Download RECONSTRUCTION

Problems After Civil War
• SOUTHERN SOCIETY: whites resent
new political power of former slaves,
many young men dead, cities in rubble,
schools destroyed
• SOUTHERN ECONOMY: agriculture
crippled, livestock destroyed, banks &
businesses closed, railroad tracks
destroyed, unemployment
• CONGRESS vs. PRESIDENT: each had
opposing plans for how to fix problems
RECONSTRUCTION
• Period of rebuilding & political
reorganization of the South after Civil War
• 1865 – 1877
• Process for readmitting defeated
Confederate states to the Union
LINCOLN’S PLAN
• Ten Percent Plan
• Government would pardon all
Confederates who would
swear allegiance to the Union
• When 10% took oath,
Confederate states could form
new state governments and
send representatives to
Congress
• Four states qualified: AR, LA,
TN, VA
• Angered the “Radical
Republicans”
JOHNSON’S PLAN
• From North Carolina
• Grants amnesty (pardon)
to more than 13,000
former Confederates
• Believed that whites must
still hold political power in
South
• Seven remaining
Southern states agree,
all but Texas set up new
governments and send
representatives to
Congress
RADICAL REPUBLICANS
• “Radical Republicans” in Congress
• Want South to be punished
• Try to destroy political power of former
slave owners
• Propose giving blacks citizenship and the
right to vote
• Refuse to seat representatives sent by the
South to Congress!
CONGRESSIONAL PLAN
• Set up Freedmen’s Bureau to help African
Americans transition to freedom by
providing food, teachers, legal aid, horses,
mules, etc.
• Pass Civil Rights Act of 1866 to give
African Americans citizenship and outlaw
“black codes” – laws that discriminated
against blacks
• BOTH are vetoed by Johnson!
CONGRESSIONAL REACTION
• Congress is mad!
• Override Johnson’s vetoes of Freedmen’s
Bureau Act and Civil Rights Act
• Pass Reconstruction Act of 1867 which did
NOT recognize new Southern state
governments formed under Lincoln/Johnson
plans
• Divided former Confederate states into 5
military districts; states had to give former
slaves the right to vote in order to reenter the
Union
• Proposed Civil War Amendments
CIVIL WAR AMENDMENTS
• 13th (1865): abolished slavery
• 14th (1868): gave former slaves
citizenship and equal treatment
under the law
• 15th (1870): said no state can
deny right to vote based on
race, color, or former servitude
JOHNSON IMPEACHED
• Radicals believed Johnson was
blocking Reconstruction
• Impeached him for firing Secretary of
War
• Technical violation of Tenure of Office
Act
• House impeached but Senate voted
NOT to convict so he stayed in office
• Lost 1868 election to Ulysses S. Grant
RESULTS OF RECONSTRUCTION
• Political struggles in
Republican party in the
South: scalawags (poor
whites), carpetbaggers
(northerners who moved
South), former slaves
• First public schools set up
• African Americans elected to
office (16 to Congress, more
in local governments)
• Sharecropping: poor farmers
worked land they didn’t own
for a small percentage of the
crop
END OF RECONSTRUCTION
• Bank failures lead to 5-year
depression
• Democrats begin to regain
control, Radical Republicans
lost power
• Amnesty Act gave right to vote
back to 150,000 former
Confederate officers &
returned confiscated estates
• Some whites used violence to
intimidate African Americans
• Ku Klux Klan formed – est.
20,000 killed
Why might this time
period be called “The
Second Civil War”?
Did Reconstruction
mend the conflict
between the North
and South, or did it
make it worse?