Cornerstones of Georgia History

9. Reconstruction in Georgia

9 Reconstruction in Georgia Between 1861 and 1865 Georgia and ten other Confederate states waged an unsuccessful war against the Union. The defeated rebels, however, were soon relieved to find that President Andrew Johnson expected few fundamental changes. He demanded new state constitutions that eliminated wartime debts, the right of secession, and slavery; otherwise, the conventions were permitted to treat former bondsmen as they pleased. Throughout the region, strict limitswere placed on black freedom. By 1867 Congress rebelled against Johnson's lenient plan. Over the president's veto Republican lawmakers required southern states again to revise their constitutions , this time giving black men the right to vote. In Georgia the 1865 constitution was replaced by that of 1868, written by a Republican convention in which about one-sixth of the delegates were black. To some the 1868 constitution seemed a horrible document that allowed into power people unfit to govern. Others praised the instrument for extending new freedoms to African-Americans. Below the two constitutions are compared in their treatment of slavery, civil liberties , and voting.1 107 The 1865 and 1868 Constitutions A. Slavery 1865: The Government of the United States having, as a war measure, proclaimed all slaves held or owned in this State, emancipated from slavery, and having carried that proclamation into full practical effect, there shall henceforth be, within the State of Georgia, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, save as a punishment for crime, after legal conviction thereof; provided this acquiescence in the action of the Government of the United States is not intended to operate as a relinquishment, waiver, or estoppel of such claim for compensation of loss sustained by reason of the emancipation of his slaves, as any citizen of Georgia may hereafter make upon the justice and magnanimity of that Government . (Art. i, sec. 20) 1868: There shall be within the State of Georgia neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, save as a punishment for crime after legal conviction thereof. (Art. i, sec. 4) B. Legal Status of Erstwhile Slaves 1865: It shall be the duty of the General Assembly at its next session, and there-after as the public welfare may require, to provide by law for the government of free persons of color, or the protection and security of their persons and property, guarding them and the State against any evil that may arise from their sudden emancipation, and prescribing in what cases their testimony shall be admitted in the Courts; for the regulation of their transactions with citizens; for the legalizing of their existing, and the contracting and solemnization of their future marital relations, and connected therewith their rights of inheritance and testamentary capacity; and for the regulation or prohibition of their immigration into this State from other States of the Union, or elsewhere. And further, it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to confer jurisdiction in criminal cases excepted from the exclusive jurisdiction of the Superior Court, and in civil cases whereto free persons of color may be parties. (Art. 2, sec. 5, par. 5) 1868: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and resident in this State, are hereby declared citizens of this state, and no laws shall be made or enforced which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United 108 £T C O R N E R S T O N E S OF G E O R G I A H I S T O R Y States, or of this State, or deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws. And it shall be the duty of the General Assembly, by appropriate legislation, to protect every person in the due enjoyment of the rights, privileges and immunities guaranteed in this section. (Art. i, sec. 2) C. Voting 1865: The electors of members of the General Assembly shall be free white male citizens of this State . . . . (Art. 5, sec. i, par. i) 1868: Every male person born in the United States and every male person who has been naturalized, or who has legally declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States. . . shall be deemed an elector. . . . (Art. 2, sec. 2) Resistance to Reconstruction In April 1868 a coalition of blacks, mountain-countywhites, and others elected a Republican governor, Rufus B. Bullock.The new governorwas interested in more than equal rights for blacks. Republican rule meant debt relief for small...