IX CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION WITH the Democratic party divided, 1860 witnessed two rival presidential tickets; as a result of which Abraham Lincoln and the Republican party obtained a decisive victory in the electoral college. The triumph of the Republicans gave the South the pretext that it was seeking. The civil war followed and resulted in the triumph of the Union and the abolition of slavery. On April 16, 1862, slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia by the payment of $993,406.35; and notice having been given, September 22, 1862 of his intention, if those supporting the Richmond government did not return to the Union within one hundred days, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863, declaring all slaves in the seceded States and Territories except in sections in the control of the Union armies henceforth and forever free. The assassination of President Lincoln, April 15, 1865, following so closely upon the Fall of Richmond and the Surrender of Lee at Appomattox, precipitated a long and bitter conflict between Congress and Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's successor in office. April 9, 1866, a Civil Rights Law was enacted, conferring certain fundamental civil rights upon the emancipated race -the right to sue and be sued, to hold property, and to testify in the courts. The States lately in rebellion passed vagrant acts which virtually reenacted many of the objectionable features of the Slave Code, and Congress decided to protect by legislation and constitutional enactments those freed by the sword. The Thirteenth Amendment, constitutionally legalizing emancipation, became a part of the Constitution, December 18, 1865; the Fourteenth Amendment, defining citizenship and declaring all Negroes to be citizens of the United States and of the States in which they reside, became incorporated in the Constitution July 18, 1868. The right of franchise was given the Negro, first in the States that were engaged in rebellion by the Reconstruction Act organizing the seceded States, which passed March 2, 1867, and through the Fifteenth Amendment, preventing any denial of the right of suffrage on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. This amendment was ratified March 30, 1870, and applied to the entire country. With its embodiment in the fundamental law and the restoration of all the States lately in rebellion to their constitutional rights and representation within the Union, the work of reconstruction was supposed to be complete. |