A History of the American People

this disbarment could be removed by executive pardon-as soon as this was done, normal
government of the states, by the states, could follow.
Initially, Johnson was in a strong position to make this third position prevail. Not only was it
manifestly Lincoln's wish, but he was called on to act alone, since it was against the practice of
the United States political system for a Congress elected in the autumn of 1864 to be summoned
before December 1865, unless by special presidential summons. He had, then, a free hand, but
whether it was wise to exercise it without the closest possible consultation with Congressional
leaders is doubtful. On May 29, 1865 Johnson issued a new proclamation, extending Lincoln's
clemency by excluding from the loyalty oath-taking anyone in the South with property worth less
than $20,000. This was consistent with his general view that the South had been misled by its
plantocracy and that it must be rebuilt by the ordinary people. In the early summer, he appointed
provisional governors for each rebel state, with instructions to restore normalcy as soon as
practicable, provided each state government abolished slavery by its own law, repudiated the
Confederation's debts, and ratified the Thirteenth Amendment. This was quickly done. Every
state found enough conservatives, Whigs, or Unionists, to carry through the program. Every state
amended its constitution to abolish slavery. Most repudiated the Confederate debt. All but
Mississippi and Texas ratified the Thirteenth Amendment. When all, including these two
sluggards, had elected state officials, Johnson felt able to declare the rebellion legally over, in a
proclamation dated April 6, 1866.
The new state governments behaved, in all the circumstances, with energy and sense. But
there was one exception. They made it plain that blacks would not be treated as equal citizens-
would, in fact, be graded as peons, as in some Latin American countries. They had freedom
under the state constitutions, and provisions were made for them to sue and be sued, and to bear
testimony in suits where a black was a party. But intermarriage with whites was banned by law,
and a long series of special offenses were made applicable only to blacks. A list of laws
governing vagrancy was designed to force blacks into semi-servile work, often with their old
masters. Other provisions in effect limited blacks to agricultural labor. These Black Codes varied
from state to state and some were more severe than others; but all had the consequence of
relegating blacks to second-class citizenship. Plantation owners were anxious to get blacks to
work as peons. Local black leaders encouraged them to sell their labor for what it would fetch,
and so make freedom work. This feeling was encouraged by a new kind of federal institution,
called the Freedmen's Bureau, set up under the aegis of the military, which spent a great deal of
bureaucratic time, and immense sums of money, on protecting, helping, and even feeding the
blacks. It was America's first taste of the welfare state, even before it was established by its
European progenitor, Bismarck's Germany. The Bureau adumbrated the countless US federal
agencies which were to engage in social engineering for the population as a whole, from the time
of F. D. Roosevelt until this day. It functioned after a fashion, but it did not encourage blacks to
fend for themselves, and one of the objects of the Black Codes was to supply the incentives to
work which were missing.
All this caused fury among the Northern abolitionist classes and their representatives in
Congress. They were genuinely angry that the Southern blacks were not getting a square deal at
last, and more synthetically so that the Southern whites were not being sufficiently punished.
Most Northerners had no idea how much the South had suffered already; otherwise they might
have been more merciful. Congress had already passed a vengeful Reconstruction Bill in 1864,
but Lincoln had refused to sign it. When Congress finally reassembled in December 1865, it was
apparent that this spirit of revenge was dominant, with Sumner and Stevens whipping it up,