The cause of the war was slavery. We have liberated the slaves. It is our duty to protect
provide for themselves ...The first
them, and provide for them while they are unable to
section orders the confiscation of all the property belonging to the
Confederate State
governments, and the
national government of the Confederate
States of America.the rebel
states had
taken themselves out of the Union when they seceded;
now they should be dealt
with as U.S. territories, hence the division of these lands into 5
districts with military leaders
we have assigned…each government will have to ratify
the proposed 14th
amendment, their
new constitutions approved by the
US congress, and every African American male must be
granted suffrage (the right to vote).
(Four million people have just
been freed from a condition of dependence..kept
systematically in ignorance of all their
rights... Withdraw that protection which suffrage
grants
and leave the African American a prey to the treatment of their former masters, who
will write legal laws and commit illegal crimes that
no one will protect the African American
from...
Source: Thaddeus Stevens March 19, 1867, on
the Radical Reconstruction Plan Reconstruction of
1867 Bill, argument to override President Johnson's Veto