The Joint Committee on Reconstruction

In December 1865 Congress established the Joint Committee on Reconstruction. The committee’s fifteen members investigated the condition of the postwar South and made recommendations for all reconstruction bills. The agenda of the committee was shaped heavily by Senator Thaddeus Stevens, a Republican who supported Radical Reconstruction, a plan that advocated the complete overhaul of southern society. In the following excerpt from the committee’s report, the majority (Republican) members argue that the South is a separate and conquered nation and therefore is not entitled to congressional representation or constitutional guarantees. This argument had far-reaching implications, the most important of which was that without rights, the southern states could be treated as the Radical Republicans saw fit.

A claim for the immediate admission of Senators and Representatives from the so-called Confederate...