his Emancipation Proclamation to be a success.


Didn't Grant also want the EP to be a success?

Anyway it was a success, just a less far-reaching one than some radicals would have liked. Despite the convict leasing and other bits of nastiness, most Blacks still had quite a few more rights than in 1861. If you'd asked a Black man in, say, 1920 if he thought he'd be happier living grandpa's old life as a slave, I suspect the answer would have startled one or two chipmunks.
 
Abraham Lincoln, Esq.: The Legal Career of America's Greatest President

Roger Billings and Frank Williams, University Press of Kentucky, 2010.

https://books.google.com/books?id=a...Central) and he regularly sued seven"&f=false

' . . . For example, Lincoln is sometimes identified as a railroad lawyer, but he regularly represented six railroads (including the Illinois Central) and he regularly sued seven. . . '
Maybe shades of Joe Kennedy, Sr. when FDR appointed him to be head of the SEC in 1934! Only someone who knows the ins and outs of the stock market as well as Kennedy could hope to tame it and rationalize it and bring it out into the sunshine. That is, sometimes we precisely do need the fox guarding the chicken coop.

And maybe Lincoln can do something similar regarding railroads.

Yes, this thread is very much a high trajectory Lincoln thread. And absolutely farmers and laborers of modest means have to start getting a better deal, so that the strong majority can focus on what's ahead and not join with the few hardcore types looking for scapegoats and hatred. And Lincoln does it primarily by hiring, promoting, and when necessary firing people. And please remember, he had both Democrats and Republicans on his cabinet. And occasionally, he might also directly coach and bend the curve.
 
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United States Constitution

Article I, Section 4.

http://drexel.edu/ogcr/resources/constitution/articles/article1/

' . . . The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, . . . '

Article II, Section 3.

http://drexel.edu/ogcr/resources/constitution/articles/article2/

' . . . he [the President] may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, . . . '
To me, it's at most a tension between two passages. And I'd still point out that Article I setting up legislative powers is the first, longest, and most detailed Article, and a case can certainly be made that the Constitution intended Congress to be the preeminent branch of government. And this should not be thrown away because of one brief section later in the document.

Yes, the president can convene one or both Houses, although members of Congress need not even consider the matter the president is asking them to consider. But nowhere in this section does it say that Congress cannot also convene itself.

In fact, the section in Article I "shall assemble at least once in every Year" seems a pretty open and free standard, seeming to leave it wide open that Congress can assemble at other times as they see fit.
 
http://www.paperlessarchives.com/civil-war-cogressional-record.html

38th Congress
Special Session of the Senate - March 4, 1863 to March 14, 1863
1st Session - December 7, 1863 to July 4, 1864
2nd Session - December 5, 1864 to March 3, 1865
39th Congress
Special Session of the Senate - March 4, 1865 to March 11, 1865
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39th Congress (cont'd)
1st Session - December 4, 1865 to July 28, 1866
Okay, it looks like the tradition was for a new Congress elected in November to meet for about a one-week session in March and then adjourn and not take up business again until December (!) (!).

Well, traditions can and should change during extraordinary times.
 
Didn't Grant also want the EP [Emancipation Proclamation] to be a success?

Anyway it was a success, just a less far-reaching one than some radicals would have liked. Despite the convict leasing and other bits of nastiness, most Blacks still had quite a few more rights than in 1861. If you'd asked a Black man in, say, 1920 if he thought he'd be happier living grandpa's old life as a slave, I suspect the answer would have startled one or two chipmunks.
I think you've done an excellent job laying out the two sides. Yes, the Civil War and Reconstruction was a success, just not near as much a success as it could have been. :)

And again, a more successful Reconstruction has to involve a growing economy.
 
Okay, it looks like the tradition was for a new Congress elected in November to meet for about a one-week session in March and then adjourn and not take up business again until December (!) (!).

But only the Senate - and only because Lincoln had seen fit to summon it; presumably to confirm any appointments that needed doing. In hindsight, perhaps the most important thing they did was to choose a President Pro-tempore, which could have mattered a great deal had Atzerodt gone ahead and killed Andrew Johnson.


Well, traditions can and should change during extraordinary times.

They have changed.

The 20th Amendment now provides (Section 2) for the new Congress to meet on January 3, again with the stipulation "unless they shall by law appoint a different day". But that wasn't passed until 1933, and it's surely significant that it required an Amendment. That would be quite unnecessary if Congress was free to just assemble whenever it felt like doing so.
 
slaverybyanothername.jpg


The failings of Reconstruction are not trivial.
 
But only the Senate - and only because Lincoln had seen fit to summon it; . . .
I like the fact that we have different views and think the discussion is much richer because of this. :)

Question 1, doesn't this make Congress clearly subordinate to the President and if this wasn't the intent of the framers of the Constitution (and I really don't think it was), why would we take a couple of ambiguous passages and interpret them in a hard way?

To me, "at least once in every year," is a pretty loosey-goosey standard and leaves wide open the possibility that Congress can meet at other times as well.

Question 2 and an analogy: Suppose we are stockholders of a corporation and the by-laws are written exactly the same way, that the board of directors is to meet at least once a year on the first Monday of December unless they by vote change the date, and that the chief executive officer can convene the board in exception circumstances and then there's some scandal.

Let's say there's something with health and safety, and there's the initial kneejerk cover-up of pretty much any organization and the CEO is not handling this well. In fact, he or she is making public statements and making the situation worse. Are we to maintain that the board of directors cannot assemble but must instead just wait pitifully and helplessly on the sidelines?
 
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slaverybyanothername.jpg


The failings of Reconstruction are not trivial.

They were to most white folk in the North.

Keep in mind that the North's objective in the ACW was to restore the Union. Emancipation was a means toward that end, not (save for a few abolitionists) an end in itself. After all, as late as Nov 1864, 45% of Northerners voted for a party whose platform called for a restoration of the Union with slavery preserved. And quite a few even of those who rejected it and voted for Lincoln did so not from any principled objection, but because they suspected (correctly) that it simply wouldn't work - that the Rebs wouldn't accept reunion until compelled by military defeat, no matter what terms they were offered.

Given this attitude, and the speed with which it became clear that the South really had accepted reunion, and wouldn't try secession again in any foreseeable future, the remarkable thing is not that Radical Reconstruction failed, but that it achieved even as much as it did. If the South was reconciled to reunion, then promoting Black rights simply wasn't worth the effort. Note that it wasn't just Rutherford B Hayes and his immediate successors who thought this way. It would be three whole generations before anyone gave the issue any further thought - because that was how long it took before they would have any incentive to do so.
 
I like the fact that we have different views and think the discussion is much richer because of this. :)

Question 1, doesn't this make Congress clearly subordinate to the President and if this wasn't the intent of the framers of the Constitution (and I really don't think it was), why would we take a couple of ambiguous passages and interpret them in a hard way?

How does it make Congress subordinate to the President?

He cannot prevent it meeting in December as mandated by the Constitution. Nor can he dissolve it once it has met. It also has the power to pass a law to provide future meetings at other times, provided it has the necessary votes to (if necessary) override a Presidential veto of such a law. That is exactly what happened in March 1867. In 1865 it didn't because Congress made (afaik) no attempt to pass such a law, and even if they had, could probably not have gathered enough support to push it through against Lincoln's wishes. Had they anticipated the assassination, and the ensuing battle royal with Andrew Johnson, quite possibly they would have done but, lacking a crystal ball, they didn't



To me, "at least once in every year," is a pretty loosey-goosey standard and leaves wide open the possibility that Congress can meet at other times as well.

See above. They did have that power, subject to gathering the necessary votes, until their terms expired in March 1865; but they did not attempt to use it, and once their terms had expired they didn't get another opportunity till December.


Question 2 and an analogy: Suppose we are stockholders of a corporation and the by-laws are written exactly the same way, that the board of directors is to meet at least once a year on the first Monday of December unless they by vote change the date, and that the chief executive officer can convene the board in exception circumstances and then there's some scandal.

Let's say there's something with health and safety, and there's the initial kneejerk cover-up of pretty much any organization and the CEO is not handling this well. In fact, he or she is making public statements and making the situation worse. Are we to maintain that the board of directors cannot assemble but must instead just wait pitifully and helplessly on the sidelines?

It would depend on the corporation's rules. If someone was empowered to call an extraordinary meeting then he might do so. But whom, other than the POTUS, does the Constitution empower to take such a step in regard to Congress?
 
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