TheJoint Committee on Reconstruction, also known as theJoint Committee of Fifteen, was ajoint committee of the39th United States Congress that played a major role inReconstruction in the wake of theAmerican Civil War. It was created to "inquire into the condition of the States which formed the so-calledConfederate States of America, and report whether they, or any of them, are entitled to be represented in either house of Congress.”[1]
This committee also drafted theFourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, though the full Congress later made some changes. The committee successfully recommended that Congress refuse to readmitsouthern states to representation in Congress until they ratified the Fourteenth Amendment.[2]
The committee was established on December 13, 1865, after both houses reached agreement on an amended version of a Houseconcurrent resolution introduced byRepresentativeThaddeus Stevens ofPennsylvania to establish a joint committee of 15 members. Stevens andSenatorWilliam P. Fessenden ofMaine served asco-chairmen.[5] The joint committee divided into four subcommittees to hear testimony and gather evidence. The first subcommittee handled Tennessee, the second Virginia and the Carolinas, the third Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas, and the fourth Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. In all, 144 witnesses were called to testify.[6]
The committee's decisions were recorded in its journal, but the journal did not reveal the committee's debates or discussions, which were deliberately kept secret.[7] Once the committee had completed work on the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, several of its members spoke out, including Senator Howard, who gave a long speech to the full Senate in which he presented "in a very succinct way, the views and the motives which influenced that committee, so far as I understand those views and motives."[8]
The joint committee also produced a report after Congress had already given final approval to send the draft Fourteenth Amendment to the states for ratification, and the report was widely disseminated.[9] The report was signed by 12 of the committee's members, and a minority report was signed by the other three: Johnson, Rogers, and Grider. The Joint Committee on Reconstruction was not revived at the next Congress.
Perman, MichaelEmancipation and reconstruction (2003), a synthesis of recent historical literature on emancipation and reconstruction.
Randall, James G.Lincoln the President: Last Full Measure (1955).
Rhodes, James G.History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6. (1920) 1865–72, detailed narrative. Vol 7, 1872–77.
Stampp, Kenneth M.The Era of Reconstruction, 1865–1877 (1967).
Simpson. Brooks D.Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861–1868 (1991).
Trefousse, Hans L.Thaddeus Stevens: Nineteenth-Century Egalitarian (2001).
Trefousse, Hans L.Andrew Johnson: A Biography (1989).
