EMANCIPATION AND RECONSTRUCTION 1862-1879
This book review of the above-titled book by Michael Perman consists of summaries of each subchapter and my own opinion of his analytical points concerning the reasons for the inherent conflict between presidential and Congressional perspectives on reconstruction and the internal contradictions in the northern policy of Reconstruction.
Chapter One Emancipation, 1862-1865
Prior to the death of Abraham Lincoln, the policy of the Union toward the treatment and eventual emancipation of the black slaves evolved out of the military exigencies of the Civil War rather than any coherent plan. Benjamin Butler skirted the issue by treating fugitive slaves as contraband. In other occupied areas, the military and some northern liberals experimented with various contract labor schemes. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 was adopted as a war measure after other alternatives such as compensation to slaveowners and foreign colonization plans failed and "was a risky move because of its adverse effect on northern morale and the likelihood that it would stiffen southern resistance" (p. 13).
The Union Army was faced with a major refugee problem as 4 million uneducated former slaves, except for a relatively small number who joined the army, milled about aimlessly. Efforts by General William Sherman and some northern liberals to help blacks purchase land failed for lack of funds. The federal Freedmen's Bureau set up by Congress in March 1865 helped provide stop gap legal and educational aid. The plight of freed blacks in the South, however, largely depended on the struggle among the new President, Andrew Johnson, the Congress and southern whites over postwar reconstruction policy on which a consensus was lacking in the spring of 1865.
Neither Lincoln before his assassination nor Johnson wished to impose as harsh a Reconstruction policy as the Republican majority in Congress preferred. While ...