Download Reconstruction Outline

Chapter 17 Outline
I. The Politics of Reconstruction
A. The Defeated South
1. Large areas in the south were destroyed by 4 years of violence.
2. 1860: 25% of national wealth, 1870: 12% of national wealth
3. Emancipation was difficult to accept and often lead to racism.
B. Abraham Lincoln’s Plan (see chart in your notes)
1. Wanted to bring rebellious states back to the Union quickly.
2. 10% Plan
a. white southerners had to swear an oath to the Union and the Emancipation
b. if 10% of the voters in 1860 made this oath, they could create a new gov’t
3. Radical Republicans wanted it to be tougher on the South.
a. Proposed and Passes in Congress the Wade-Davis Bill
i. 50% of southerners to swear oath to the Union
ii. only would allow individuals who favored the Union to vote
b. Lincoln – pocket-vetoed the bill
i. it means he didn’t act on it for 10 days after the Congress adjourned
4. Where should newly freed slaves live? Ideas
a. Louisiana – former slaves became wage laborers on plantation
b. Sherman – gave away 400,000 acres in SC and GA to former slaves and a mule
5. Freedmen’s Bureau
a. Gov’t agency that was created to address the needs (economic, educational, etc.) of former
slaves and poor whites - also leased abandon lands to former slaves
C. Andrew Johnson and Presidential Reconstruction (see chart in your notes)
1. Johnson was from Tennessee and had racist views, which impacted his decisions.
2. Pardoned Southerners if they pledged oath to the Union
3. States claimed to have reached the requirements to rejoin the Union by the end of 1865
4. Ignored including freed slaves in his plan for the South.
5. The plan was implemented when Congress wasn’t in session- aliened Radicals
D. The Radical Republican Vision (see chart in your notes)
1. Believed in equality (politically and economically) & a strong central gov’t
2. Believed in civil rights and voting rights for freed slaves
3. Wanted to fundamentally change the South (distribute land to the poor (black or white))
4. Based on testimony in congress two bill were passed to help freed slaves
a. Civil Rights bill – full citizenship for African Americans plus basic civil rights
b. Expanded the Freedmen’s Bureau – set up more schools and started court system to hear
suits of former slaves against white people (violence, wages, etc.)
**Congress over-rid President Johnson’s veto to get these passed**
c. Fourteenth Amendment was passed by Congress and sent to the states. Designed to
reinforce and protect the civil rights of African Americans. (Ratified in 1868)
E. Congressional Reconstruction and the Impeachment Crisis
1. Reconstruction Act passed in 1867; it divided the south into five districts run by the military
a. In order to rejoin the union Southern states had to:
i. Call new constitutional conventions via universal male suffrage
ii. Ratify the Fourteenth Amendment
2. Tenure of Office Act passed by the Republican congress – aimed at limiting Johnson
a. Lincoln’s cabinet appointments could stay until a replacement was approved by Senate
3. 1867, Johnson suspended Lincoln’s sec. of war (Edward Stanton) and put in Ulysses S. Grant.
4. The Congress reinstated Stanton and Grant willingly resigned and breaks with Johnson.
5. Johnson was impeached by the House and avoided impeachment by one vote in the Senate
F. The Election of 1868
1. Readmitted states join in time for election
2. Ku Klux Klan grows as a white response to increase African-American involvement.
3. 15th Amendment
G. Woman Suffrage and Reconstruction
1. Women Suffrage Movement is frustrated that the right to vote is not extended to women
2. Suffrage Movement splits into two groups a moderate (advocating at the state level) and radical
(advocating at the national level- Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Stanton)
II. The Meaning of Freedom
A. Moving About
1.Freedom meant many different things to many different people
2. Many newly freed people left the area where they had been held
3. Freed people migrated within the south to area where they had support from other freed people
B. The African American Family
1. Newly freed people searched for long-lost family members
2. By 1870 two-parent families were commonplace among the African-American communities.
3. Newly form gender roles shifted to paternalistic and gender-specific roles within the family.
C. African American Churches and Schools
1. Churches became the first social institutions for freed people.
2. Methodists or Baptists were the most common in the south.
3. Freed people thirsted for knowledge and schools.
4. Within the African-American community schools were started with the help of the Freedmen’s
Bureau (3000 schools and 150,000 students)
5. Freed people helped one another with this process. Educated people would volunteer time to
teach.
D. Land and Labor after Slavery
1. Land was seen by many as a way to achieve independence.
2. Freed people were eager for land to own.
3. Pres. Johnson ordered the eviction of freed people from abandoned land in areas of the south.
a. African-Americans felt betrayed by the President.
4. Sharecropping became popular in the late 1860s.
a. It was an agreement between landowners and land-less families.
b. Land-less families would live and farm a plot of land owned by the landowner.
c. Landowners would receive one-third of the year’s crop as payment for living on the
landowners’ land
5. Sharecropping was not ideal but it allowed for more independence than previously.
6. By the 1880s 75% of African-Americans in the South were sharecroppers.
E. The Origins of African American Politics
1. State-wide Political Conventions were held in the South.
2. Ministers, Artisans, and War Veterans were often leaders at these conventions.
3. Pushed and advocated for protection of suffrage rights and equal rights.
4. Many Political organizations were branches of the Republican Party called the Union League.
5. African-Americans shaped southern politics in the time immediately after the Civil War.
III. Southern Politics and Society
A. Southern Republicans
1. Southern Republicans were a coalition of different groups
a. African-Americans, carpetbaggers (white northerners) & scalawags (white southerners)
b. Most white southerners wanted control of the politics again and didn’t want to share it
with African-Americans who they thought were beneath them
B. Reconstructing the States: A Mixed Record
1. Old Confederate leaders were barred from political involvement.
2. Republicans in the south saw domination in the few years following the Civil War
3. Republican constitutions were written and passed along with other reforms like publicly funded
schools, state run hospital, and railroads.
4. Equal rights and civil rights laws were passed but were hard to enforce at the local level.
5. Republican groups were treading lightly and trying to work with the white population.
6. African-Americans seeking land didn’t receive many answers through state politics.
C. White Resistance and “Redemption”
1. Democrats (the majority of the southern whites never full accepted Republican party
involvement in the south)
2. Ku Klux Klan terrorized and intimidated African-Americans. Their goal was to stop them from
participating in politics and reinstate white supremacy.
3. Federal Government’s response was mainly legislative.
a. Enforcement Acts –interference with voting rights was a federal crime
b. Ku Klux Klan Act 1871 –interfering with civil and political right was a federal crime
c. Civil Rights Act of 1875 – outlawed racial discrimination in public places – hotels,
theaters, etc. (burden of enforcement was placed on the court system – timely process) *it
was later found unconstitutional*
4. Northern Republicans lose interest in the Reconstruction of the South and become concerned
with reelection in the North.
5. Democratic majorities regained control in nine southern states effectively ending
Republican/African-American control/involvement in southern politics by 1875.
6. Series of court cases undermined the 14th and 15th Amendments.
a. States gained more control in voting rights
b. Enforcement was transferred to the state level
c. Civil Rights Act of 1875 was found unconstitutional
D. White Yeoman, White Merchants, and “King Cotton”
1. South became more dependent on Cotton as the main crop
2. Lack of banking institutions made many small farmers rely on the planter elite and merchants for
loans, which resulted in heavy debt because of questionable practices.
3. 1/3 of whites and ¾ of African-Americans were part of the sharecropping system.
IV. Reconstructing the North
A. The Age of Capital
1. Manufacturing industry continued to grow amazingly.
2. Railroad was a perfect example of the growth and on the America’s first big businesses
a. Transcontinental Railroad employed Irish, African-Americans, and Chinese
b. Chinese were granted the right to immigrate to the US by Congress in 1868; Congress
didn’t intend for them to become citizens
c. Chinese Exclusion Act passed in 1882 stopped Chinese immigration for 10 years
3. Railroads receive many favors (corrupt favors) from politicians including the Credit Mobilier
affair where politicians receive stock in a fake company.
4. Other industries receive government land and favors such as coal, iron, copper, lumber, etc.
5. There were many scandals during Grant’s presidency
B. Liberal Republicans and the Election of 1872
1. Republicans during the 1870s began to ally themselves with business rather than the
Reconstruction.
2. Urban Political Machines were exposed has corrupt (Boss Tweed in NYC)
3. New group of Liberal Republicans and Democrats advocated against federal intervention in the
South.
4. The practice of ‘waving the blooding shirt’ began; it is where one political party uses recent
military events to get votes.
C. The Depression of 1873
1. Over speculation with railroads led to the failure of important banks and a deep economic
depression; lasted over 5 years, 15% unemployment
2. 18,000 business and 100 banks closed
3. Depression weakened the Republican Party.
D. The Electoral Crisis of 1876
1. The Depression combined with the scandals of Grant’s administration made the Republicans
vulnerable.
2. Republicans nominated Hayes and Democrats nominated Tilden.
3. There were 20 disputed electoral votes and a winner couldn’t be announced.
4. Compromise of 1877 – disputed results in 4 states threw the election to an Election Commission,
which gave the election to the Republican Hayes. Democrats dropped their protest if the
Republican removed federal troops from the South effectively ending Reconstruction.