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RECONSTRUCTION
Rebuilding after the Civil War
Era 6
AFRICAN AMERICANS
Life was not suddenly better for A.
Americans after the Civil War as they had hoped.
 In the South, they were terrorized, robbed and
murdered.
 In order to escape this, many fled to Kansas
where they hoped a new life would be possible
without the problems.
 These people fleeing were nicknamed the
“Exodusters” because they left homes to make
better lives in the dusty new land, just as the
Israelites had done centuries earlier in their
exodus from Egypt to Canaan.

RECONSTRUCTION

What is reconstruction?
It is the process of restoring relations with the
Confederate states.
 It was a plan to bring the states back into the
Union.
 It also was to involve how to rebuild the
devastated South.
 It lasted about 10 years after the end of the Civil
War.

LINCOLN’S RECONSTRUCTION PLAN
Before the war had even ended, Lincoln had
begun plans to reestablish state governments
in the South.
 He thought these governments would be loyal
to the North after the end of the war and
make reconstruction easier.
 For a state to be recognized as legitimate, 10
percent of the men eligible to vote in 1860
had to swear allegiance to the Union.


This plan become known as Lincoln’s 10%
plan.
ANDREW JOHNSON
Andrew Johnson became president
upon Lincoln’s assassination.
 Johnson had stayed with the Union
as Vice President even though he
was a Southerner.
 During the war, he had called those
of the Confederacy “traitors”.
 Many Northerners were surprised
when he became president and
seemed to continue Lincoln’s plan of
tolerance toward the South.

JOHNSON’S RECONSTRUCTION PLAN
Johnson issued a Reconstruction proclamation in May
of 1865.
1. This proclamation granted amnesty (a pardon) to
Confederates who would sign an oath of loyalty to the
Union.
2.Political and military leaders and landowners
whose property was worth more than $20,000 had to
apply for special pardons.


Johnson granted such pardons regularly.
3.He appointed provisional governors and set forth
minimal requirements for reorganizing Southern state
governments.
JOHNSON’S PLAN COMPLETE
By December 1865, all former Confederate states
except Texas had fulfilled the requirements for
reentering the Union.
 Each had elected representatives to Congress.
 Johnson announced that the Union had been
restored.

 But
was it?
CONGRESS V JOHNSON
When Congress reconvened in December, it
refused to seat the newly elected Southern
representatives.
 Many members felt Johnson had been too easy on
the South.
 They said he had not stopped the Southern states
from issuing “black codes”.
 Congress and Johnson battled over
Reconstruction throughout 1866.

BLACK CODES
The purpose of these laws was to define the legal
status and civil rights of the former slaves.
 In reality the laws severely restricted the rights
of newly freed African Americans.
 In some cases, it continued white supremacy by
requiring blacks to become in effect, landless
indentured servants.
 In most cases, the law granted new rights
while it maintained the old restrictions of
slave days at the same time.

CONGRESS’S RECONSTRUCTION PLAN
In 1867 Congress passed a series of
Reconstruction Acts over Johnson’s veto.
 They abolished the state governments set up by
Johnson’s Plan.
 Divided the South into 5 military districts, each
under the command of a general.
 Federal troops were stationed in each district to
carry out the process of readmitting states to the
Union.
 The South was now under military occupation
this changed the tone of Reconstruction.

THE SUPREME COURT GETS INVOLVED
Congress had political control, therefore the army
administered Congress’s plan.
 The battle between the legislative and executive
branches took the cause to the Supreme Court.
 At first it seemed the SC would side with the
president.
 The Court soon sided with Congress and
recognized their authority to reconstruct the
South.

RADICAL REPUBLICANS
A group of Congress men that were strongly
antislavery and were not willing to forgive the
Confederates.
 Wanted sweeping changes in the South and felt
Union troops had to be present to accomplish
this.
 Passed the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864 which
Lincoln vetoed.


Would have required a majority of a state’s white
male citizens to swear both past and future loyalty to
the Union.
RECONSTRUCTION UNDER RADICAL
REPUBLICAN CONGRESS
Set about issuing legislation to punish the former
Confederate states, increase Republican power in
the South, and create conditions that would
promote economic development and racial
equality in the South.
 It increased the rights and freedoms of African
Americans.

Made the Republicans popular with a large new pool
of voters
 Diminished white Southerners’ ability to dominate
the South politically and economically.

LEGISLATION DURING RECONSTRUCTION

Civil Rights Act (1866)


14th Amendment (1868)


Granted citizenship to African Am and prohibited
states from diminishing the rights accompanying this
citizenship.
Defined who a U.S. citizen was and prevented states
from denying rights and privileges to any American
citizen (if citizen of U.S. then citizen of state)
15th Amendment (1870) <suffrage> (right to vote)

guaranteed that no citizen could be denied the right
to vote based on race, color or former servitude Nor
can you be denied the right to vote based on literacy.
(whether or not a person can read and write)
KU KLUX KLAN
White supremacist organization that used
intimidation and violence to prevent African
Americans from voting or holding positions of
power.
 Helped increase the environment of violence and
hatred.
 Mobs of Southern whites
periodically lashed out against
the newly freed citizens
 Also terrorized carpetbaggers
and scalawags. (Southerners who

cooperated with Republican reconstruction
governments.)
IMPEACHMENT (BRINGING FORMAL CHARGES AGAINST)

Congress impeached Johnson inn 1868
Attempts to veto and undermine congressional legislation
 Inability of lack of desire to control terrorist organizations
 Defied the Tenure of Office Act by firing Sec. of War Edwin
Stanton

House voted to impeach Johnson on 11 charges of
misconduct.
 Trial lasted 8 weeks, Johnson did not attend.
 Senate failed to convict by 1 vote 35 v 19


Requires 2/3rd vote to convict
FREEDMEN’S BUREAU
Set up by Congress as part of the office of the
War Department
 Established to provide freed African Am. With
food, teachers, legal aid and other assistance.
 Distributed horses, mules and land that had been
confiscated during the war.
 Helped 40,000 African Am. To establish their
own farms.
 At first paid the cost of education, but later
education was turned over to the states’ control.

VOTING
African American males began to vote for the
first time.
 Between 1869 and 1876, 2 African Americans
served in the U. S. Senate and 14 served in the
House of Rep.
 Many of these men had been enslaved or were
born of enslaved parents.

Hiram Revels
1st black
elected to
Senate, 1870
Robert Smalls,
served in the
House. Longest
serving black in
Congress until 20th
century
SHARECROPPING
A system in which a wealthy patron would give
seeds, supplies and a small parcel of land to a
farmer in exchange for a portion of the crop.
 The sharecropper might not be able to survive on
what remained.
 If the crop failed, the sharecropper usually
wound up hopelessly in debt to the patron.

ULYSSES S. GRANT
In 1868 the Republican Ulysses S. Grant, former
lead Union General, became president.
 During his two terms in office, the government
began paying less and less attention to the
problems of prejudice, discrimination and racial
harassment.
 Scandal and corruption plagued Grant’s
administration.

CORRUPTION IN GRANT’S
ADMINISTRATION
The Whiskey Ring Scandal = Whiskey distillers and tax
officials were stealing excise taxes from the government
and a member of Grant’s staff was part of it.
 Grant’s secretary of war was accused of accepting
bribes.
 Even Grant wrongly accepted personal gifts.
 Grant appointed a number of personal friends, relatives
and fellow army officers to positions that lacked the
skills and experience necessary to do the jobs. Many
were greedy and dishonest.

GRANT’S BLACK FRIDAY




Collapse of the U.S. gold market on
Sept. 24, 1869
Jay Gould and Jim Fisk were behind it.
Starting on September 20, Gould and Fisk had
started to buy as much gold as they could. Just as
they planned, the price went higher. At its highest
point on September 24, the price of an ounce of gold
reached more than 30 dollars above what it was when
Grant took office. Grant decided to sell government
owned gold into the market to try to stop this rise.
Grant’s brother -in-law had been involved, his job was
to let the other two men know when Grant planned to
put gold on the market so they could sell first. Grant
had no knowledge of the scam at first. When he did
find out he removed his bother in law from office and
put the gold on the market. The effect on the economy
was disastrous. When the government gold hit the
market, so did panic.
CORRUPTION IN SOUTHERN
GOVERNMENTS
Many Republican appointed government official in
the South were inexperienced and even corrupt.
 Southerners called them carpetbaggers, because
they had arrived in the South with only the
possessions they had been able to stuff in their
luggage.
 White Southerners believed the carpetbaggers
wanted only to turn a profit or rise to power at the
expense of the South
 African Americans newly elected to political
positions were often blamed for government
wastefulness and dishonesty.

DEMOCRATIC SUCCESS
Democrats begin to regain control of the South
due to the corruption of the carpetbag
governments.
 They also used some underhanded tactics to
neutralize the issues of equality that had begun
to affect the election process.

Gerrymandering – redividing voting districts to
decrease African American representation in areas
 Poll tax – a fee paid to vote, it excluded poor citizens
from voting


By 1875 the Democrats had regained control of
the government in the South
PANIC OF 1873





In 1873 a economic panic was begun when a banker closed
his Philadelphia bank. Prompted a panic in which 5,000
businesses closed and thousands lost jobs.
In North demands of unemployed workers for economic
relief replaced the demands for racial equality.
In the South the sharecropping system cheated many
African Am farmers out of owning land or reaping profits
from their labors.
White farmers in the South suffered devastating losses
during this time and blamed the newly freed blacks.
African Americans in the North were trapped in lowpaying, unskilled jobs. They lived in poor housing and had
little or no say in government.


In North they made up less that 2% of the population.
All of this turned the countries attention from racial
equality to economic relief.
END OF RECONSTRUCTION
In the mist of all the social and economic crisis,
government scandals, and outbreaks of violence,
the Radical Republicans lost their political
power.
 The Radical Republican program of
Reconstruction came to and end as it was no
longer supported by a majority of voters.
 They attempted to regain a foot hold in
government in the election of 1876.

ELECTION OF 1876

Republicans backed Rutherford B. Hayes




A moderate that appealed to both the North
South
and
Democrats backed Samuel Tilden
Possibly the closest race in U.S. history.
4 states’ returns were disputed (must have a majority of electoral votes to win)
Democrats insisted that the majority of the people in the
disputed states favored Tilden but had been prevented
from voting
 A special electoral commission was set up to decide
the disputed votes.



To get Hayes elected, Republicans made many
concessions to the Democrats. All 20 votes were
given to Hayes as a result of the Compromise
of 1877.
Hayes won the election.
COMPROMISE OF 1877

The compromise essentially stated that Southern
Democrats would acknowledge Hayes as president,
but only on the understanding that Republicans
would meet certain demands. The following elements
are generally said to be the points of the compromise:

The removal of all federal troops from the
former Confederate States.


Troops remained in only Louisiana, South Carolina,
and Florida, but the Compromise finalized the process.
The appointment of at least one Southern Democrat to
Hayes's cabinet.

(David M. Key of Tennessee became Postmaster General.)
The construction of another transcontinental
railroad using the Texas and Pacific in the South
 Legislation to help industrialize the South and get them
back on their feet after the terrible loss during the Civil
War.


In exchange, Democrats would:

Peacefully accept Hayes's presidency.
RECONSTRUCTION APPRAISED
Most of the legal decisions that had advanced
African American rights during Reconstruction
had been overturned.
 Radical Republican governments had failed to
correct the problem of unequal land distribution
in the South
 African Americans felt as if their needs had been
forgotten.
 Many African Am. left the South by the
thousands either for the North or West
