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Reconstruction and 1876: Crash Course US History #22
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Reconstruction The United States from 1865-1877
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THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES in 10 minutes
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The Compromise of 1877 Explained: US History Review
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US History: 1865 to Present
Transcription
Episode 21: Reconstruction Hi, I’m John Green, this is Crash Course U.S. History and huzzah! The Civil War is over! The slaves are free! Huzzah! That one hit me in the head? It’s very dangerous, Crash Course. So when you say, “Don’t aim at a person,” that includes myself? The roller coaster only goes up from here, my friends. Huzzah! Mr. Green, Mr. Green, what about the epic failure of Reconstruction? Oh, right. Stupid Reconstruction always ruining everything intro So after the Civil War ended, the United States had to reintegrate both a formerly slave population and a formerly rebellious population back into the country, which is a challenge that we might’ve met, except Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and we were left with Andrew “I am the Third Worst President Ever” Johnson. I’m sorry, Abe, but you don’t get to be in the show anymore. So, Lincoln’s whole post-war idea was to facilitate reunion and reconciliation, and Andrew Johnson’s guiding Reconstruction principle was that the South never had a right to secede in the first place. Also, because he was himself a Southerner, he resented all the elites in the South who had snubbed him, AND he was also a racist who didn’t think that blacks should have any role in Reconstruction. TRIFECTA! So between 1865 and 1867, the so-called period of Presidential Reconstruction, Johnson appointed provisional governors and ordered them to call state conventions to establish new all-white governments. And in their 100% whiteness and oppression of former slaves, those new governments looked suspiciously like the old confederate governments they had replaced. And what was changing for the former slaves? Well, in some ways, a lot. Like, Fiske and Howard universities were established, as well as many primary and secondary schools, thanks in part to The Freedman’s Bureau, which only lasted until 1870, but had the power to divide up confiscated and abandoned confederate land for former slaves. And this was very important because to most slaves, land ownership was the key to freedom, and many felt like they’d been promised land by the Union Army. Like, General Sherman’s Field Order 15, promised to distribute land in 40 acre plots to former slaves. But that didn’t happen, either through the Freedman’s Bureau or anywhere else. Instead, President Johnson ordered all land returned to its former owners. So the South remained largely agricultural with the same people owning the same land, and in the end, we ended up with sharecropping. Let’s go to the Thought Bubble. The system of sharecropping replaced slavery in many places throughout the South. Landowners would provide housing to the sharecroppers--no, Thought Bubble, not quite that nice. There ya go--also tools and seed, and then the sharecroppers received, get this, a share of their crop--usually between a third and a half, with the price for that harvest often set by the landowner. Freed blacks got to control their work, and plantation owners got a steady workforce that couldn’t easily leave, because they had little opportunity to save money and make the big capital investments in, like, land or tools. By the late 1860s, poor white farmers were sharecropping as well--in fact, by the Great Depression, most sharecroppers were white. And while sharecropping certainly wasn’t slavery, it did result in a quasi-serfdom that tied workers to land they didn’t own--more or less the opposite of Jefferson’s ideal of the small, independent farmer. So, the Republicans in Congress weren’t happy that this reconstructed south looked so much like the pre-Civil War south, so they took the lead in reconstruction after 1867. Radical Republicans felt the war had been fought for equal rights and wanted to see the powers of the national government expanded. Few were as radical as Thaddeus “Tommy Lee Jones” Stephens who wanted to take away land from the Southern planters and give it to the former slaves, but rank-and-file Republicans were radical enough to pass the Civil Rights Bill, which defined persons born in the United States as citizens and established nationwide equality before the law regardless of race. Andrew Johnson immediately vetoed the law, claiming that trying to protect the rights of African Americans amounted to discrimination against white people, which so infuriated Republicans that Congress did something it had never done before in all of American history. They overrode the Presidential veto with a 2/3rds majority and the Civil Rights Act became law. So then Congress really had its dander up and decided to amend the Constitution with the 14th amendment, which defines citizenship, guarantees equal protection, and extends the rights in the Bill of Rights to all the states (sort of). The amendment had almost no Democratic support, but it also didn’t need any, because there were almost no Democrats in Congress on account of how Congress had refused to seat the representatives from the “new” all-white governments that Johnson supported. And that’s how we got the 14th amendment, arguably the most important in the whole Constitution. Thanks, Thought Bubble. Oh, straight to the mystery document today? Alright. The rules here are simple. I guess the author of the Mystery Document and try not to get shocked. Alright let’s see what we’ve got today. Sec. 1. Be it ordained by the police jury of the parish of St. Landry, That no negro shall be allowed to pass within the limits of said parish without special permit in writing from his employer. Sec. 4. . . . Every negro is required to be in the regular service of some white person, or former owner, who shall be held responsible for the conduct of said negro.. Sec. 6. . . . No negro shall be permitted to preach, exhort, or otherwise declaim to congregations of colored people, without a special permission in writing from the president of the police jury. . . . Gee, Stan, I wonder if the President of the Police Jury was white. I actually know this one. It is a Black Code, which was basically legal codes where they just replaced the word “slave” with the word “negro.” And this code shows just how unwilling white governments were to ensure the rights of new, free citizens. I would celebrate not getting shocked, but now I am depressed. So, okay, in 1867, again over Johnson’s veto, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act, which divided the south into 5 military districts and required each state to create a new government, one that included participation of black men. Those new governments had to ratify the 14th amendment if they wanted to get back into the union. Radical Reconstruction had begun. So, in 1868, Andrew Johnson was about as electable in the U.S. as Jefferson Davis, and sure enough he didn’t win. Instead, the 1868 election was won by Republican and former Union general Ulysses S. Grant. But Grant’s margin of victory was small enough that Republicans were like, “Man, we would sure win more elections if black people could vote.” Which is something you hear Republicans say all the time these days. So Congressional Republicans pushed the 15th Amendment, which prohibited states from denying men the right to vote based on race, but not based on gender or literacy or whether your grandfather could vote. So states ended up with a lot of leeway when it came to denying the franchise to African Americans, which of course they did. So here we have the federal government dictating who can vote, and who is and isn’t a citizen of a state, and establishing equality under the law--even local laws. And this is a really big deal in American history, because the national government became, rather than a threat to individual liberty, “the custodian of freedom,” as Radical Republican Charles Sumner put it. So but with this legal protection, former slaves began to exercise their rights. They participated in the political process by direct action, such as staging sit-ins to integrate street-cars, by voting in elections, and by holding office. Most African Americans were Republicans at the time, and because they could vote and were a large part of the population, the Republican party came to dominate politics in the South, just like today, except totally different. Now, Southern mythology about the age of radical Reconstruction is exemplified by Gone with the Wind, which of course tells the story of northern Republican dominance and corruption by southern Republicans. Fortune seeking northern carpetbaggers, seen here, as well as southern turncoat scalawags dominated politics and all of the African American elected leaders were either corrupt or puppets or both. Yeah, well, like the rest of Gone with the Wind, that’s a bit of an oversimplification. There were about 2,000 African Americans who held office during Reconstruction, and the vast majority of them were not corrupt. Consider for example the not-corrupt and amazingly-named Pinckney B.S. Pinchback, who from 1872 to 1873 served very briefly in Louisiana as America’s first black governor. And went on to be a senator and a member of the House of Representatives. By the way, America’s second African American governor, Douglas Wilder of Virginia was elected in 1989. Having African American officeholders was a huge step forward in term of ensuring the rights of African Americans because it meant that there would be black juries and less discrimination in state and local governments when it came to providing basic services. But in the end, Republican governments failed in the South. There were important achievements, especially a school system that, while segregated, did attempt to educate both black and white children. And even more importantly, they created a functioning government where both white and African American citizens could participate. According to one white South Carolina lawyer, “We have gone through one of the most remarkable changes in our relations to each other that has been known, perhaps, in the history of the world.” That’s a little hyperbolic, but we are America after all. (libertage) It’s true that corruption was widespread, but it was in the North, too. I mean, we’re talking about governments. And that’s not why Reconstruction really ended: It ended because 1. things like schools and road repair cost money, which meant taxes, which made Republican governments very unpopular because Americans hate taxes, and 2. White southerners could not accept African Americans exercising basic civil rights, holding office or voting. And for many, the best way to return things to the way they were before reconstruction was through violence. Especially after 1867, much of the violence directed toward African Americans in the South was politically motivated. The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1866 and it quickly became a terrorist organization, targeting Republicans, both black and white, beating and murdering men and women in order to intimidate them and keep them from voting. The worst act of violence was probably the massacre at Colfax, Louisiana where hundreds of former slaves were murdered. And between intimidation and emerging discriminatory voting laws, fewer black men voted, which allowed white Democrats to take control of state governments in the south, and returned white Democratic congressional delegations to Washington. These white southern politicians called themselves “Redeemers” because they claimed to have redeemed the south from northern republican corruption and black rule. Now, it’s likely that the South would have fallen back into Democratic hands eventually, but the process was aided by Northern Republicans losing interest in Reconstruction. In 1873, the U.S. fell into yet another not-quite-Great economic depression and northerners lost the stomach to fight for the rights of black people in the south, which in addition to being hard was expensive. So by 1876 the supporters of reconstruction were in full retreat and the Democrats were resurgent, especially in the south. And this set up one of the most contentious elections in American history. The Democrats nominated New York Governor (and NYU Law School graduate) Samuel Tilden. The Republicans chose Ohio governor (and Kenyon College alumnus) Rutherford B. Hayes. One man who’d gone to Crash Course writer Raoul Meyer’s law school. And another who’d gone to my college, Kenyon. Now, if the election had been based on facial hair, as elections should be, there would’ve been no controversy, but sadly we have an electoral college here in the United States, and in 1876 there were disputed electoral votes in South Carolina, Louisiana, and, of course, Florida. Now you might remember that in these situations, there is a constitutional provision that says Congress should decide the winner, but Congress, shockingly, proved unable to accomplish something. So they appointed a 15 man Electoral Commission--a Super-Committee, if you will. And there were 8 Republicans on that committee and 7 Democrats, so you will never guess who won. Kenyon College’s own Rutherford B. Hayes. Go Lords and Ladies! And yes, that is our mascot. Shut up. Anyway in order to get the Presidency and win the support of the supercommittee, Hayes’ people agreed to cede control of the South to the Democrats and to stop meddling in Southern affairs and also to build a transcontinental railroad through Texas. This is called the Bargain of 1877 because historians are so good at naming things and it basically killed Reconstruction. Without any more federal troops in Southern states and with control of Southern legislatures firmly in the hands of white democrats the states were free to go back to restricting the freedom of black people, which they did. Legislatures passed Jim Crow laws that limited African American’s access to public accommodations and legal protections. States passed laws that took away black people’s right to vote and social and economic mobility among African Americans in the south declined precipitously. However, for a brief moment, the United States was more democratic than it had ever been before. And an entire segment of the population that had no impact on politics before was now allowed to participate. And for the freedmen who lived through it, that was a monumental change, and it would echo down to the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, sometimes called the second reconstruction. But we’re gonna end this episode on a downer, as we are wont to do here at Crash Course US History because I want to point out a lesser-known legacy of Reconstruction. The Reconstruction amendments and laws that were passed granted former slaves political freedom and rights, especially the vote, and that was critical. But to give them what they really wanted and needed, plots of land that would make them economically independent, would have required confiscation, and that violation of property rights was too much for all but the most radical Republicans. And that question of what it really means to be “free” in a system of free market capitalism has proven very complicated indeed. I’ll see you next week. Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller. Our script supervisor is Meredith Danko. The associate producer is Danica Johnson. The show is written by my high school history teacher, Raoul Meyer, and myself. And our graphics team is Thought Café. Every week there’s a new caption for the libertage. You can suggest those in comments where you can also ask questions about today’s video that will be answered by our team of historians. Thank you for watching Crash Course. Don’t forget to subscribe. And as we say in my hometown, don’t forget to be awesome. reconstruction -
Incumbents
Federal government
- Ulysses S. Grant (R-Ohio) (until March 4)
- Rutherford B. Hayes (R-Ohio) (starting March 4)
- vacant (until March 4)
- William A. Wheeler (R-New York) (starting March 4)
- Chief Justice: Morrison Waite (Ohio)
- Speaker of the House of Representatives: Samuel J. Randall (D-Pennsylvania)
- Congress: 44th (until March 4), 45th (starting March 4)
Events
January–March
- January 8 – Indian Wars – Battle of Wolf Mountain: Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry in Montana.
- February 28 – Indian Wars – Agreement of 1877 (19 Stat. 254): Congress annexes Sioux Indian land, including the Black Hills.
- March 2 – In the Compromise of 1877, the U.S. presidential election, 1876 is resolved with the selection of Rutherford B. Hayes as the winner, even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876.
- March 4 – Rutherford B. Hayes was sworn in as the 19th president of the United States, and William A. Wheeler sworn in as the 19th vice president of the United States.
- March 13 – Chester Greenwood patents earmuffs.
April–June
- April 15 – First telephone line installed between Boston and Somerville, Massachusetts.
- May 5 – Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.
- May 6 – Realizing that his people are weakened by cold and hunger, Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.
- May 8 – At Gilmore's Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens (ends May 11).
- June 15 – Henry Ossian Flipper becomes the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy.
- June 17 – Indian Wars – Battle of White Bird Canyon: The Nez Perce defeat the U.S. Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory.
- June 21 – The Molly Maguires are hanged at Carbon County Prison in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
July–September
- July 10 – The then villa of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico formally receives its city charter from the Royal Crown of Spain.
- July 16 – Great Railroad Strike of 1877: Riots by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad railroad workers in Baltimore, Maryland lead to a sympathy strike in Pittsburgh, and a worker's rebellion in St. Louis before U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes calls in the armed forces.
- August 9 – Indian Wars – Battle of Big Hole: Near Big Hole River in Montana, a small band of Nez Percé Indians who refused government orders to move to a reservation, clash with the United States Army. The army loses 29 soldiers and Indians lose 89 warriors in a U.S. Army victory.
- August 17 – Arizona blacksmith F.P. Cahill is fatally wounded by Billy the Kid. Cahill dies the next day, becoming the first person killed by the Kid.
- September – The first meeting of the Knights of Reliance in Lampasas County, Texas, which morphed into the Farmers' Alliance and eventually became the Populist Party.
- September 5 – Indian Wars: Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse is bayoneted by a United States soldier, after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska.
October–December
- October 10 – Following the recovery of Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer's body from where he fell during the Battle of Little Big Horn the previous year, Custer is given a funeral with full military honors and is laid to rest at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
- November 21 – Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record sound, considered Edison's first great invention. Edison demonstrates the device for the first time on November 29.
- November 22 – The first college lacrosse game is played between New York University and Manhattan College.
- December 6 – The Washington Post newspaper first published in D.C.
Ongoing
- Reconstruction era (1865–1877)
- Gilded Age (1869–c. 1896)
- Depression of 1873–79 (1873–1879)
Sport
- September 29 – Boston Red Caps win their First National League Championship
Births
- March 7 – Charles O. Andrews, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1936 to 1946 (died 1946)
- March 9 – Albert Leo Stevens, balloonist (died 1944)
- March 16 – Thomas Wyatt Turner, civil rights activist, biologist and educator; first black person ever to receive a doctorate from Cornell (died 1978)
- April 3 – Karl C. Schuyler, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1932 to 1933 (died 1933)
- April 23 – Charles D. Herron, United States Army general (died 1977)
- May 16 – Joseph M. McCormick, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1919 to 1925 (died 1925)
- May 23 – Grace Ingalls, youngest sister of author Laura Ingalls Wilder (died 1941)
- May 26 (probable date) – Isadora Duncan, dancer (died 1927 in France)
- June 12 – Thomas C. Hart, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1945 to 1946 (died 1971)
- July 1 – Benjamin O. Davis Sr., US Army General. First African-American to rise to the rank of Brigadier General. (died 1970)
- July 2 – Rinaldo Cuneo, artist, "the painter of San Francisco" (died 1939)
- August 10 – Frank Marshall, chess player (died 1944)
- August 15 – Stanley Vestal, historian of the Old West and poet (died 1957)
- August 27 – Lloyd C. Douglas, novelist and pastor (died 1951)
- September 6 – Buddy Bolden, African American jazz cornetist (died 1930)
- October 2 – Carl Hayden, U.S. Senator from Arizona from 1927 to 1969 (died 1972)
- October 13 – Theodore G. Bilbo, Governor of Mississippi from 1928 to 1932 and from 1935 to 1947 and U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1935 to 1947 (died 1947)
- October 31 – Josiah O. Wolcott, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1917 to 1921 (died 1938)
- November 12 – Warren Austin, U.S. Senator from Vermont from 1931 to 1946 (died 1962)
- November 16 – Rice W. Means, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1924 to 1927 (died 1949)
- November 24
- Alben W. Barkley, 35th vice president of the United States from 1949 to 1953 and U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1927 to 1949 and from 1955 to 1956 (died 1956)
- Edward C. Kalbfus, admiral (died 1954)
Deaths
- January 3 – John Joseph Abercrombie, Union Army brigadier general (born 1798)
- January 4 – Cornelius Vanderbilt, entrepreneur (born 1794)
- January 17 – John Pettit, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1853 to 1855 (born 1807)
- June 17 – Daniel D. Pratt, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1869 to 1875 (born 1813)
- July 16 – Samuel McLean, congressman from Montana (born 1826)
- August 28 – Ben DeBar, American actor-manager (born 1812)[1]
- August 29 – Brigham Young, Mormon leader (born 1801)
- August 30 – Raphael Semmes, officer in the Confederate navy during the American Civil War (born 1809)
- September 5 – Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota chief (born 1840-45)
- September 20 – Lewis V. Bogy, U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1873 to 1877 (born 1813)
- October 29 – Nathan Bedford Forrest, Confederate Civil War General, first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan (born 1821)
- November 1 – Oliver P. Morton, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1867 to 1877 (born 1823
See also
References
- ^ "Notable Players of Past and the Present (No. 19): Ben DeBar," New York Clipper, Vol. 58, No. 12, May 7, 1910, p. 310