Download Chapter 18 Notes - Mahopac Central School District

Unit 6
The Nation Torn Apart
Chapter 18: Rebuilding the Nation
I. Problems Facing the Nation – The Civil War cost more Americans lives and
caused more physical destruction of American property than any other war that
we have experienced.
A. How do you restore the southern economy and repair the physical
devastation?
1. The Defeated South- Except for the battles of Gettysburg and
Antietam, all of the fighting in the war took place in the South.
a) In some areas, every house, barn, and bridge had been destroyed.
b) Two thirds of the South’s railroad tracks were destroyed.
c) The cities of Charleston, Richmond, Savannah, and Atlanta had been
leveled.
d) Over 250,000 confederates had died in the war.
e) Confederate money was worthless; southern banks closed.
B. How can we protect African Americans from racism, and help them
gain political, social, and economic equality?
1. Southern society was changed forever.
a) Nearly 4 million freedmen now lived in the South.
b) Freedmen – men and women who had been slaves.
c) Most freedmen had no land, no jobs, and no education.
d) Plantation owners lost their labor force.
e) Many southern whites vowed to never treat former slaves as their
equal.
C. How do you bring the South back into the Union?
1. The federal government now had the task of coming up with a system
to readmit each state to the Union.
a) There was hatred between some northerners and southerners.
b) Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a southerner.
c) The northern victory established the supreme power of the federal
government, something southerners would have a hard time accepting.
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II. Reconstruction Begins
A. Rival Plans for the South
1. Lincoln wanted to make it relatively easy for southerners to rejoin
the Union. He outlined a plan for Reconstruction.
a) Reconstruction refers to the period when the South was
rebuilt, as well as the federal government’s program to rebuild it.
b) Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan – a southern state could form a new
government after 10 percent of its voters swore an oath of
loyalty to the United States. Once it was formed, the new
government had to abolish slavery. Voters could then elect
members of Congress and take part in the national government.
2. Congress thought Lincoln’s plan was too lenient.
a) 1864 – they passed a rival plan for Reconstruction.
b) Wade-Davis Bill – required the majority of white men in each
southern state to swear loyalty to the Union.
c) It also denied the right to vote or hold office to anyone who
had volunteered to fight for the Confederacy.
B. Help for Freedmen
1. A month before Lee surrendered; Congress passed a bill creating the
Freedmen’s Bureau. Lincoln quickly signed it.
a) Provided food and clothing to former slaves.
b) Tried to find them jobs.
c) Provided medical care for more than a million people.
d) Helped poor whites as well.
e) Set up schools for freed slaves in the South. By 1869, about
300,000 African American attended Bureau schools. Most of the
teachers were volunteers (women) from the North.
2. The Freedmen’s Bureau laid the foundation for the South’s public
school system.
a) Set up more than 4,300 grade schools.
b) Also created colleges for African American students, including
Howard, Morehouse, Fisk, and Hampton Institute.
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C. Lincoln is Assassinated
1. President Lincoln hoped to convince Congress to accept his
reconstruction plan. We will never know if he would have succeeded.
a) April 14, 1865 – 5 days after Lee’s surrender, the president
attended a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.
b) As Lincoln watched the play, John Wilkes Booth, an actor,
crept into the President’s box and shot him in the head!. Booth, a
southerner, blamed Lincoln for the South’s defeat.
c) Millions mourned Lincoln’s death.
d) Booth fled Washington, but was later caught and killed in a
barn outside the city.
D. A New President, A New Plan
1. Vice President Andrew Johnson became President when Lincoln died.
a) His plan for reconstruction was almost as mild as Lincoln’s.
b) Johnson called for the majority of voters in each southern
state to pledge loyalty to the United States.
c) He also demanded that each state ratify the Thirteenth
Amendment.
d) Thirteenth Amendment – banned slavery in the U.S.
E. Rebellion in Congress
1. Southern states did what Johnson asked. In late 1865, he approved
their new state governments.
a) Southern voters elected new members of Congress.
b) Many of those elected had held high office in the Confederacy.
c) Alexander Stevens, the former Vice President of the
Confederacy was elected senator of Georgia.
2. Republicans in Congress were outraged.
a) African Americans had not been allowed to vote in the South.
b) When Congress met in December of 1865, many Republicans
refused to let Southern senators take their seats.
c) They set up a Joint Committee on Reconstruction to draw up a
new plan for the South.
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II. Congress Takes Charge
A. A New Kind of Bondage in the South
1. Most Southern states ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, but they
did not want to give Africans real freedom.
a) Black Codes – laws that severely limited the rights of
freedmen. Examples:
 Could not vote.
 Forbidden to own guns.
 Could not serve on juries in some states.
 Could only work as farm workers or servants.
 They could marry and own some types of property.
b) The codes were created to limit freedman from gaining
political and economic power.
B. The North Reacts
1. Republicans were angered by black codes and the election of former
Confederates to Congress.
a) Congress sent President Johnson a report condemning
Southern practices. Johnson ignored the report.
2. Radical Republicans, led by Thaddeus Stevens in the House and
Charles Sumner in the Senate, opposed Johnson. They had two main
goals.
a) They wanted to break the power of the rich planters that once
ruled the South.
b) They wanted to ensure that freedmen had the right to vote.
C. The President and Congress Clash
1. The conflict between President Johnson and Congress came to a
head in 1866.
a) Civil Rights Act- gave citizenship to African Americans.
b) Congress hoped that this would protect African American
rights denied by the black codes.
c) Johnson vetoed the bill. Congress overrode the veto.
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2. Citizenship for African Americans.
a) Fourteenth Amendment- granted citizenship to all persons
born in the U.S. It also guaranteed all citizens “equal protection
under law” and declared that no state could “deprive any person
of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
3. Election of 1866- President Johnson opposed the 14th Amendment.
a) He encouraged Confederate states to reject. They all did
except for Tennessee.
b) In July, white mobs in New Orleans killed 34 African
American.
c) This convinces Northerners that Johnson’s policies are not
working. They felt stronger measures were needed.
d) In the election for Congress, Republicans won the majority in
both the House and the Senate.
D. Radicals take Charge
1. Congress passed the first Reconstruction Act in 1867. It threw out
state governments who refused to ratify the 14th Amendment. The
South was divided into 5 military districts. Troops were there to
enforce reconstruction policies. To rejoin the Union, former states had
to:
a) write new state constitutions and ratify the 14th Amendment.
b) allow African Americans to vote-this leads to the Fifteenth
Amendment(1870)- forbade any state from denying any citizen
the right to vote because of “race, color, or previous condition of
servitude.”
2. President Johnson had vetoed the Reconstruction Act but it was still
passed. It was his job as chief executive to enforce the new laws but
he did his best to limit their effect.
a) The House of Representatives voted to impeach Johnson in
1868. During Johnson’s trial in the Senate it became clear that he
was not guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Still the vote
was close, 35-19- one vote shy of the 2/3 needed to convict.
b) Ulysses S. Grant, a war hero and a republican, easily won the
election of 1868, getting nearly all the African American vote.
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III. The Reconstruction South
_
A. Forces in Southern Politics - During radical reconstruction, three
groups stepped in to take the place of the old leaders.
1. Some white southerners supported the new republican
governments.
a) Many were business people who had opposed secession in
1860. They wanted to forget the war and rebuild the South.
b) White southern democrats called white southern republicans
scalawags, a word used for small scruffy horses.
2. Northerners who moved south after the war were another
important force.
a) White southerners called them carpetbaggers.
b) Some northerners that traveled south were fortune hunters.
c) Others were Union soldiers who had grown to love the South's
rich land.
d) Some were reformers who wanted to help the freedmen.
3. Freedmen were the third major group in southern politics during
Reconstruction.
a) They voted in large numbers. They also ran for, and were
elected to public office. (Between 1869-1880, 16 African
Americans were elected to Congress)
B. White Southerners fight back.
1. Most white southerners who held power before the war resisted
Reconstruction.
a) They were known as conservatives. They wanted the South to
change as little as possible.
b) They were only willing to let African Americans vote and hold a
few offices as long as the real power remained in the hands of
whites.
2. Spreading Terror - Some white southerners took a harsher view.
a) Some wealthy planters wanted to force African Americans
back to work on plantations.
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b) Others were small farmers or laborers who felt threatened by
the millions of freedmen who now competed with them for jobs
and land.
c) The Ku Klux Klan, a secret society formed by white
southerners, worked to keep black and white republicans out of
office.
d) Dressed in white robes, the Klan used threats, violence, and
murder.
3. Congress acted to stop the Klan's violence.
a) 1870 - Congress made it a crime to use force to keep people
from voting.
b) Klan violence decreased.
c) Some African Americans continued to vote and hold office, but
many others stayed away from the ballot boxes.
C. A Cycle of Poverty
1. Sharecropping - Some large planters now had huge amounts of land
and no slaves to work it. Many freedmen and poor whites went to work
for the large planters.
a) They farmed the planters' land, using his seed, fertilizer, and
tools. In return, they gave the planters a share of the crop at
harvest time.
b) These landless farmers were called sharecroppers
c) For many, sharecropping was another form of slavery.
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IV. End of an Era
A. Radicals in Decline
1. By the 1870s, the Radical Republicans were losing power in Congress.
a) Many northerners grew weary of trying to change the
South.
b) Republicans were also hurt by the wide spread corruption
in the government under President Grant, who won
reelection in 1872.
c) Congress passed a law pardoning former confederate
officials. They could now vote. They voted solidly
democratic.
d) African Americans who tried to vote were terrorized.
e) One by one, Republican governments in the South fell.
f) Only three Southern states were still under republican
control: South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana.
B. The End of Reconstruction
1. The end of reconstruction came with the presidential election
of 1876.
a) Samuel Tilden, governor of New York (democratic) Known for fighting corruption.
b) Rutherford B. Hayes, governor of Ohio (republican) vowed to fight dishonesty in government.
2. Results-Tilden had 250,000 more popular votes than Hayes,
but he had only 184 electoral votes- one vote short of the number
needed to win the election.
a) Twenty other electoral votes were in dispute.
b) All but one of the disputed votes came from Florida,
Louisiana, and South Carolina - the three southern states
still controlled by republicans.
c) They decided to give all of the disputed electoral votes
to Hayes.
d) Southern democrats did not fight the election of Hayes
because he secretly agreed to end reconstruction.
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f) He removed all remaining federal troops from South
Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana.
C. Separate but Not Equal - With the North out of southern affairs, white
conservatives tightened their grip on southern governments.
1. Voting restrictions
a) Poll taxes - required voters to pay a fee each time they voted.
b) Literacy tests - required voters to read explain a difficult
part of the Constitution.
c) Since freedmen had little education, the tests kept them away
from the polls.
d) Some southern whites could not pass the tests either.
e) Grandfather clauses - If a voter's father or grandfather had
been eligible to vote on January 1, 1867, the voter did not have to
take a literacy test. Since no African Americans could vote
before 1868, grandfather clauses were a way to ensure that only
white men could vote.
2. At the same time that African Americans were losing the right to
vote, segregation became the law of the South.
a) Segregation - separating people of different races.
b) Jim Crow laws- separated blacks and whites in schools,
restaurants, theaters, trains, streetcars, playgrounds, hospitals,
and even cemeteries.
3. African Americans brought lawsuits to challenge segregation.
a) Plessy v. Ferguson -The court ruled that segregation was legal
so long as facilities for blacks and whites were equal.
b) In fact, facilities were rarely equal.
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