The pair dodged authorities who sought to return them to their employer and worked as itinerate tailors. The boys later returned home, and the family moved to Greeneville, Tennessee. In a short time, Johnson established a very successful tailoring business and married Eliza McCardle in She encouraged him in his self-education and counseled him on business investments.
Eliza suffered from tuberculosis, but remained a constant supporter of Johnson through their year marriage. Johnson took a strong interest in politics, and his tailor shop became a haven for political discussion. He gained the support of the local working class and became their strong advocate. He was elected alderman in , and was elected mayor of Greeneville five years later.
After the Nat Turner Rebellion, Tennessee adopted a new state constitution with a provision to disenfranchise free Black people. Johnson supported the provision and campaigned around the state for its ratification, giving him wide exposure. In , Johnson won a seat in the Tennessee state legislature.
He identified himself with the Democratic policies of Andrew Jackson , advocating for the poor and being opposed to non-essential government spending. He was also a strong anti-abolitionist and a promoter of states' rights, while still being an unqualified supporter of the Union.
He joined a new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, declaring that slavery was essential to the preservation of the Union.
This was a slight departure from his fellow Southerners, who were beginning to speak of separation if slavery was abolished. During his fifth and final term in Congress, the Whig party was gaining ground in Tennessee, and Johnson saw that his chances for a sixth term were slim. In , Johnson was elected governor of Tennessee. During his two terms, he tried to promote his fiscally conservative, populist views, but found the experience frustrating, as the governor's constitutional powers were limited to giving suggestions to the legislature, with no veto power.
He made the most of his position by giving important appointments to political allies. As the election neared, Johnson briefly considered a run for the presidency, but felt he didn't have quite the national exposure he needed.
He decided to instead run for a seat in the U. Even though his party controlled the legislature, the campaign was difficult.
Many Democratic leaders disapproved of his populist views. However, the Tennessee legislature did elect him, and the reaction by the opposition press was immediate and scathing. The Richmond Whig referred to Johnson as "the vilest radical and most unscrupulous demagogue in the Union.
As senator, Johnson introduced the Homestead Act, a bill he had promoted while a congressman. Members of the old Southern elite, including many who had served in the Confederate government and army, returned to power. The new legislatures passed the Black Codes, severely limiting the former slaves' legal rights and economic options so as to force them to return to the plantations as dependent laborers.
Some states limited the occupations open to blacks. None allowed any blacks to vote, or provided public funds for their education. Read the Mississippi Black Code Simpson explains what was politically possible at a time when federal authority and presidential power were more limited than they are now.
He compares these four leaders' handling of similar challenges—such as the retention of political support and the need to build a Southern base for their policies—in different ways and under different circumstances, and he discusses both their use of executive power and the impact of their personal beliefs on their actions. Hayes—in the context of their times and illuminates the difficult and complex task they faced.
Simpson has a fine sense of the politics of the age, an age where the demands of politics propelled policy making profoundly. A very accessible perspective on a complicated, even intractable, episode in American history that highlights the differences in each man's policies and styles of leadership. The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations targeted local Republican leaders, white and Black, and other African Americans who challenged white authority.
Though federal legislation passed during the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant in took aim at the Klan and others who attempted to interfere with Black suffrage and other political rights, white supremacy gradually reasserted its hold on the South after the early s as support for Reconstruction waned.
Racism was still a potent force in both South and North, and Republicans became more conservative and less egalitarian as the decade continued.
In —after an economic depression plunged much of the South into poverty—the Democratic Party won control of the House of Representatives for the first time since the Civil War. When Democrats waged a campaign of violence to take control of Mississippi in , Grant refused to send federal troops, marking the end of federal support for Reconstruction-era state governments in the South.
In the contested presidential election that year, Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes reached a compromise with Democrats in Congress: In exchange for certification of his election, he acknowledged Democratic control of the entire South.
A century later, the legacy of Reconstruction would be revived during the civil rights movement of the s, as African Americans fought for the political, economic and social equality that had long been denied them. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.
One of the most important aspects of Reconstruction was the active participation of African Americans including thousands of formerly enslaved people in the political, economic and social life of the South. The era was to a great extent defined by their quest for autonomy and Between and , the U.
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