Quotes from Abraham Lincoln
“General Howard, for the negro to earn a wage, he must be treated as a white man. For a negro to be treated as a white man, he must stand in the way of the white man’s wage.” Letter to Oliver O. Howard
“If this nation is to rebuild, blood, sweat, and tears will be needed. The efforts of both the newly freed and those now questioning their freedom must be relied upon. The internal improvements of the United States must be repaired and built anew.” Speech given upon announcing the Cooperation Proclamation
“To heal this nation, we as a people must be first and foremost, American.”
“Secretary Stanton, if we wish to reunite this nation, we must allocate resources to creating labor.” Letter to Edwin Stanton
“I am of the opinion that man is free to live, work, and pursue freedom within the United States where he chooses. That being said, it is better for men with no desire to grow intellectually to remain within their sphere of origin. The weak minded should remain in the country.” Letter to Schulyer Colfax
“The negro should have the option of remaining in the countryside. Compelling the negroes to migrate to cities of this nation would be cruel and displace them from their family and history.” Conversation with Ulysses S. Grant
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The months of 1865 following the end of the Civil War are often forgotten and neglected, however, understanding these months is crucial to understanding the history of Reconstruction. This period is commonly referred to as "The American Limbo" due to the lack of strong legislation and because of the uncertain direction for the nation. Readmittance of the Southern States, suffrage, and the physical state of Southern infrastructure were all issues that the nation needed to answer.
Though Abraham Lincoln wanted to reunite the United States as quickly as possible, he feared that acting too drastically could result in the nation slipping back into slavery. In July 1865, Lincoln issued an Executive Order that expanded powers of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. The ‘Cooperation Proclamation’ as it came to be known as gave the Bureau the power to purchase and sell land within former Confederate states and gave it the responsibility of repairing and constructing infrastructure that had been damaged or destroyed during the war. As a part of the war department, the Bureau did not require a congressional budgetary bill to utilize it’s expanded power. Though there was some criticism of the proclamation, no political action was taken against it. Attacking Lincoln in July of 1865 was political suicide following the Booth Plot Pardons.
Additionally, Lincoln ordered the Bureau to deal with poor Southern whites and to make land trades with the wealthier Southerners. During The American Limbo, land plots were sold to freedmen and to poor whites. The provisions of land distribution for the Bureau that had originated in Sherman’s Special Field Order 15 were modified by Grant on Lincoln’s orders. The language was altered so that land could be given to a group of “three heads of families” instead of “three respectable negroes, heads of families”. Sherman was angered by the idea that his order had evolved into something that perpetuated race mixing, however, as a good soldier he did not make public statements or even discuss his feelings with other officers.
In practice, trios of black families and trios of white families ended up receiving separate plots of land more often than not. In rare instances, truly desperate white families partnered with black families to sign deeds with the Bureau.
The Bureau had more success in construction projects. With the authority to rebuild infrastructure, the Bureau contracted out projects to private individuals and businesses with the condition that employees were paid the same wage. Contractors attempted to simply hire only white workers but in most cases this proved to be impractical. The contracts that the Bureau awarded were mostly tasks that were the responsibility of slaves prior to emancipation; road maintenance and construction, agricultural work, and more. Many whites viewed the work as beneath themselves, those that did accept the jobs did not number enough so that tasks could be completed on time. Contractors were forced to hire blacks as well as whites.
Initially, contractors still found ways to discriminate. White employees were given titles with added trivial responsibilities so as to pay black employees next to nothing. Violence was threatened upon blacks by their white co-workers so that they would not inform Bureau inspectors of their mistreatment. In response the Bureau grew shrewder and stricter. Contracts were made more specific and complex. When contractors continued to find loopholes, the Bureau began issuing contracts with specific clauses that ruled that white and black employees had to be paid the same wage. Surprise inspections were also instituted and any contract violations were punished severely, often with the revoking of contracts. Eventually, the Southern elites who were purchasing the contracts submitted to the Bureau’s requirements for egalitarian hiring by the end of 1865. With no other sources of income due to the ravages of the war, at least no other sources that provided the same dividends as the Bureau’s contract system, Southern businesses were forced to accept black employees.
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A group of soldiers in the United States Integrated Troops experiment. The soldiers photographed are musicians. It was thought that if an Integrated Troops band could learn to work together, that an example would be set for other soldiers assigned to USIT regiments.
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With Lincoln’s Cooperation Proclamation, the political wings of the United States were required to reassess their goals. The Radical Republicans, in particular, were faced with a conundrum. What was to be the fate of the freedmen? The Radicals were hesitant to allow full suffrage for freedmen. Charles Sumner favored literacy requirements on voters while Thaddeus Stevens believed that unconditional suffrage was a necessary sacrifice to allow African Americans to protect themselves from a resurgence of slavery.
The Radicals were united in their belief that the South needed to be punished for secession. However, by December all Southern states had repealed secession and begrudgingly ratified the 13th Amendment in step with Lincoln’s Ten Percent Proclamation. Additionally, the moderate Republicans stood firmly with Lincoln. After internal struggles, Stevens and Sumner finally came to agree to devote the efforts of the Radicals to settling the issue of Suffrage and protecting the rights of blacks. Attacking the moderates (and by extension Lincoln) would lead to a decline in popularity for the Radical wing. By December, they agreed to implement Sumner’s literacy test proposals. Literacy tests, with stipulations that they be the same for both races, would be easier to implement with the amount of influence the Radicals had. Additionally, Stevens grew less concerned about a regression into slavery as the Freedmen’s Bureau became more powerful.
The Democrats experienced their own limbo in 1865. The growing power of the Freedmen’s Bureau served as a threat to Democrats and middle and upper-class Southerners. The Bureau provided another form of acquiring land for poor whites that was independent of the upper class’s prices. It was feared that poor whites, with more agency thanks to the Federal Government, would shift their loyalties to Republicans. However, it was feared that completely neutering the Freedmen’s Bureau would lead to civil unrest and rioting as the War Department was one of the few pillars of stability within the South. Taking away the organization that was providing the poor with work, land, and normalcy. Limbo in the South was also far more chaotic than in the North. Respected Southerners gave contradicting speeches consecutively, one day blaming the Southern Upper classes for the failure of the rebellion and the next day singing the praises of the Planters. Poor Southerners worked enthusiastically beside freedmen while acting upon and expressing white supremacist views outside of the work environment. Jefferson Davis had disappeared. By the end of 1865, the Democrats realized that they needed to provide, or at least appear to provide, services to the poor if they wished to uproot the Freedmen’s Bureau.
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Excerpt of ‘From Traitor to Patriot: The Life and Legacy of Governor John Wilkes Booth’
After his pardon, John Wilkes Booth faced a crisis. He’d been forgiven by a tyrant. Booth went into his own Limbo. Nearly everywhere he went in public he was received with boos, jeers, and even thrown objects. The hatred was too much for Booth resulting in his turn to the bottle. He became disheveled and unrecognizable. He wandered the cities, drinking away his money and his life. He could find no work nor any ally.
OOC: Thanks to
@Md139115 and
@Mikestone8 for providing ideas and critique.
OOC2: It's been a while. This post has been updated with a little more detail.