The war ended when General Grant and General Lee signed the terms of surrender at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. Some historians argue that the ‘Reconstruction’ began somewhat earlier, in those regions of the Democrat territory that had already been taken over or occupied by the Republicans.
The Reconstruction is generally thought to have ended around 1877, but again, that date is subject to some interpretation.
The Reconstruction marks a transition: the conflict about slavery was fought with military weapons during the war; after the war, the conflict continued, but not as a military conflict. Before, during, and after the war, the Democratic Party supported slavery.
The Republican Party was created for the purpose of ending slavery. The Democrats felt angry and humiliated that the Republican Party had succeeded in its goal. The Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, had freed the slaves by signing his Emancipation Proclamation, and the Republicans had supported the Union Army to ensure that the slaves were freed.
There were people who voted for the Democratic Party both in the northern states and in the southern states. In the North, the Democrats were in the minority; in the South, they were in the majority. During the Civil War, the Democrats in the northern states were in communication with the Democrats in the southern states. Their continuous goal was to maintain slavery. After the war, their goal was to restore and renew slavery.
Likewise, the Republican voters in the North were the majority, but in the South they were a minority. Because the Republicans had dedicated themselves to ending slavery, the Republican voters in the South — although they were in the minority — carried out sabotage operations to undermine the Democratic Party’s war effort.
After the war, the Republicans worked to solidify the end of slavery, by passing the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. These amendments to the Constitution guaranteed civil rights for African-Americans. The Democratic Party opposed these amendments furiously.
Historian Dinesh D’Souza explains that, given the nature of political events before, during, and after the Civil War, it is clear that events “blame the conflict mostly on” the Democratic Party, and further blame the Democratic Party “again for the postbellum resistance to” the efforts of Reconstruction. Looking at the leadership of the Confederate States of America, “the Democratic Party affiliation of the Confederates” is clear.
The President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, was a member of the Democratic Party, as was his vice-president, Alexander Stephens. But support for slavery was not limited to the Democratic Party in the southern states.
In the northern states, the words and actions of elected officials, party officials, and ordinary voters show “the role of the Northern Democrats in upholding slavery before and during the Civil War, and then reestablishing a form of neo-slavery in the South after the war.” Not only was the Democratic Party composed of “apologists for slavery,” but Democrats established the system of sharecropping as way to push African-Americans back down into an inferior status.
“The Civil War arose” because of a conflict between two political parties. The basis of the war was “a bitter struggle between a Republican Party that sought to block the spread of slavery and a Democratic Party North and South that sought to continue it.” It was “the role of the Northern Democrats, even during the war, to undermine the Union war effort, to force a peace treaty with the South and to give slavery a permanent place in America’s future.”
The Democratic Party, before, during, and after the Civil War, was united in its desire to preserve and promote slavery. In the first few years of postwar peace,
the Northern Democrats attempted to block the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and worked closely with the Southern Democrats to defeat Reconstruction, which was a Republican project to create multicultural democracy in America. Instead the Democrats deplyed a new weapon, racial terrorism, to disperse white Republicans, subjugate blacks, and reestablish their political hegemony in the South.
After the Civil War, leaders in the Democratic Party asked the rhetorical question, “What did we go to war for, but to protect our property?” The famous Democrats who’d argued heatedly for slavery before and during war continued to be the leaders of their political party after the war. Alexander Stephens, one of the first to use this rhetorical question, was the Vice President of the Confederate States of America during the war, and cheerfully nominated by the Democratic Party to run for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives.
Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, influenced policy inside the Democratic Party during the postwar years, giving speeches and writing books.
Although the Republican Party had the majority of voters in the northern states, there were still a significant number of Democrats in the North, and they continued to agitate for slavery during and after the war. Before the war began, President Lincoln, as a leader in the Republican Party, wrote to a leader in the Democrat party:
You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.
It is no surprise that the Democrats in the South supported slavery. It is shocking to learn that the Democrats in the North supported slavery, and did so long after the Civil War ended. The Republican Party had been created for the purpose of ending slavery, and the Democrats were angry that the Republicans had succeeded. Regarding the words quoted above from Lincoln’s letter, Dinesh D’Souza writes:
Lincoln was not actually distinguishing the positions of the North versus the South. The North certainly did not unanimously share the view that slavery was wrong. Only Republicans in the North held that position. Democrats in the North — Stephen Douglas notably among them — emphatically rejected that view. Northern Democrats led by Douglas contested the 1860 election against Lincoln on the basis of that disagreement.
The Reconstruction Era was a struggle between the Democrats and the Republicans. The Reconstruction Era was simply a continuation of the war, which had been a conflict between the two parties.
