21. Andrew Johnson and the Radicals: A Contest over the Meaning of Reconstruction

The Civil War and Reconstruction (HIST 119)

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.

00:00 - Chapter 1. Introduction to Reconstruction
05:11 - Chapter 2. Reconstruction as a Forum to Understand the Civil War
13:37 - Chapter 3. The Early Debates on Reconstruction and Lincoln's Ten-Percent Plan
24:49 - Chapter 4. The Development of the Wade-Davis Manifesto
36:04 - Chapter 5. The Passing of the 13th Amendment and the Freedmen's Bureau
43:51 - Chapter 6. The Election of Andrew Johnson and Conclusion

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses

This course was recorded in Spring 2008.