iowa caucuses. livell bring you pre-caucus coverage and take your phone calls and tweets and texts we will take you to a republican caucus on c-span and a democratic caucus on c-span2. catholic university professors stephen west talks about how former slaves experienced freedom after the civil war. he describes the role of the freedmen's bureau an attempt to curtail the freedom of former slaves. west: this is our first class about reconstruction. i want to first go back and talk

about the war. what the war had been fought for. the war from the union's point of view abraham lakin's point of lincoln's point of view was a war reunion. over time the war becomes a war to stamp out slavery. the victories of union armies on the battlefield doesn't in itself resolve either one of those issues. that is what we are going to talk about we talk about reconstruction. giving practical meaning to reunion. the humpty dumpty question have you put the union back together after civil war that has lasted for years? the cost may be 750,000 lives in

total. had he put the union back together? what i want to talk about today is the second of those two issues, the second aim of union policy. destroying slavery. what is that going to mean practically? what is freedom going to mean for 4 million former slaves in the united states? we talk in prior weeks about what slavery was and we talked about in various aspects. it affected every aspect of american life, politics, culture, society. that also talked about is slavery doesn't exist in the tost place as a system oppress african americans. it becomes that. it doesn't exist in the first place because seven slaveowners

have certain distorted notions of the bible although they do. it exists as a system of labor. awaiting it some people to work for other people. the destruction of slavery is mean an practically mai effort to reconstitute the southern economy. on what basis. are you going to restore the plantation system on some basis of free labor question mark or are you going to break up the plantations and redistribute the land to the 4 million former slaves? the lecture is the meanings of freedom. to emphasize the plural. they don't bring the same ideas in the same goals to the table.

in thinking about how these conflicts unfold over the first months or years after the war, we want to think about how to do different visions and goals of the war drive the course of reconstruction. noto that we will look at 1865 we months after will go back into the civil war years. is besttion understood as a moment of something that happens at one time. it is a process that happens over time. i want to go back and think about the first experiences of african americans with some union of free labor under rule. some of the first

encounters between union officials and runaway slaves take place in may of 1861. after fort sumter before the first battle of bull run in the tidewater region of virginia. at fortress munro. do with thoser slaves and ran away? is i ran away? away?t ran he declares in contra of war. but what is they do for butler and his army? >> they do the cooking, they do

the housework. they become: laborers under the employ of the u.s. army. they do the kind of work around onroe at fortress m throughout the theaters of for tens of thousands of former slaves running away the union lines their first experiences with free labor after running away are as laborers for the u.s. army. they do all kinds of work that soldiers themselves don't want to do. this is an image from alexandria virginia. former slaves digging ditches, building stockade fences. this is an image from coastal south carolina in 1862. sense of the variety of laborers that these cont

rabands are doing for the u.s. army. cleanan cook they can they can provide necessities of camp life. , former slaves do other kinds of cleanup. the clean up the battlefields after battles. this is an image from the reinterment of bodies that were buried hastily after battle. they were later dug up to be reburied. you see the image of african-american men doing that work. some of the first work that former slaves do after the moment of their emancipation is armies.for union black men can also work as soldiers for the u.s. army. the congress authorizes the enlistment of black men in the

militia over the course of the civil war. about 200,000 black men will serve the union army and navy. former slaves either from the border states but also from the southern states. experiences ofst these black man, these black soldiers, with their employment by the union army is an experience of discrimination under the militia act of 1862 to get paid less than white soldiers. the pay for union privates is $13 a month. for black soldiers it is $10 a , three dollars of which can be get as a clothing allowance. they really only get seven dollars cash per month. barely half of what white counterparts are getting.

congress corrects that later. we're talking here in many cases about runaway slaves, people that ran away from their owners and in some cases in border states or southern states to the union armies. as generalproblems .enjamin butler understood it they don't necessarily conform to the categories that he wants them to. once the to think of those rabands slaves as cont of war. on the theory that they've been doing labor for the confederate army so he can take them and use them for the union army. this is an image from the peninsula campaign in virginia

in 1862. what strikes you about who is in that photo? the kind of people. >> mostly women and children. west: one of the problems that butler has is that people who run away to his lines are people who hadn't been used by the confederate army but some of the folks who run away are not people that he can employ as laborers in the service of his own army. very young children. a couple of babies. mothers who can be in that but not not way. old people, sick people, disabled people.

people that the union army can't employ in those kind of occupations. what does the government do with them? it tries to concentrate many of camps. contraband what we would think of as refugee camps. one of the more famous although not one of the larger camps here in this image. this was robert e. lee's house. more precisely robert e lee's wife's house. right across the river in virginia what is today arlington national cemetery. early in theaves course of the war and the federal government moves on to ae property and uses it as

headquarters building. they begin burying troops there. 1864 federal government officially takes title to the property. why? robert e. lee lee's wife had paid her taxes. they had to pay them in person. she failed to comply with that. so the government takes over her property in 1864. then we get the beginnings of arlington national cemetery. 1863 the federal government had erected a number of buildings as a so-called contraband camp. , canf the larger buildings

you see what those folks have in their hands? stephen west: they are reading. they have hospitals, schools, churches. this is one of the more high-profile ones the cousin is right outside washington. in september 1863 there are about 900 former slaves on the .roperty living at this camp only about a hundred and 50 those people are people who can work for the room support. what that means is that 750 people unable to work for their support, the government is going to try to impose means by which there can be support the non-workers. the government will provide some and rations to

those of can't support themselves. government policy makers are not really comfortable with this. they don't like it practically because they don't like the expense of operating these camps. they don't like it ideologically because they have preconceptions about people of african descent and what they understand as the idleness, the laziness, the disinclination to work. racist preconceptions. .hey have class preconceptions that middle-class people would have in the northern united states about working people. wayle have to be in some encouraged to work. idleness has to be discouraged. that is why union policymakers worried about these caps. they are expensive and they set a bad precedent.

the concerns that might resonate in the current day. you make free people self-supporting? it is hard to do and in some of these situations because you are working with people who are in the immediate theater of combat. northern virginia is going to be for over repeatedly. you have people in areas that are not the most agriculturally productive. the army and for federal policymakers their efforts to develop rehearsals for reconstruction are going to unfold in other parts of the south and i will talk about a .ouple of those now the blue areas of the areas in the union occupation. vicksburg had not been taken. this has to be prior to mid-summer 1863. even by then some of the most

plantation heavy parts of the south had fallen to union forces. here in beaufort south carolina. the sea islands of south carolina. of 1850 one union naval forces seized the area. this is an area that in many one of the hotbeds of .ecession when the union navy in the union troops move into the area the islands around port royal sound white plantation owners flee. slaves remain behind. probably about 10,000 slaves.

they move into the houses of some of the leading supporters of secession the editor of the charleston mercury and a leading secessionist. they occupy the home of the confederate general. these are plantation heavy areas. some of the richest people in the south lived there. some of the largest slave plantations are in these regions. more than 80% of the population of these islands consists of enslaved people who stay behind. the question is going to be on what basis are they going to work. after the departure of their former owners and after the arrival of u.s. troops. the terminology is a little tricky. are they slaves, when do they become free people?

they begin taking control of the plantations and operating them for themselves. in the spring of 1862 a group of .orthern reformers arrive abolitionists in particular. some of them coming to evangelize and educate former slaves. trying to organize the plantations as businesses. get the cotton economy back up and running. put the former slaves back to work on a free labor basis. over the course of the next couple of years those efforts are going to meet limited success. partially because these northerners as well-intentioned as they were don't actually know that much about growing cotton. the free people on those plantations don't have the same ideas about how those plantations are to be operated as the white plantation

managers. they want not to grow cotton not butuse they hate cotton because they want to focus on economic strategies that are going to benefit their own families. what does that mean? it means growing food. you can't each cotton. eat cotton. former slaves planting sweet potatoes and rice and corn and you can raise livestock to feed yourself. that is a more practical imperative. getting a free labor economy up and running, how to feed yourself. they also want to focus on control of their own time. they want to work and family units. they don't want to work under supervision of white plantation owners whether they are sympathetically minded or not.

these efforts stumble along. the other area is southern louisiana. 1862 new orleans falls to u.s. naval forces and the entirety of southern louisiana comes under the control of union forces. so the louisiana is different. louisiana is sugar country. the politics are different. fathers of secession live on the sea islands in south carolina. in southern louisiana you got a group that in many cases former whigs who had been acquiescent in the

formation of the confederacy. when the union forces come in these people are now reasserting their unionist credentials and they say great, we are back in the united states. slavery has ended. , no way you can take our slaves away. this is before the emancipation proclamation. when abraham lincoln issues the emancipation proclamation, richard hofstadter would say that it has all the moral grandeur of the bill of lading, the receipt you get in the box for amazon. why does he say that? he says that because the emancipation proclamation is at least in part a list of the

places to which applies and to which it doesn't apply. it doesn't apply to southern louisiana. there isber of years this twilight status for slavery. slavery is ending but not yet ended. under the direction of union military commanders planters are workers to pay their and and the use of corporal punishment. planters aren't so happy about that but they are more satisfied in other ways. federal military commanders will issue orders that former slaves have to contract with employers,

that they can't leave the places on which they are contracted to work. their former masters aren't allowed to use corporal punishment any longer the willal military says we take a role and in some ways kind of replace as some critics would say it the old slave patrols. this is an image from a northern newspaper showing federal troops effectively rounding up the former slaves and sending him back to the countryside, to the plantations where they originated. the former slaves in southern louisiana are not particularly happy about this. some of the like more coercive aspects of the military rule and supervision in southern louisiana but they are not entirely satisfied either. this system is well kind of stumbles along during the years

of the war. 1863, 1864, into 1865. what is that mean? does that mean? there are other experiments but these two examples highlight some of the essential aspects. they proceed in the first place on kind of an ad hoc local basis , there is no central direction from washington saying this is how everybody must do this. local military commanders are doing what they think is appropriate and in many cases shaping their policies by their own military and political imperatives. have variety, patchwork of arrangements. have much success in

getting the plantation system to be back up and running on a free labor basis. it didn't work very well on the sea islands of south carolina. it doesn't work very well in southern louisiana. as a precedent for what is going to happen after 1865, these are not really encouraging models. .or union policymakers we get one more model during the war years. i have given you a document about that. in the course of inrman's march to the sea the immediate aftermath of the march. his special field order 15 which i want to talk about. up what isto set going on.

sherman embraces the union policy of destroying the confederate material that could be used in the war effort. both as a means to deny that material to the confederate army it is a way to strike a psychological blow at the confederate population and to convince them that the war is unwinnable. ways is anmany enthusiastic advocate of hard war. not a particular fan of emancipation. he understands its military benefits to the new army. he understands practically white is useful under butler's fairy.and sherman is no abolitionists. he doesn't have this moral

urgency about the issue. ending slavery is not on his agenda. sherman as well is no particular enlistment ofe black soldiers. he is skeptical about the abilities of black men to serve effectively in the union army. he is no friend of african-americans. but under the circumstances of war sherman in some ways becomes a friend. what makes people do things they didn't think they would do. abraham lincoln said in 1861 the civil war was not a war for emancipation but by 1863 it has become that. sometimes revolutionary from annces flow expected sources. sherman is going to be one of those unexpected sources. during the course of his march acrosssea, they disperse

a wide swath of georgia and march through the countryside and they destroy anything of military value. they begin in atlanta and they arrived in savanna on december just before christmas. we talked about sherman's goals and that he hopes to have an effect on the minds of white southerners. these slaves know there is a war going on and they know it has become a war for emancipation. they have their own networks of information. some of them can read and share that information. they hear their masters talking about it. they know what this war is by the fall of 1864. when sherman's army comes marching through this area theyr slaves, still slaves

see liberators. they don't react with terror and trepidation. they react with elation. freedom is on the way. sherman's troops, and they keep going. he is looking to occupy georgia. not looking to occupy georgia. the slaves of what when they see those troops, then they see it marching away. so they do it slaves have done elsewhere. they run away. in other cases they ran to union , to safe union posts locations behind union lines. in this case though slaves are anding after sherman's army trying to keep up with him.

sherman doesn't like this. it is impractical and it is a nuisance for sherman. he wants his men to move fast. the slaves were following the are slowing them down. at a place for ebenezer creek in georgia about 20 miles above savanna these difficulties are going to come together with fatal consequences. one wing of sherman's army crosses the creek. .n pontoon bridges the slaves who been following the army are on the wrong side of the creek. pontoonnt the pronto br bridges. what you do? freedom is leaving, it is on the wrong side of the creek.

many of the slaves go in and try to cross the creek and they drown. the exact numbers, some have said hundreds. people died in pursuit of their withom, trying to keep up sherman's army. is march to the sea overall great for lincoln and the union army. this is not. hundreds of slaves dying. it gets back to washington and gets into the press. comes to visit him in savanna. edwin stanton, the secretary of talk to sherman about the campaign when he moves into the carolinas. he talks to sherman about his treatment of slaves in the area. black menations that are being forced to enlist in the union army. a meeting takes place between stanton and sherman and a group

of black ministers. many of them former slaves. they talk quite poignantly about what they think freedom does and should mean. for black people after emancipation. where theya moment send sherman out of the room. stanton talks to these ministers outside sherman's presence. what happened and what they think of sherman and his conduct of the war. attitude toward african-americans. it is in the way of this, four days later sherman issues his special field order 15. which is one of the documents i asked you to read. what to sherman do here? does sherman do here? what does he declared. ?

julia: here's over a list of freedoms that the blacks have. he goes over that they are able to have land and choose their vocations. base because,tary it goes over the rights that he thinks they should have. john: it intended to go more to he cannot beside, andected to conscription forced military service is set by written orders of the highest authority in the department. they are organized into their own companies and italians.

even though they have certain freedoms where they don't have to be listed, when they are they are in the separate battalions. that is with prior custom. he is responding to complaints that he and his boss, edwin stanton, had gotten. it deals with the question of black enlistment in the union army. what about section three? >> families should begin given given the 40 acres. should be more sympathetic toward the freed slaves. tillable ground, land that can

sustain a family. have any 800to feet of water front and the military law for their protection. john: some kind of inspector has to be there as well. he decides whether or not they have a license to settle on such islander districts and render assistance. agricultural settlement. he's not just giving them ground, also helping them to start it up. west: providing military

regulation and support for system of allocating land to former slaves in the sea islands of south carolina. extendsion that you can think of as far down ass jacksonville, florida. julia: i didn't expect that at all. push fore of lincoln's it. i didn't think it'd even been discussed that they would give homesteads to freed slaves.

that is kind of generous of the union military to give land away. bill: as reconstruction went on serving the army they will be made full-service and of the united states which means voting rights from that point. forward thinking.ith thinki stephen west: it doesn't necessarily mean voting rights you are right that there is a breadth to it. from thethis differ

other union military commanders had done in other places? tom: it is making the slaves more self-sufficient. like any other places the military was directly involved in the cultivation of crops and overseeing the slaves. toe they are more able settle down and be independent of the military as citizens of the united states. the harsherct to impositions that we saw earlier. julia: sherman just want to get them out of his way. give them this land, doing you want. now i have nothing else to do

with you guys. go about your day. pushing them off so he doesn't have to be responsible for them. stephen west: i think that is a great way to put it. kind of a revolutionary consequence flowing from a guy who is not a revolutionary. he is even see himself as any particular friend of african americans. he's trying solve what he sees as a practical problem. he had a practical problem of marching through georgia with thousands of slaves following his army. create thiso sherman reserve as a way of getting people to stop following him. to take some historical pressure off him. is a potentially revolutionary act. earlier efforts to reconstruct the southern economy of the sea islands of south carolina and southern louisiana were all aimed in some way of getting the

plantation system back up and on that basis. what sherman is doing here threatens to destroy the plantation system. take the land of some of the wealthiest slaveowners in the south and give it to former slaves. there is a provision that we didn't talk about in the ii section of the order. whatever will be permitted to reside in this area that he just specified. white person. permitted to reside. what is he doing there? why is he doing it? [no audio]

to post a question a different way, where have we heard before in this class about plans for physically separating white people from black people in a post-slavery order? >> sending black people of liberia as lincoln and talked about. west: we got the idea of separation of black and white persons coming in response to what sherman and stanton had heard in the meeting with the black ministers. similar to but different from colonization. takingation is a way of people of african descent and removing them from the united states to some other territory, to the caribbean, to africa. this is a plan for removing the white people and keeping them out. some of ther slaves best lands available.

potentially revolutionary. during the civil war we saw lincoln strike down a number of his military commanders what he thought they went too far. and histhat with hunter declaration of martial law, he does it with david hunter when he tries to declare slaves free in south carolina earlier in the war. nobody strikes down sherman's special field order 15. what is to happen as a consequence of this. ? sherman realizes that he's pushing right up against the limits of his military authority shall be leftions until congress shall regulate the matter. he is providing temporary possession of these lands, he is not providing permanent ownership.

immediate aftermath, former slaves seize upon the opportunity. thet 10,000 families sees lands in the sherman reserve by june 1865. that is the 40 acres. in a special mules order. but the mules are around. georgias march through now moves toward the carolinas. it is hard on the animals. animals,seizing draft horses and mules, that they can use as they go. getting rid of the lame and the sick and the overworked, free people are able to lay claims to those government mules and nursed him back to health. so they can put them to work.

acresn gives us the 40 and the mule is not in the order but they are there. sherman realizes this will have to be left to be figured out by congress when congress shall regulate those titles. these efforts at wartime experiments free labor during wartime and proceeded in a kind of ad hoc local listing crazy quilt fashion. congressring of 1865 tries to provide some more central direction and regulation but they are going to do it in the way the federal government does. they create a bureaucracy. they create the freedmen's bureau in 1865.

oliver otis howard is appointed to head. the bureau itself has a wide in vague charge. subjects related to the freed slaves. he is a longtime officer and a west point graduate. he did an instructor at west point before the civil war. he is involved in the combat from the beginning of the war through the ending. he ended up in sherman's army by 1864. he'd taken part in the peninsula in the spring and summer of each and 62. one of the things that is frustrating that these photos is that they don't have time stamps on them when you take a picture with your phone today there have timestamps. he is missing his arms so we

know it is after the summer of 1852. he is present at chancellorsville, gettysburg. he is under sherman during the march to the sea. he is appointed to head the freedmen's bureau in may 1865. he issues rules to his subordinates the order that i gave you today. what does howard c? see? what does he imagine the bureau's role to be? shane: making them self-sufficient as possible. every effort will be made to make people self-supporting and

government supplies will only be temporarily issued so that the people can support themselves. stephen west: they're carrying form government concerns about those contraband issues. he wants to wind up the relief as soon as possible. make them self-supporting as soon as possible. he doesn't want the expense for it government as howard sees an bureau is going to have educational role. it oversees some schools in the south but he sees more generally the freedmen bureau job is being to teach both former slaves and former masters about free labor and how that works. works is that people are worked to support themselves. they should not be dependent on the government. what else does howard foresee?

john: they must be free to choose their own employers and pay for their labor. they completely took out any kind of thing to make sure the jobs are getting done right. more based on trust and that it punishing them if they don't do it. stephen west: what is free labor mean? it means you can choose. you can get paid for that work. you'll get whipped to make you to makeget whipped you work. he outlaws acts of cruelty and oppression.

julia: the bureau says the assistant commissioners will declare and protect their as set forth in the proclamations of the president and the laws of congress. stephen west: they are the guarantors of freedom. a proclamation is nice to what to want is practical meaning begin its your freedom. to give practical meaning to that freedom. anything else? he is suggesting that the colonization attempts are no

longer on the table. rather than put them in their own separate community he's going to have them returned to their homes. seemingly interact with others. stephen west: this notion of return. that youmphasize should think of the civil war immediately after the end of combat operations as a society in flux. soldiers are moving around. , hundreds ofy thousands of soldiers are being demobilized. slaves are moving around. these numbers are kind of squishy. historians of estimated that up to 3.5 million slaves in the 1861,erate states in

between 2.5 million and 3 million of them were still slaves in the spring of 1865. they were in areas of the south beyond the military occupation and control. so those slaves are looking for the bureau to give practical meaning to their freedom. they are also moving around the is there trying to put things back together. the owners will force them to move away from their homes. they moved to slaves away from the union lines. they are moving around in large numbers. this is a society in flux. anything else? >> he says freed men are allowed to be legally married.

the idea family will be protected by the bureau. it will be both registered with the government and also a religious ceremony as well. bill: he gave his associate commissioners traditional power because he says in section seven that if the local courts don't give free people their rights under the constitution that the assistant commissioners will take over from those local courts and anything that deals with the free person to give .hem the right to marry

he made them judges. west: we think of the bureau perform at least on a temporary basis some of the notions of as local government. educating some cases. educating some cases. as we learned in kentucky recently, it is county clerks of that register marriages. in and importance of family relations in a document that is talking about economic relations. two are intertwined. he is putting the bureau in charge of whether courts are incapable operating. the localwhere

officials disregard the negroes right to justice. what is he demanding there? equality before the law. equality, not political equality. but civil equality. this is an illustration from some depicting how freedmen's bureau officials themselves saw their role in the south. between mediating whites and blacks, former masters and former slaves. butr hostile to one another they don't necessarily agree with the freedmen's own

definition of freedom and equality and free labor. the final twout documents. think again about the chronology. the bureau is created in march 1865 before lee surrendered at appomattox. howard wasn't appointed until two months later. he issues these regulations. the victory of union armies, union soldiers are going home. they are mustering out. many are leaving the army but others are spreading out to new parts of the south. of 1865 historians estimate there are about a hundred 50,000 u.s. troops throughout the south.

there are about 800 counties the former confederacy. one military unit, usually not a full company, for one or two counties before they had the internal combustion engine. the bureau is under the war department. hisrd himself and many of people are commissioned officers in the military. those men are being appointed and are spreading out throughout the south as well. in the summer of 1865. by the fall of 1865 there are about 300 bureau agents on the ground. they are going there try give practical meaning to freedom. they're going there in some cases to literally stand between hostile groups on the ground. things are moving forward in washington as well. in the summer of 1865 congress

is out of session. they went home in march and they won't reconvene until december. president johnson is setting reconstruction policy. we can talk more about the politics of reconstruction next time. johnson does a couple of things that are important for understanding this issue. one of the things johnson does is he makes plans to set up procedures for establishing provisional governments in the southern states. of his ownovernors and set the process by which the former confederate states rewrite their state constitutions. the other thing he is doing is dealing with the question of the status of matter states but individuals. the loyalty and status of individuals. general proclamation

for amnesty but it doesn't apply to everybody. it doesn't apply to high-ranking confederates and it doesn't apply to rich confederates. it doesn't apply to the wealthy secessionists who had owned those plantations on which thousands of slaves had been in the spring and summer of agency five. that summer johnson begins issuing individual plans. if youer writes back individually ask the president for them. some of those pardons or to the owners of those plantations in the shermans reserved. those people are returning and they want their plantations back. they've come into collision.

johnson says the land must be restored and he sends to deliver the bad news. yes the leave washington and go down to the south and he has to meet with the freedmen. tested tell them of the government's policy is going to be. in response to that meeting howard in october of agency five. they write these letters one to howard himself and one to president johnson. image but it is kind of remarkable that we have the image at all. he had been born a slave on the islands. he is only 23 years old at the time. .e becomes a minister he is part of the committee that is put together

>> what do they want? they were upset that they now promised homestead, and they might be subject again to the will of the people who have oppressed them for the last 20 years or whatever. they want the right to be able to buy their land because they see their land as their home, and they want the right to buy land where they call home. >> yeah. john? >> it seems like once the former owners come back and go to the plantations, they will probably

treat the freed slaves worse than they did when they were slaves. >> is there a document in mind that says that? there? help john out >> partway down on the first except i will do except hisg and the excep price. there, butpart right can't find anything else. >> that's it. i made you guys read a script earlier. this is what a handwritten

version looks like. they are stating the desire for land. explaining and practical terms what it means for them. they are complaining of a broken promise. sherman said we could have this, and you are here to tell us know and we have to give this back.\ they are recalling past abuse of physical violence and slavery and projecting that into the future. the people who treated us that way in the past will never put us in the condition of really freemen with those folks in charge.

there is this notion, right of sacrifice. recall in that first letter that you sacrificed physically for the war, let me take you about sacrifice. they recall of physical violence every day, regular physical violence, as slaves. anything else here? julia? >> back to that paragraph where he explains that he won't forgive those who flawed him. it seems like he is implying a new form of slavery. more than we did before, but it is still slavery in the sense that we are not free. that is how i read it. so what are they rejecting?

the free labor system in the abstract, that howard's and so many northerners, abraham lincoln, valorized? are they rejecting the formerlar masters, masters, who they think will come back and try to administer that labor system here, right? the specificity of the referenced to the place. they don't want just in the land, they want this land because we made this land what it is. there is a specificity of the claim. specific knowledge of the people basic coming back as their future employers as driving them here. the other thing i would point to on their part are there assertions of loyalty. who are you giving the land back to? you giving it back to the people who started this war in the first place. in the second letter there, the

one to president johnson, this is where secession was born and nurtured. this is not just anywhere in the south. this is the crucible of secession. this is where it started. these of the people you want to give land back to. we are the people who fought for the union, and you want to take it away from us. somebody mentioned the language of homesteading. i'm sorry i forgot who it was. anybody want to claim that? they used that language is well, right? they are expressing their ideas about what freedom on a to b, routing it to the material circumstances of land ownership, this particular land, and the kind of lives they want to lead under their own control.

it is rooted in the particular circumstances of slaves, but also the broadly american notions of small farmers wanting to homestead. they are using that language in the federal legislation to refer to the west, applying it locally here. this is what the vision of for formerks like slaves. this is what they want, land and the independence it brings. this is what they fear, renewed form of slavery they would see under the control of their former masters. the last thing i gave you to read today was a section of the south carolina black code. upnson in 1865 sets procedures by which state governments can be reconstituted ratifysouth, supposed to the 13th amendment, south

carolina does. they are supposed to rewrite state constitutions and ban slavery's, south carolina does. south carolina was one of the first states to call new legislature back in th intercession in 1865. participating are in the formation of these new governments. african-americans are not enfranchised. this white only legislature rights and late 1865 these black codes. i warned you in advance that this was sort of numbing in detail, but there's a point. i asked you to pick out what you saw as some of these specifics that were maybe in your eyes revealing what it is to these s that these former slave owners are trying to do.

>> in section 35, i guess, the first one for contracts and services all persons of color who make contracts for service or labor shall be known as servants, and those whom they contract should be known as masters. they goes to the point of that they still think the free people are their slaves. it is the same terminology used under slavery just as under contract. thehey are re-creating language of bound labor. what else? >> what is that? regulations of labor on farms. it is putting much still them being slaves. or in outdoor service, the hours of labor, except on sunday, shall be from sunrise to sunset, which is how they were

told to work when they were on the plantations. i feel like the language is not much different. it is just a piece of legislation. >> they are trying to use the replace someays to master hasority that lost over slave, which is one of the reasons why this is so numbingly long. to xcix, so up perhaps it dawned on these guys that pushing it into triple digits was overkill. regulation, how you have to talk to your boss, who can come and visit you and win, win you can leave and when you can't, the detail, extensive regulations, of the worker relationship here. withare trying to replace the authority of law what they

lost as masters. john? >> on page three, causes of discharge of service. it is literally pretty much spelling out anything that they do wrong, they can get fired for. it doesn't matter if it is willful this obedience, even if is -- it seemst "master" can issue power over them in another way. >> i want to wrap things up. the two other visions of free labor society we have have had it. aremight think that they exaggerating in some of the

language and what they fear will be done to them if they're old masters come back and take control. and say, maybe they knew exactly what was going to happen, right? what about howard? the black code would have confirmed their fears about what former masters think freedom of the look-alike. what about our freedmen's bureau commissioner? what would he think of these regulations? does it meet his standard for regulation of labor? meety respect, does it howard's conditions for free labor? there have to be contracts. how would one of contracts, right? respect, there is some similarity. howard's concerns are about what?

about making free people self-supporting. if you guys were not able to persevere to the end, i urge you to do it. one of the last regulations about vagrancy and idleness, these former slaveholders in are worried about vagrancy and idleness. howard talked about it in general terms. some of it we can certainly understand, people who don't , actors, service performers, fortunetellers, hunters, fishermen's, all vagrants and idlers. maybe some common ground with his views in needing to put people to work, but again, the extensive regulation. it doesn't have any relationship. what about his other standards for free labor?

you have to be paid for your work, agreement freely entered see aboutat do we those in the black code? julia? >> since south carolina freemen canat the -- do, it goes up against they don't want them in artisan jobs. i feel like that is constricting them on what howard once them to do. >> limiting the kind of jobs they have. they will go further and say people can't rent land. paragraph 61, it talks about from servant may part master if there is an instance of unauthorized battery, which

makes me think there is a form of authorized battery. >> under roman numeral l at the top of that page, masters may moderately correct servants under 18 years of age. we can still be your kids. -- beat your kids. a few sections later, adults can't be physically corrected at the whim or will of the master, but they can be taken to a court magistrate, number 53 there. or imposition of fine may be imposed. beaten by judicial authority if you don't perform. corporal punishment is there, they found a way to sneak that in the back door. you're supposed to be paid, but john you pointed to the paragraph about the discharge of servants.

if you quit at any point during the year, you lose all of your wages for the entire year. you start in january, quit in october, you think you get 10 months worth of wages, nope. you get nothing. you have to perform the entire contract. -- think aboutpreserv the perverse incentives to find something. it doesn't meet the kind of rdnimal conditions that howa has put forth. these rules apply to persons of color as they are defined in the language of the statute itself, which means what? it means it doesn't apply to white people. it means they've set up a different judicial system of black persons, which is another violation of equality before law. give me one more minute to wrap things up. this is what our former slave

owners want to do in 1865. the assistant commissioner and south carolina does not like this. the military commander strikes down much of the black code. grant issues in order that no discriminatory law shall be enforced. so, we have made it to the in and of 1865, but things are still up in the air almost a year after the end of combat. the military struck down the slaves,de, former former masters, freeman's bureau officials, all seem to have different ideas of how things ought perceived. congress is going to get into the act. congress had been in recess all through the summer. congress reconvenes in december 18 625, and they will get involved, have different ideas than johnson had, about the political side of reconstruction and some of these issues as

well. that is where we will pick up next time. thank you. >> join us every saturday evening at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern as we join students and college classrooms to hear lectures on topics ranging from the american revolution to 9/11, lectures and history are also available as podcasts. visit our website, podcasts orhistory/ download them from itunes. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] theonday night on communicators, two guess holding differing views on net neutrality. walter mccormick, president and ceo of u.s. telecom, the company that was the first to sue the fcc over its rules on internet service providers, which allow access to all content and applications regardless of the source. and christopher lewis, vice president for government affairs

at public knowledge, who supports the fcc's plan. they are joined by political technology reporter. >> what we objected to was the way in which the sec when about the open internet standards. it adopted them as regulations pursuant to common carrier authority. this is a 19th century form of regulation, originally applied to common carriers like railroads, airlines. it has been repealed for all of those traditional common carriers, and we don't think, and carry regulation is the right form of regulation for the first century internet. >> we are worried about consumers. that is what drives us. gete we want consumers to we also want can, witho to make sure everybody has access to the great opportunities that the internet offers. when you see a two-tier internet

created because of any competitive way, that causes concern. watch the communicators, monday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> the weekend prior to the caucuses, there will be a frenzy of activity across iowa. there are so many candidates on the republican side, three viable candidates on the democratic side. they will have each of them for-five events a day, and what were looking for are those events they give you a sense of what it is like to campaign for the caucuses, because keep in mind that what is key is organization. you need to make sure that those people who support you get to the caucuses, so it will be interesting to see how the candidates are trying to close eal, seller message, and convince those people. what you will see is wall-to-wall coverage on c-span

as these candidates make their final pitches. weekend, live coverage of the presidential candidates in iowa. >> 2015 marked the 150th anniversary of the friedmans bank, incorporated by congress and 1865. avesas for newly freed s in the postwar area. the treasury department host the ceremony to rename the building. this was built on the original site of the friedmans bank. this is about 30 minutes. >> good afternoon. assistant secretary for management here at the treasury department. thank you for being here today. those of you joining us virtually as well.