Hello, and welcome to another edition of "History In A Nutshell"!

This particular history expose will explore three crucial additions to the U.S. Constitution, which ensured rights for African Americans following the Civil War.

The results of the Civil War put an end to slavery in America once and for all...

So what came next for all the African American Freedmen who were unsure of their futures?

The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments all came about during the Reconstruction period, with the intended purposes of mending the atrocities of slavery, and fixing the social and political inequities many Blacks faced in the U.S.

These Amendments are important, but, unfortunately, they would not be enough to ensure full rights for African Americans.

Throughout the late 19th century, and well into the 20th century, much of the progress gained during the "great experiment of racial democracy" was undone due to political and racial tensions brought about during Reconstruction.

Rights for African Americans, as well as minorities, would not be fully realized until the Civil Rights movement in the 1960's.

Join me as we elaborate on the history of "The Reconstruction Amendments"!

♪ [western music] ♪ Before addressing the Reconstruction Amendments themselves, let's set the stage.

The issue with the "peculiar institution" known as slavery was hotly debated long before the Civil War.

Slavery in the "New World" had been common practice since around the early 17th century.

European settlers in North America preferred African slaves over White indentured servants, since in those days, African slaves were viewed as cheaper, and more plentiful.

Once the North American colonies secured independence from the British monarchy in 1783, the time came for the Founding Fathers to draft a new Constitution.

During the Constitution's development, several questions arose, such as how would slaves be counted in state populations?

and How do we apply the number of slaves to the number of seats a state should proportionately have in the House of Representatives?

Founders from the South argued for slavery due to economic reliance, and racial prejudice; whereas the northern Founders argued that liberty was more important.

Northerners viewed slavery as not only unprofitable, but also linked the oppression of enslaved Africans to their own oppression at the hands of the British.

For the sake of keeping the peace between the states; focusing on the ultimate goal of liberty and independence for the newly founded United States, a compromise was reached.

The "Three Fifths Compromise" agreed that, for the purposes of taxation, and representation in the House of Representatives, only three fifth of a state's slave population would be counted.

Yes, many of the Founding Fathers agreed that slavery was a violation of the spirit of liberty so essential during the American Revolution, however, due to their commitment to private property rights, limited government, and harmony, the Founding Fathers were unwilling to address the issue of slavery.

Slavery in the South experienced a wane after the Revolution, but this wane would be short-lived, for once Eli Whitney invented his famous "Cotton Gin" in 1793, the South's economy skyrocketed in profit.

Whitney's "Gin" made the processing of cotton much easier, and when the north's demand for cotton increased, so too did the South's need for laborers.

Even though the U.S. Congress abolished the International Slave Trade in 1808, the domestic slave trade maintained a steady business.

By the year 1860, the number of slaves in the U.S. had reached around 4 million.

In the years leading up to the Civil War, Americans were split between the economic benefits of slavery, and the constitutional and moral questions slavery raised.

The work many Blacks performed in the south was both brutal and back-breaking.

Many Blacks were repressed and treated harshly, however many in the north were not fully aware of the poor social conditions faced by Blacks in the south.

Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin opened the eyes of many in the north, debunking the myths that Blacks were happy working in the south.

As more news of the south's harsh treatment of slaves made its way north, this, in turn, only fueled the flames for the abolitionist movement.

Three critical legal decisions made in the early 1800's would set America on the path to Civil War.

As America expanded westward, the question arose of whether or not slavery would also spread to new territories?

The first of these legal decisions was the Missouri Compromise in 1820: to maintain the balance between free states and slave states, Missouri was admitted as a slave state, and Maine remained free.

The Missouri Compromise also ruled that slavery would not be allowed in the Louisiana territory north of the 36° 30'‘ latitude line.

In 1854, the Missouri Compromise would be repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which decided that, under "popular sovereignty", settlers in new states would decide for themselves if their state was free, or slave.

This led to the bloody crisis known as "Bleeding Kansas" where anti-slavery and pro-slavery settlers fought each other over the decision.

Three years later in 1857, with the Dred Scott versus Sandford case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all Blacks, free or slave, lacked the rights of citizenship and could not sue in federal court.

The Supreme Court then took a few steps further.

It ruled that Congress overstepped its bounds with the earlier Missouri Compromise, stating that Congress did not have the authority to forbid or abolish slavery in U.S. territories.

"Popular Sovereignty" was also ruled unconstitutional.

This meant that slaves had no legal means of protesting their treatment.

Tensions between north and south reached a boiling point in the years 1859 and 1860.

John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859 caused the deaths of 10 people, and Brown himself was hanged for his crimes.

Brown's insurrection revealed that there was no hiding from the question of slavery any longer.

In the north, John Brown was hailed as a martyr, while in the south, he was vilified as a mass murderer.

Southerners viewed the opposition to slavery as an attack on their livelihoods, and their rights.

The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 would be the straw which broke the camel's back, so to speak.

Now, contrary to popular belief, Abraham Lincoln was not an abolitionist in the traditional sense.

In a debate in Charleston, Illinois in 1858, Lincoln himself admitted, I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the White and Black races...

However, Lincoln did believe that the institution of slavery was morally reprehensible, and that Blacks had the right to improve their conditions in society, and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Lincoln himself had no plan for addressing slavery, however the Republican platform on which he ran was very clear about stopping the spread of slavery into new territories.

The South feared that the Republican party would eventually abolish slavery outright.

11 states seceded from the Union, and from April 1861 to April 1865, the fates of African Americans would be decided in the Civil War.

[random gunfire] ♪[slow fiddle music]♪ The Civil War left the United States in ruins with estimated casualty numbers between 600,000 to 1,000,000.

The Union's victory in the Civil War was a costly one and after General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House in April 1865, the country had a long road ahead to mend the destruction left by the Civil War.

Fixing the country meant more than just rebuilding homes and infrastructure; it also meant reuniting the country and granting African Americans long overdue rights under the Constitution.

President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, freed some slaves in the south but not all.

The proclamation did not apply to border slave states which remained loyal to the Union.

The Emancipation Proclamation was not only the precursor to the Thirteenth Amendment, but also was a military measure.

Thanks to the proclamation, around 200,000 African Americans joined the Union military and their contributions aided in crushing the Confederate rebellion.

The period from 1865 to 1877 is known as the Reconstruction Era.

Many African Americans and former Confederates were unsure of their futures after the Civil War.

Many asked, what will happen to us now?

Right after the Civil War, Washington did not have a clear plan as to what to do with the newly freed African Americans living in the U.S. Only when emancipation was proposed in the Thirteenth Amendment that the abolishment of slavery become national policy.

The Thirteenth Amendment was submitted for state approval in February 1865.

Unfortunately, President Lincoln's assassination on April 15, 1865 prevented him from seeing the Thirteenth Amendment's full ratification.

Slavery was now illegal with the Thirteenth Amendment and the next logical step was to grant African Americans full citizenship rights.

the Fourteenth Amendment began as four separate sections in 1866, but a fifth section was added later on and the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted on July 9, 1868.

The Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship and equal, civil and legal rights to African Americans and slaves who had been emancipated after the American Civil War, including them under the umbrella phrase "all persons born or naturalized in the United States."

The last of the reconstruction amendments was the Fifteenth Amendment, which granted African Americans the right to vote.

The Fifteenth Amendment almost granted women's suffrage, but it instead went to African American suffrage first, since the sentiment at that time was that the nation could not handle two great reforms at once.

Being able to vote and run for congressional positions in U.S. elections were viewed as symbolic to African Americans.

It meant being fully recognized as United States citizens with voices of their own.

With all this monumental legislation and progress, civil rights for African Americans was a done deal, right?

Unfortunately, the answer to that is a hard no.

Resistance at both the state and federal levels created major stumbling blocks for civil rights in the late 1800s and ultimately caused the great experiment in biracial democracy to fail.

So just how bad was this resistance to reconstruction?

Well, let me elaborate.

Following the Civil War, African Americans found themselves subjected to new forms of discrimination, racism and violence, especially in the American South.

One massive debate during reconstruction was, what would happen to all those recently defeated former Confederates?

What would be asked of them before they can be allowed back into the fold of the Union?

The next president after Abraham Lincoln was Andrew Johnson.

While Johnson was no friend to the old southern plantation aristocracy, he really was no friend to African Americans either.

For he believed that Blacks should remain subordinate to Whites.

For the sake of healing the wounds of the Civil War as fast as possible, Johnson issue blanket pardons to former Confederates and believed new state governments in the south should be formed without any federal interference.

Johnson was anxious to protect the livelihoods of poor southern Whites during Reconstruction.

For the results of the Civil War created this competition for social and economic status between poor Whites and Black freedmen.

Andrew Johnson's infamous contempt of freedman angered many in Congress especially radical Republicans who wanted to expand democracy in the south and grant more rights to freedman.

The Republican founded Freedmen's Bureau did what it could to help ease African Americans transition from slavery to freedom, however, southern opposition to Reconstruction further hampered progress.

Southern politicians enacted a series of laws called Black Codes which was basically slavery without the chains.

The Black Codes made it impossible for freedmen to find any other kind of employment outside of field work.

Another system, called sharecropping, was one of the only few ways poor freedmen could make a living.

Blacks were free from slavery but not free from the backbreaking fieldwork.

The north's demand for cotton from the south was still pretty high and northerners we're not going to allow the south to stop growing cotton.

President Andrew Johnson took things a step further by returning plantation lands seized by federal troops during the Civil War back to their original owners.

Yes, President Andrew Johnson is solely responsible for reneging General William Tecumseh Sherman's Special Field Order 15 or as it's more commonly known, "40 Acres and A Mule."

African Americans could not seem to catch a break.

They mainly just wanted to enjoy the fruits of their own labor and be left alone to live their lives.

One condition the federal government placed on former Confederate states in order to be welcomed back into the Union, they must accept the Fourteenth Amendment whether they liked it or not.

Republicans held the sentiment that, if people can be discriminated based on skin color, then is slavery really gone?

This enraged Democrats, so much so that after the Fourteenth Amendment was announced, President Johnson accused Republicans of treason for usurping state power.

Power would ultimately shifted to a Republican majority in the 1866 election.

Republicans now had a bigger say in the course of Reconstruction's history.

The following year in 1867, the Radical Republicans Reconstruction Plan was enacted, which angered many White southern politicians.

The former Confederate states were broken up into five military districts each commanded by a general to administer justice and enforce laws.

Southerners viewed northerners as vicious aggressors coming in to impose their perversion of Black equality and to radically change the southern status quo.

Change in progress would not be easy for the millions of freedmen living in the south.

Many White southerners feared for their livelihoods and southern states turn to enacting bureaucratic legislation and vicious forms of violence to keep Blacks in their place.

Discrimination range from poll taxes, educational tests, and grandfather clauses, to outright violence, such as beatings and lynchings.

Anger in the south was stirred even further at the blatant hypocrisy of Reconstruction policies in the north.

Out of all the states in the north, only five allowed African Americans to vote.

States such as Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania did not.

"Why should we be forced to abide by Reconstruction policies when they aren't tolerated in the north?"

many southerners felt.

The violence towards Blacks in the south became so bad that President Ulysses S. Grant had to take matters into his own hands and declare martial law.

President Grant's crackdowns on White southern vigilantes gave a measure of peace during Reconstruction, but only temporarily.

Widespread government corruption, rumors of Black lawmakers plundering the treasury and the crash of the north's economy known as the panic of 1873 caused sentiments of Reconstruction to change in the north.

After the 1873 crash, White northerners began to sympathize with their southern brotheren and the emergence of the Confederate Lost Cause Movement, a romanticized harkening back to simpler times, began to take hold.

Over time, violence and intimidation against Blacks increased again.

Southern Democrats eventually regained power and northern Whites did nothing to stop it.

In 1877, Reconstruction had officially died and much of the progress made for African American civil rights would be undone.

A back room political compromise was struck.

To solve the disputed results of the 1876 election, Republicans could keep the White House in exchange for their abandonment of Reconstruction policies, thus the era of Jim Crow and segregation was ushered in and Blacks would be treated as second class citizens not receiving full equal rights until almost one hundred years later with the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.

Rights and protections guaranteed in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments would not be fully realized until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

The voting rights act of 1965 granted the right to vote for all citizens regardless of race or gender.