RECONSTRUCTION

AFTER THE WAR

North

• Economic Boom• Beginnings of the

Guilded Age• Often blamed the

south for its own slow recovery (forgot about Sherman)• Federal govt is

supreme.

South

• The union had destroyed the Railroads, Factories, and Plantations

• The South counted for only 12% of the nations total wealth

• ¼ of men 20 to 40 were killed in war

• 3 million newly freed slaves without homes or jobs

COLUMBIA, SC

CHARLESTOWN, SC

RICHMOND, VATHE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL

RICHMOND, VA

ATLANTA, GA

MARIETTA

ISSUES OF RECONSTRUCTION

•How will Southern States rejoin the Union?•How will the Southern economy be rebuilt?•What rights will African Americans have?

LINCOLN’S PLAN

• Lincoln wanted the southern states to be able to return easily & without bitterness• 1863 – Proclamation of Amnesty &

Reconstruction (the 10% Plan)• States could set up a government when 10% of their

people had signed an oath of loyalty to the Union• States could send representatives to Congress if their

constitution abolished slavery & provided for education of African Americans

LINCOLN’S PLAN

• Lincoln was willing to grant pardons to Southerners & pay them for property lost in the war• He did NOT insist that African Americans be given

political equality (the right to vote)• Lincoln’s view was that the Union was

unbreakable & the Southern states had never ceded• Members of Lincoln’s own party wanted much

stricter conditions for the Southerners

Wait Abe! Not so fast! You are being too easy on the South!

Henry DavisBenjamin Wade

THE “RADICAL REPUBLICANS”

• They considered the Confederates criminals for enslaving other humans & starting a war• Wade-Davis Bill, 1864• Required a majority of Southerners to sign an oath of

loyalty before states could set up a government• Only Southerners that swore they had never supported

the Confederacy could vote or hold office• Full citizenship for former slaves, including the right to

vote• Protections for African American equality• Wanted to confiscate land in the South & redistribute it to

the freed blacks

BUREAU OF REFUGEES, FREEDMEN, & ABANDONED LANDS

• Part of the Radical Republican plan that Lincoln DID support (created a few weeks before his death)

• Set a precedent of African Americans having legal rights

• Provided food, clothing, healthcare, & education to both blacks & whites in the South

• Help reunite families separated by slavery

• Negotiated contracts between African Americans & land owners

LINCOLN ASSASSINATED!

• Southerner John Wilkes Booth sneaks into Lincoln’s box & shoots him

• April 14, 1865- Lincoln goes to a play at Ford’s Theater (5 days after war over)

JOHNSON’S RECONSTRUCTION PLAN

• Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s VP, became President• Democrat• Stubborn• Former slave owner

• Like Lincoln, he wanted the Southern states readmitted into the Union as soon as possible• Pardon’s for any Southerner that

swore an oath of loyalty to the Union & the Constitution

• Required returning states to ratify the 13th Amendment & abolish slavery in their state constitutions

JOHNSON’S RECONSTRUCTION PLAN

• BUT…• He hated the Southern plantation owners (the planter

class) & required that they write him personally to ask for pardon

• Did not support voting rights for Blacks, instead letting the states decided whether to give them that right• He pardons 7,000 former confederate leaders by 1866, upsetting radical republicans

• Result: By Dec. 1865, most states had met these conditions, but they were free to limit the rights of African-Americans

THE BLACK CODES

• Some states specifically wrote constitutions that limited voting rights to white men• Some even sent former Confederate officers to

Congress• All passed Black Codes, laws that limit the rights,

freedoms, & opportunities of African Americans• Could only work as farm laborers

or servants• Could not own land• Could be arrested & sent to

prison if they did not have a job

• Used violence & intimidation to enforce the Black Codes

CONGRESS RESPONDS

• Southern representatives sent to Congress were not allowed to take their seats

• Created a committee to investigate the treatment of Blacks in the South• Radical Republicans insisted that the Federal Government

had to get involved to insure the rights of African Americans• Johnson disagreed

• Civil Rights Act of 1866 would have protected the rights of African Americans & overridden the Black Codes• Johnson vetoed it• Congress overrode the veto (1st time ever)

RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION

• 14th Amendment gave African Americans equal protections under the law• It also barred Confederate officers from holding federal or

state offices

RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION

• Military Reconstruction Act of 1867• Divided the 10 southern states not yet readmitted into

the Union into military districts governed by a Union general• Voters had to elect delegates to write the state constitution

• Had to protect African American voting rights

• Had to ratify the 14th Amendment

• Only THEN it could be readmitted into the Union

CONGRESS VS. JOHNSON

• Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act• Senate approval to remove

certain officials from office, including members of the President’s Cabinet

• Johnson tried to fire his Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, Radical Republican

• Stanton barricaded himself in his office for two months

CONGRESS VS. JOHNSON

• Congress voted to impeach (charge him with wrongdoing in office) for trying to fire Stanton

• Failed by one vote in the Senate

• Moderate Republicans didn’t want to set the precedent of Congress removing a President they didn’t like

• Johnson agreed to enforce the Reconstruction Acts

ELECTION OF 1868

Ulysses S. Grant Vs. Horatio Seymour (Republican) (Democrat)

• Former Union general Ulysses S. Grant is elected President• Won by electoral vote, but his opponent got the majority of the

white vote• Even more important now to get an Amendment to secure black

suffrage

THE 15TH AMENDMENT

• 1869 – Congress passed the 15th Amendment• No one could be denied the right to vote based on race,

color, or previous condition of servitude• Southern states could still exclude African Americans

based on literacy & property ownership

CARPETBAGGERS & SCALAWAGS

• Northern Republicans who moved to the post war south . Most were honest educated men. They included:• Former Union soldiers• Black northerners• Freedman’s Bureau officials• Businessmen• Clergy• Political Leaders

• A white southern who was Republican. Many, but not all, were poor

CARPETBAGGERS & SCALAWAGS

• They came for:• Economic or political

opportunity• To improve the lives of

freedmen

• Southern whites saw it as an invasion of opportunists taking advantage of the South’s weakened state

SUCCESSES & FAILURES OF RECONSTRUCTION

• African American males can now vote, but not women

• New opportunities for women in education, nursing, & relief agencies

• Public Schools in South• But segregated schools, paying for 2 separate school

systems strained economy• Many southerners are still illiterate

• Quality of medical care, housing and economic production were behind the north

• Political office was becoming a route to power & wealth rather than the result of it (corruption)• Particularly true in the growing railroad industry

BEFORE FREEING OF THE SLAVES

• Before the Civil War slaves lived in huts grouped together behind the plantation owner's house.

PLANTATION AFTER THE CIVIL WAR

• How is this plantation different?

• Panel 1• Who does “Big Daddy”

represent and who are the two smaller men?

• What differences are shown in the house and the size of the property for the men?

• How much cotton has been produced and by whom?

• Panel 2• Why have each of the

sharecroppers given Big Daddy a bale of cotton?

• Panel 3• What else does Big Daddy

own?• How are the sharecropper

paying for their debts to the store?

• Panel 4• Who comes out ahead in

this sharecropping arrangement

SOUTHERN LAND ISSUES

• Sharecropping: A family would farm some portion of a planters land as payment, the family was promised a share of the crop at harvest time, generally one third or one half. The planter usually furnished housing.

SOUTHERN LAND ISSUES

• Share-tenancy• Like share-cropping, but

instead the farm worker chose the crop and bought his own supplies

• Tenant farming• The tenant farmer did not

own the land they farmed. The tenant farmer paid rent for the farm. They were able to choose what to plant and when to work.

KU KLUX KLAN

• Organization which intimidated and terrorized African Americans and white republican supporters.• Their main goal: STOP AFRICAN AMERICANS AND

REPUBLICANS FROM VOTING !!• The Klan roamed the countryside, especially at

night. They burned homes, schools, & churches

ENFORCEMENT ACTS OF 1870 & 1871

• Sometimes called the Ku Klux Klan Acts.• The Acts made it a federal offense to interfere with a

citizen’s right to vote.

MAJOR RECONSTRUCTION LEGISLATION

GRANT’S CORRUPT REIGN

• Popular war hero, but disappointing president• Gave high level offices to friends

who used them to get rich• His own VP, Schuyler Colfax,

schemed to steal Union-Pacific Railroad profit

• Grant’s Brother-in-law• Schemed to corner the gold market

LIBERAL REPUBLICANS

• Reform-minded Republicans who pulled out when Grant ran for reelection in 1872• Wanted:• Civil service reform• Removal of the army from the

south• End to corruption in politics• Horace Greeley (NY Tribune

editor)

ATMOSPHERE OF GREED

• Grant swore to root out the corruption, but didn’t• Local scandals

everywhere• The worst was a band of NYC

Democrats that stole millions from the city treasury

• Group leader William “Boss” Tweed was convicted & sent to prison

• Public confidence in leaders was LOW

THE END OF RECONSTRUCTION

• All of this was made even worse by a severe economic downturn in the North• Nation-wide bank failures, job losses, & economic

uncertainty• Now it wasn’t just the South that was in trouble• To cut costs• U.S. pulls troops out of the south• Freedmen’s Bureau dissolved to cut costs (blacks lose

legal representation)

• Bottom line: The North was too distracted to keep pressure on the South to reform

SUPREME COURT CHIPS AWAY AT BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS

• 13th, 14th, & 15th Amendments had to be interpreted by the Court in specific cases• Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)• Limited the scope of 14th Amendment rights by leaving it

to the states to decide how those rights are defined within their borders

• U.S. vs. Cruikshank• A large group of blacks were killed by a white mob at a

political rally• Court ruled that the 14th Amendment applied to actions

of the state, not private citizens

REDEEMERS

• A coalition of Southern Democrats & Republicans politicians who aimed to repair or “redeem” the South in the eyes of Congress• Reclaim the South from Northern

domination• Return political power in the South to

white men• Racial Segregation should be the rule of

the new South

• Result:• Radical Republicans lose control in the

House of Representatives in 1874 elections

• White Southerners vote in Democratic Representatives

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1876

• On January 25, 1877, Congress determined the presidential election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden• Tilden won the popular vote but lost through the

Compromise of 1877

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1876

COMPROMISE OF 1877

• Hayes was elected President• Federal troop were to be withdrawn from

southern states• A southerner was appointed to a powerful

cabinet position• Southern states were given federal

subsidies toward railroads and ports

REPUBLICANS BRING CHANGE

• Many African Americans gain political power in local, state, and federal levels• School superintendents, sheriffs, mayors, Congressmen

• Many African American republicans use their new voting rights to control the government’s of their states

WHY DID RECONSTRUCTION END?

• Northern support ends• Cost of military support in south worried many• Freedmen’s Bureau dissolved

• Supreme Court cases prevented true equality• Southern whites gain power through intimidation

RECONSTRUCTION EFFECTS

OPEN NOTES QUIZ

1. What were the 3 major issues to be resolved in the Reconstruction?

2. What were the provisions of Lincoln’s Plan for the Reconstruction?

3. What group opposed this & on what grounds?4. Describe the provisions of THEIR plan.5. What were the goals of the Freedmen’s Bureau?6. What did Johnson do (or not do) that allowed the

Southern states to limit the freedom of former slaves?

7. What were the Black Codes?

OPEN NOTES QUIZ

8. What did the 13th, 14th, & 15th Amendments do?9. What did the Military Reconstruction Act do?10.Describe how sharecropping lead to a

inescapable cycle of poverty.11.What was the goal of the Ku Klux Klan?12.What did the Enforcement Acts of 1870 &

1871do?13.What was Grant’s presidency known for?14.Who were the Redeemers & what did they do?