A number of  politicians in Tennessee vocally criticized the North and the Republican party. U.S. legislation separating the northern territories where slavery was prohibited, they said, was an unjust imposition on states’ rights to decide for themselves the issue, and the Republican party was compounding the issue with usurious taxes on slaveowners and the sanctioning of the Underground Railroad. Nevertheless, Tennessee seceded only reluctantly: it was the last state to leave, the first state to come back to the Union after the Confederate surrender.

On this day, July 24, in 1866 Tennessee became the first Confederate state to reenter the Union. It would be the only one for two years, until 1868 when Arkansas became the second.

Tennessee was quick to outlaw slavery and adopt the 14th Amendment that formally freed all slaves — both preconditions for rejoining the Union. But their regard for the freedmen ended there: Tennesseans strongly resisted measured to extend suffrage to former slaves, as well as other measures to make them equal under the law.