The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

408 Chapter 15 Reconstruction and the South

The committee held public hearings that pro-
duced much evidence of the mistreatment of blacks.
Colonel George A. Custer, stationed in Texas, testi-
fied: “It is of weekly, if not of daily occurrence that
Freedmen are murdered.” The nurse Clara Barton
told a gruesome tale about a pregnant woman who
had been brutally whipped. Others described the
intimidation of blacks by poor whites. The hearings
strengthened the Radicals, who had been claiming all
along that the South was perpetuating slavery under
another name.
President Johnson’s attitude speeded the swing
toward the Radical position. While the hearings were
in progress, Congress passed a bill expanding and
extending the Freedmen’s Bureau, which had been
established in March 1865 to care for refugees. The
bureau, a branch of the war department, was already
exercising considerable coercive and supervisory
power in the South. Now Congress sought to add to
its authority in order to protect the black population.

Although the bill had wide support, Johnson vetoed

it, arguing that it was an unconstitutional extension

of military authority in peacetime. Congress then

passed a Civil Rights Act that, besides declaring

specifically that blacks were citizens of the United

States, denied the states the power to restrict their

rights to testify in court, to make contracts for their

labor, and to hold property. In other words, it put

teeth in the Thirteenth Amendment.

Once again the president refused to go along,

although his veto was sure to drive more moderates

into the arms of the Radicals. On April 9, 1866,

Congress repassed the Civil Rights Act by a two-

thirds majority, the first time in American history that

a major piece of legislation became law over the veto

of a president. This event marked a revolution in the

history of Reconstruction. Thereafter Congress, not

President Johnson, had the upper hand.

In the clash between the president and Congress,

Johnson was his own worst enemy. His language was

After Union troops seized Memphis in 1862, liberated slaves flocked to the city. By 1865, its black population had increased from 3,000 to 20,000.
In May, 1866 racial tensions ignited a riot that killed forty-six blacks and two whites. The slaughter of so many blacks angered Republicans and
weakened Johnson.