In this lecture, Professor Blight begins his engagement with Reconstruction. Reconstruction, Blight suggests, might best be understood as an extended referendum on the meaning of the Civil War. Even before the war's end, various constituencies in the North attempted to control the shape of the post-war Reconstruction of the South. In late 1863, President Abraham Lincoln offered his lenient "Ten Percent Plan." Six months later, Congressional Republicans concerned by Lincoln's charity rallied behind the more radical provisions of the Wade-Davis Bill. Despite their struggle for control over Reconstruction, Congressional Radicals and President Lincoln managed to work together on two vital pieces of Reconstruction legislation in the first months of 1865--the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery in the United States, and the Freedmen's Bureau bill.

Reading assignment:

Eric Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction, 1863-1877, chapters 1-4, pp. 1-81

Michael P. Johnson, Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil War, parts 9-10, pp. 268-280 and pp. 307-332

William Gienapp, Civil War and Reconstruction: A Documentary Collection, part 2, pp. 293-316