RECONSTRUCTION 1863-1877
Learning Objective I: Discuss the two constitutional theories that evolved around the question of Reconstruction.
Supplementary Material
LO I Recorded Lecture
LO I Notes
This theory, though vigorously opposed by the Radical Republican leaders, received judicial support in the Supreme Court case of Texas v. White (1869) when Chief Justice Chase, speaking for the majority, stated:
"The Constitution, in all of its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States.... Considered, therefore, as transactions under the Constitution, the ordinance of secession... and all the acts of her legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law. The obligations of the State, as a member of the Union, remained perfect and unimpaired. It certainly follows that the State did not cease to be a State, nor her citizens to be citizens of the Union. If this were otherwise, the State must have become foreign, and her citizens foreigners. The war must have ceased to be a war for the suppression of rebellion, and must have become a war for conquest and subjugation .... Our conclusion therefore is, that Texas continued to be a State, and a State of the Union."
Constitutional Controversy (2):
Rival Reconstruction Plans
Plan | Ten Percent Plan | Wade-Davis Bill | Johnson Plan | Reconstruction Act |
Proposed by |
President Lincoln 1863 |
Radical Republicans 1864 |
PresdientJohnson 1865 |
Radical Republicans 1867 |
Conditions for former Confederate States to Rejoin Union
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