Download Chapter 10 – Reconstruction Debate Over Reconstruction SECTION

Chapter 10 – Reconstruction
Debate Over Reconstruction
SECTION 1 Lincoln’s Plan
- Moderate policy that would reconcile Southerns with Union instead of punishing
them for treason
- Offered a general amnesty to all Southerns who took a oath of loyalty to the United
States and accepted the unions proclamation concerning slavery
- Only people not voted pardon
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- Resistance to Lincoln’s plan
- Radical Republicans – did not want to reconcile with the South
- 1) wanted to prevent leaders of Confederacy form returning to power (after
the war)
- 2) wanted Republican party to become a powerful institution in the South
- 3) wanted federal gov’t to help African Americans achieve political equality
by guaranteeing their right to vote in the South
- Number of Republicans thought Lincolns plan was too lenient but that radicals
were too supporting of African Americans
- The Wade-Davis Bill
- Required majority of adult white males in former Confederate states to take
an oath of allegiance to the union
- Each states convention would have to abolish slavery
- Reject all debts the state had acquired as part of the Confederacy
- Deprive all former Confederate gov’t officials and military officers of voting
or hold office
- Lincoln would pocket-veto, he wanted “no persecution, no bloody work”
- Freedmen’s Bureau
- Started when thousands of freed African Americans began following Union
troops seeing food and shelter
- To feed themselves, Sherman reserved abandoned land for the use of freed
African Americans
- Congress established Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abolished Lands –
Freedmen’s Bureau
- Helped get them clothes and find work
- Johnson Takes Over
- Took over after Lincoln was assassinated and remained loyal to North
- His plan resembled Lincoln’s
- May 1865 he issued an amnesty proclamation
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- Same day of pardon, Johnson issued another proclamation for North Carolina
- It became a model of how he wanted to restore the South to the Union
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•Next Congress session in Dec. 1865, Many Congressmen were angered that
Southerner voters had elected former Confederate soldiers to Congress
- Southern state legislature also passed black codes which severely limited African
Americans rights
- Black codes varied by state, seemed to have same conditions as slavery
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2.
3.
Radical Republicans Take Control
- Late 1865, House and Senate Republicans created a Joint Committee on
Reconstruction
- Goal to develop their own program for rebuilding the Union
- Effort to override black codes, Congress passed the Civil Rights Acts of 1866
- Granted all persons born in U.S. Citizenship besides native Americans
- Blacks own property and Treated equally in court
- Fourteenth Amendment
-Granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. and
declared that no stat could deprive any person of life, liberty, or property
law”
- Also declared that no state could deny any person “equal protection of the
- March 1867, Congressional Republicans passed the Military Reconstruction Act
- Divided former Confederacy into 5 military districts each having a Union general in
charge
- Each state had to create new state constitution giving all adult male citizens the
right to vote regardless of race
- After state ratified their constitution it had to ratify 14th Amendment before it
would be allowed to elect members to Congress
- By end of 1868, 6 former Confederate states me all requirements and were
readmitted to the Union
- Republicans were taking control and wanted to keep it that way
- They distrusted President Johnson and wanted to keep Johnson from interfering
with their plans
- Republicans kept trust with Grant and Stanton-Secretary of War
- Congress passed Command of the Army Act
- Required all orders from the President to go through the headquarters of
the general
- And tenure of Office Act
- Required the Senate to approve the removal of any government official
whose appointment had required the Senate’s consent
- Johnson wanted to challenge the Tenure Act and fired Stanton
- House voted to impeach Johnson for breaking the law by refusing to uphold the
Tenure Act
- He would go to trial and be found not guilty by the Senate
- Some Republicans joined Democrats in refusing to convict him because the
president did not agree with Congressional policies
- Johnson would stay in office but not run to be re-elected – Grant would be voted
into office in 1868
- Republicans now had majority in Congress and a president they trusted
- The Fifteenth Amendment
- Declared the right to vote “shall not be denied…on account of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude.”
- Radical Reconstruction impacted the South in the short term brought African
Americans into political process and changed Southern society
SECTION 2 Radical Rule
- Lots of resistance from white Southerners who did not like the overtaking of
Republicans in South because the party included Northerners and African
Americans
- Also believed the Union Army forced new Republican government on them
- Many Northerners moved down South
1.
2.
3.
- Southerners called Northern newcomers carpetbaggers because they viewed them
as intruders seeking to exploit the South
- Southerners also disliked other Southerners who supported reconstruction –
called scalawags
- Scalawags were:
1.
2.
3.
- African Americans gained political power as well after the pass of the 15th Amendment
- Won local election up to serving in both houses of Congress
- Republican Reforms
--Positive
--Negative
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2.
2.
3.
3.
4.
4.
5.
- African Americans worked to improve their lives in many ways
- Churches, education, and other organizations to support each other
- Southerners were unhappy with “Black Republican” government
- Southerners were unable to openly strike at the Republicans running their state –
organized secret societies
- Ku Klux Klan (KKK) – largest group – formed by former Confederate states
- Goal – drive out carpetbaggers and intimidate black voters so as to regain control
of the South for the Democratic Party
- Some Republicans and African Americans organized groups to fight back
- As violence increased the federal government would step in
- Congress passed 3 Enforcement Acts
1. first act made it a federal crime to interfere with a citizens right to vote
2. put federal elections under supervision of federal marshals
3. Ku Klux Klan Act – outlawed the activities of the Klan
SECTION 3 Reconstruction Collapses
The Grant Administration
- Grant believed the President should only carry out laws and
leave development of policy to Congress. Radical Republicans were
pleased but this left the President weak and have ineffective power.
- Republican control in Congress expanded programs put in place by
Reconstruction
1.
2.
3.
- Democrats would attack Republican economic policies and have
Liberal Republicans agree with them
- Grant would win re-election despite the Democrats push for a new
President
- Series of scandals would hurt Grants second term – all over money
- the Panic of 1873
- economic crisis
- from scandals and economic depression the Democrats would
win back control of the House of Representatives
Reconstruction Ends
- rising power of the Democrats made enforcing Reconstruction difficult
- 1870s Southern Democrats had regained control of local and state
governments from Republicans
- they won back control by intimidation
1.
2.
The Compromise of 1877
- new election – Grants reputation damaged, Republicans
nominated Rutherford B Hayes – Democrats nominated Samuel Tilden
- On Election Day 184 votes - Tilden; 165 – Hayes
- 3 states had so much election fraud the winner was unclear
- to solve issue – Congress appointed 15 persons commission
made up equally of members of the House, Senate and Supreme Court
- vote was 8 to 7 – Southern Democrats joined Republicans and
voted to accept the commission’s finding
- deal was made giving Hayes the win, election would be known as the
Compromise of 1877
- from it Republicans promised to pull federal troops out of the
South
- from pulling troops out caused the last Republican government
in South to collapse and Democrats “redeemed” South – ending
Reconstruction
- “New South” created
- develop a strong industrial economy
- powerful white Southerners and Northern financiers brought
great economic changes
1. railroads 2. Iron and steel industry 3. Tobacco processing 4.
Cotton mills
- collapse of Reconstruction ended blacks hopes of getting their own
land
- many went back to plantations and worked for wages or became
tenant farmers
- some became sharecroppers
- this would trap some African American into debt and limited
rights