American History - Part 116 - A Johnson - Reconstruction - 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments
Channel: ListenAndReadAlong
Date: 26/06/2013

Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.
In March of eighteen sixty-eight, Congress tried to remove President Andrew Johnson from office. But the Senate failed in the effort by one vote. Andrew Johnson was a Democrat. Congress was controlled by radical members of the Republican Party.
Most of the charges at Johnson's trial were based on his dismissal of the secretary of war. A new law said the president could not remove a cabinet officer without Senate approval. Johnson said the law was unconstitutional.
The trial was an important turning point in the making of the nation. Removal from office would have established the idea that the president could serve only with the approval of Congress. The president would have become, in effect, a prime minister, requiring the support of Congress to remain in office. Andrew Johnson's victory kept alive the idea of an independent presidency.
Although Congress failed to remove him, the vote did not end a conflict with the White House over the future of the South. But it did have an effect on efforts to rebuild the South following the war.
Radical Republicans wanted to punish the South for starting the war. They also wanted to be sure new governments in the southern states would support the Republican Party.
This week in our series, Doug Johnson and Frank Oliver tell about the reconstruction of the South.
One way radical Republicans gained support was by helping give blacks the right to vote. They knew former slaves would vote for the party which had freed them.
Another way Republicans kept control in the South was by preventing whites from voting there. They passed a law saying no southerner could vote if he had taken part in the rebellion against the Union.  This prevented the majority of southern whites from voting for Democrats and against Republicans.
Congress also made strong rules about what southern states had to do to re-enter the Union. It said each of the states needed a new constitution that protected the voting rights of all black men. And it said each southern state must approve an amendment to the United States Constitution that gave citizenship to blacks.
The radicals did not rest with changes in the law. They also sent their supporters south to organize blacks for the Republican Party. Many southern whites hated these men from the North. They had a special name for   carpetbaggers.
The name arose because many of the northerners who went south arrived with all their possessions in a carpet handbag. Southerners also had a name for their own people who cooperated with the carpetbaggers. They called them scalawags. Neither name was friendly.
It also is important to note that not everyone in the South was dishonest. The new state governments did many good things.
They built roads and bridges, schools and hospitals. They improved transportation and education. They loaned money to companies to build railroads. Most important, they helped give hope to former slaves. These people were struggling to create a new life in the land of their former owners.
So, the record of reconstruction in the South was mixed. Many southerners believe, even today, that reconstruction was a bitter time of defeat. But others now say this period after the Civil War was a necessary step in creating a different kind of South from the one which had existed before.
Historians do agree that reconstruction changed the United States in several important ways.  One of the most important changes was in the Constitution. Congress passed three historic amendments to the Constitution during this period.
The first was the Thirteenth Amendment. It ended slavery in the United States.
The next was the Fourteenth Amendment.  It said all persons born or naturalized in the United States were citizens of the United States and of the state in which they lived. It said no state could limit the rights of these citizens.
Finally, there was the Fifteenth Amendment.  It said a citizen of the United States could not be prevented from voting because of his color.
The Thirteenth Amendment freed all Negro slaves. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were supposed to protect their rights. These laws alone, however, did not succeed in doing this. It would take another century -- until Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders -- to make these rights a reality.