Reconstruction

Lincoln’s Plan

Lincoln wanted the seceded states to rejoin the union not as conquered territories, but as states equal in status to those states in the North.

Two conditions:

A) 10% of the state’s votes were required to take an oath of allegiance to the United States.

B) new state government would be required to guarantee the abolition of slavery.

This was never put in to effect due to President Lincoln’s

assassination in April of 1865.

Johnson’s Plan

This plan was similar to Lincoln’s Plan.

Three conditions:

A)10% of the state’s votes were required to take an oath of allegiance to the United States.

B) state must ratify the 13th Amendment.

C) state must deny the right to vote to a few Confederate leader, while granting that same right to all other southern white men.

Congressional Reconstruction

This is a plan created by a group of northern republican congressmen known as Radical Republicans.

Four beliefs:

A) They believed that the South should be punished for its role in the war.

B) They believed seceded states should be treated as conquered territories.

C) They were in favor of abolition.

D) They believed newly freed slaves should be given political rights.

Cont. . . . This plan purposed:

1. No state could deny the rights of citizenship to anyone born on American soil. No state could deny the right to vote because of a person race or former status as a slave.

2. No military leader or political office holder of the defeated Confederacy would be allowed to hold a state or federal office in the post war period.

3. The South would be occupied by federal troops and governed by the army generals.

Post - Civil War Amendments13th ~

declared slavery to be illegal in every state in the Union.

14th ~

1)defined American citizen ship as “ all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof”

2)prohibited the states from depriving a person of life, liberty, and property without due process

15th ~

declared that voting could not be denied to a person because of that person’s “ race, color, or pervious condition of servitude”

* this did not include white or black women, only African American men

Impeachment and trial of Andrew Johnson

President Johnson was not a popular president and was regularly and repeatedly antagonized the radical republicans by vetoing their reconstruction plan.

In 1867 congress passed the Tenure of Office Act over President Johnson’s veto.

• Prohibited the President from firing a cabinet officer without the senate’s approval

Johnson then announced the firing of his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton.

Cont. . . .

1868 ~ the House of Representative responded by voting to impeach the president.

The Senate acquitted Johnson because it fell one vote short of the two-thirds needed for removal, therefore President Johnson served out his term of office.

• 1887 ~ the Tenure of Office Act was repealed

• 1926 ~ the Tenure of Office Act was ruled to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court

Views of Reconstruction

Northern View 1000 northerners moved to the South for economic

gain and political power.

7 southern states held elections in 1868, northern republicans won 4 of the 7 states with unanimous support from the freed blacks.

Northern republicans also won 10 of the 14 seats in the senate as well as 20 of the 35 seats in the House of Representatives.

Cont. . . .

Chief task was to rebuild all that had been destroyed during the war.

Large sums of money was voted on for this purpose in the South.

* some money was taken by legislators for their own personal profit

Southern ViewChief interests of Southern Whites:

1. Revive their war-torn economy.

2. Regain control of their state governments.

3. Reduce the political power of Southern blacks.

Many whites were becoming hostile toward blacks in the South causing violent attacks known as terrorist raids.

Two groups that are notorious are the KKK and the Knights of the White Camellia, who often beat and killed African

Americans.

Economic and technological impact of the Civil war

1. Expanding world trade after the Civil War

2. Growing need for labor

The North at this time accelerated in industrial production while the South was left in devastation.

Expanding World Trade

1. Trade with Europe:

~ industrialism meant an increasing amount of factory made goods

~ nations needed more materials to keep manufacturing more clothing, machines, and other industrial products such as cotton, coal, iron, and oil.

U.S. rich in resources which they exported to Europe

Cont. . . .

2. Trade with Asia

~ was closed until Commodore Matthew Perry went to Japan in 1853.

He had two goals: 1) to open trade and 2) gain assurances from Japan that they would assist ship wrecked U.S. sailors.

To obtain these goals he brought gifts to demonstrate the benefits of industrial technology.

* exporting increased from 60% to 75% in years between 1865 and 1900.

* U.S. imports were still greater than U.S. export

Need for Labor

Industrial growth depended on labor of immigrants:

1. First transcontinental rail road

2. Turned prairies and forests of the Middle West into prosperous farms

3. Helped make NYC the center for a booming garment industry

4. Opened small retail stores that would eventually grow into large department stores ( Macy’s and Gimbel’s)

5. Worked in steel mills of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Birmingham, Alabama.

The New South

Southern AgricultureFarm owner - some plantation owners divided their estates into

small sections and sold them as farms.

Most went to whites; small number of blacks became landowning farmers.

Tenant Farmer - rented sections to tenants, in order to live and work on the land they must provide own seed, mules, and provisions.

Sharecroppers - poorest southerners, lacked money to either pay rent or provide provisions for the land like tenant farmers

In return for working the land they paid the land owner a certain share of the crop.

Status of FreedmenEconomic hopes:

It was rumored that every black family in the South would be given a chance at economic independence by receiving 40 acres and mule from the government.

This was encouraged by Congressmen Thaddeus Stevens and other Radical Republicans ( who favored the idea)

Political Hopes:

~ Adoption of the 15th amendment

Economic/ Political Reality: ~ Congress never acted on the idea of providing land/ Mule

~ The guarantee of the 15th amendment proved misleading

Cont. . . During the early years of reconstruction Northern

Republicans and U.S. troops fully supported southern blacks.

“ Black citizens may have been better represented in the law making process during Reconstruction than at any other time before or since.” page 183

14 African Americans from the South served in the U.S. Congress, half were former slaves, half had attended college

They championed a number of causes including protection of civil rights and federal aid to education.

Struggle for Political Control in the New South

Southerners held conventions in order to organize new post-war governments for their states.

Each convention developed ways for limiting the movements and restricting the rights of former slaves.

Black Codes: prohibited blacks from carrying firearms, starting businesses, appearing on streets after sun set. Renting or leasing farm land, and traveling without a

permit.

Cont. . . .

Radical Republican Laws:

1. condemned black codes.

2. argued that the state conventions were not legitimate.

Therefore they pushed a series of Reconstruction laws through

congress. Freedmen’s Bureau

1. set up to aid nearly 4 million former slaves in adjusting to freedom

2. build and operated schools after recognizing that as slaves they were denied the opportunity of literacy skills. Most all took this opportunity.

3. Emergency aid such as clothing, food, and medical supplies also fell under this bureau jurisdiction.

Cont. . . Civil Rights Act of 1866

- gave authority to the federal government to protect the civil rights of blacks, this was a way of combating the Black Codes.

Military Reconstruction

1. South divided into 5 districts

2. each district occupied by federal troops and commanded by a military governor

1867 - Congress set conditions for re- admittance to the Union. One condition was the acceptance of the 14th amendment in state’s constitutions.

Force Acts of 1870- 71

authorized federal troop to break up terrorist organizations.

Supreme Court Interpretations of the New Amendments

Blacks challenged the constitutionality of the Jim Crow Laws in court arguing that they were in violation of the 14th amendment.

Supreme court concluded that the Jim Crow practices of the South were allowed by the Constitution.

14th amendment applied only to action of government

officials, not private citizens.

Debate over the role of the African Americans

African Americans were forced to obey the Jim Crow Laws.

Two leaders who took opposition:

1. Booker T. Washington

~ not seek to be accepted in to white society.

~ win economic opportunity by filling skilled, high- paying jobs.

“ In all things that are purely social we can be separate as the fingers, yet essential to mutual progress.”

Cont. . .

. 2. W.E.B. Du Bois

~ believed that vocational education was an important avenue of economic opportunity

~ believed that civil rights were more important than vocational education.

~ He urged African Americans to insist on their rights and to oppose Jim Crow Laws.

The End of Reconstruction

Southern Democratic Domination of Governments

As time passed many northerners became tired of the reconstruction issue and therefore became less interested in protecting the rights of the African Americans.

The Civil War was 10 years in the past and people wanted to move on putting the past behind them.

Cont. . . .

Amnesty Act (1872)~ Restored the voting rights of the 160,000 former

Confederates.

Terrorist Pressure: KKK increased in number despite the Force Acts and federal troops.

These groups had little success in capturing those responsible for lynching and beatings. Blacks started to take up arms to protect their families, but were forced to submit when it became clear that the federal government either could not or would not enforce its own civil rights laws.

Election of 1876Elections of 1876 federal troop occupied 3 southern states: So. Carolina,

Florida, and Louisiana.

The Democratic party candidate, Samuel Tilden, won the electoral vote in all other Southern state but these three.

In these states the Republican candidate, Rutherford Hayes, claimed victorious, but the Democratic candidate also won the states.

A special commission was issued to investigate whether the the election had been won by Hayes or Tilden,

The Republican members of the commission outnumbered the Democratic members, therefore the decision was for Hayes.

End of Military Occupation

Compromise of 1877~ solved a political crisis

Secret meetings between Republicans and Democrats lead way to a joint decision that Hayes would be the next President.

In return Hayes would order the last federal troops to leave the South - this would leave southern blacks to the rule of the white majority.

* This ended northern commitment to Reconstruction.

Restoration of White Control in the South

Solid South: Southern white blamed the Republican party for their hardships

suffered because of the war and during reconstruction.

After reconstruction they built up the Democratic party in their region.

They wanted it strong enough to win every southern state and local election.

The South became a one party region.

Cont. . . .

Disenfranchisement of African Americans:Disenfranchisement: to take voting rights away from a person

or group

After reconstruction the South disenfranchised black citizens to keep control over the Democratic party.

* Confederate soldiers were disenfranchised by the 14th Amendment

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)Homer Plessy sued a rail road company for preventing him from

entering a rail road car set aside for whites.

Supreme court ruled in favor of the property owner and against the African American petitioner, because the rail road provide separate but equal facilities for blacks.

The court decided that the equal protection clause of the

constitution had not been violated.

* Separate but Equal was used to justify racial segregation.