Download Objectives - Castle High School

Objectives
•
Explore how Congress and the President
clashed over Reconstruction.
•
Describe the impact of Reconstruction on the
South.
•
Explain how Reconstruction came to an end.
Terms and People
•
Reconstruction – the plan for bringing the South
back into the Union
•
Freedmen’s Bureau – a federal agency designed
to aid freed slaves and relieve the South’s
immediate needs
•
Andrew Johnson – Vice President who became
president when Lincoln was assassinated
•
Thirteenth Amendment – an amendment to the
Constitution ending slavery
Terms and People
(continued)
•
Radical Republicans – politicians who favored
punishment and harsh reorganization for the South
•
impeachment – the act of bringing charges against
an official in order to determine whether he or she
should be removed from office
•
Fourteenth Amendment – an amendment to the
Constitution guaranteeing full citizenship status and
rights to every person born in the United States
Terms and People
(continued)
•
Fifteenth Amendment – guaranteed that no male
citizen should be denied the right to vote on the
basis of “race, color, or previous condition of
servitude”
•
Ku Klux Klan – an organized secret society that
used terror and violence against African Americans
to keep them from voting
•
de jure segregation – legal separation of the races
What were the immediate and
long-term effects of Reconstruction?
When the Civil War ended, the North and the
South faced the challenge of how to reunite.
The modern South was shaped by political
decisions made during the decades after the
war, and constitutional amendments passed
during that time redefined American citizenship.
•With the end of
the Civil War, the
task at hand was
Reconstruction,
bringing the
South back into
the Union.
Lincoln hoped to
bind the wounds
of the ruined
South.
Others wanted to
punish the South.
•Lincoln and
Congress agreed
on the creation of
the
Freedmen’s
Bureau
just before the
war ended.
This federal agency
was to
Aid freed slaves
Attend to the
South’s
immediate needs.
While debate over Reconstruction went on,
Lincoln was assassinated.
Andrew Johnson became President.
•Johnson wished to restore political power to
southerners if they swore allegiance to the
United States.
Radical Republican congressmen disagreed,
instead favoring punishment for the South.
Congress voted to impeach the President.
Though Johnson was not removed from office,
he lost control of Reconstruction.
Andrew Johnson
Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution
Amendment
Content
13th Amendment
Ended slavery
14th Amendment
Guaranteed full citizenship status and
rights to every person born in the
United States, including African
Americans
15th Amendment
Guaranteed that no male citizen
could be denied the right to vote on
the basis of “race, color, or previous
condition of servitude”
•Radical Republicans gained control of Congress
and designed an ambitious Reconstruction plan.
They divided the South into five districts
controlled by Union generals.
They required southern states to grant the vote to
black men and pass the 14th Amendment.
By 1868 many southern states had black elected
officials.
•Formerly
enslaved
people
carved out
new lives.
African American men
and women legalized
and celebrated their
marriages and built
strong churches.
Freedmen’s Bureau schools
filled up and many black
adults and children learned
to read.
•Organized secret
societies like the Ku
Klux Klan appeared in
the South, despite
continued military
occupation.
They used terror and
violence to keep African
Americans from voting.
•Northerners began to lose the will to remake
the South.
Most troops were withdrawn from the South in
1871. Southern white Democrats regained
power by discrediting African American
politicians.
The 1876 election of Rutherford B. Hayes marked
the end of Reconstruction.
Rutherford B. Hayes
Historians debate whether
Reconstruction was a success or a failure.
The physical
and economic
rebuilding of
the South
began at this
time, and the
nation was
permanently
reunited.
Political rights
of African
Americans
disappeared
and de jure
segregation
became the
law in
southern
states.