A Brief History of the United States

by John Bach McMaster

1. The end of the Civil War brought up several issues for settlement.

2. Out of the negro problem came the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution.

3. Out of the issue of readmitting the Confederate states into the Union grew a serious quarrel with President Johnson.

4. Congress passed the Reconstruction Act over Johnson's veto (1867), and by 1868 seven states were back in the Union.

5. Johnson's intemperate speeches and his violation of an act of Congress led to his impeachment and trial. He was not convicted.

6. Johnson was succeeded by Grant, in whose administration the remaining Southern states were readmitted to the Union; but the condition of the South, under carpetbag government, became worse than ever, and led to the passage of the Force Act.

7. Our foreign relations after the end of the war are memorable for the purchase of Alaska, the withdrawal of the French from Mexico, the treaty with Great Britain for the settlement of several old issues, the attempt of Grant to purchase Santo Domingo, and the Virginius affair with Spain.

FOOTNOTES

[1] A closely related question was, What shall be done for the negroes set free by the Emancipation Proclamation? During the war, as the Union armies occupied more and more of Confederate territory, the number of freedmen within the lines grew to hundreds of thousands. Many were enlisted as soldiers, others were settled on abandoned or confiscated lands, and societies were organized to aid them. In 1865, however, Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau to care for them. Tracts of confiscated land were set apart to be granted in forty-acre plots, and the bureau was to find the negroes work, establish schools for them, and protect them from injustice.

[2] When the eleven Southern states passed their ordinances of secession, they claimed to be out of the Union. As to this there were in the North three different views. (1) Lincoln held that no state could secede; that the people of the seceding states were insurgents or persons engaged in rebellion; that when the rebellion was crushed in any state, loyal persons could again elect senators and representatives, and thus resume their old relations to the Union. (2) Others held that these states had ceased to exist; that nothing but their territory remained, and that Congress could do what it pleased with this territory. (3) Between these extremes were most of the Republican leaders, who held that these states had lost their rights under the Constitution, and that only Congress could restore them to the Union.