Download Presidential Reconstruction

Reconstruction
(The admission of the Southern
states back into the United
States of America)
2 Phases of Reconstruction
Presidential Reconstruction (1863-1866)
Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Johnson
Presidential Reconstruction
(1863-1866)
Was lenient on the Southern States, first
Lincoln, then Johnson wanted to stress
forgiveness and bring the former
Confederate states back into the union
quickly and painlessly.
Conditions under the Presidential
Reconstruction for a state to be
readmitted to the Union
1. It must abolish slavery (adopt the 13th
amendment)
2. It must nullify (declare invalid) secession
3. It must void its war debt
4. Most Confederates would be pardoned except
in extreme cases.
Congressional Reconstruction
(1866-1873)
Congressional Reconstruction
(1866-1873)
Was designed to be tough on the Southern
States, Congress wanted to punish the
former Confederate states before they were
allowed back into the union.
Conditions under the Congressional
Reconstruction for a state to be
readmitted to the Union
1. It must rewrite the state constitution
2. Put all southern states under military rule
3. States were made to elect loyal state officials (elected officials
had to swear that they never supported the Confederacy, so
no former Confederates were able to hold office)
4. States had to ratify the 14th amendment (which gave all
citizens (Blacks too) the same rights, due process, equal
protection under the law and it voided the state’s war debt)
Reconstruction Act of 1867
North Carolina met all requirements
and was readmitted as a state in
July 1868
State Constitution of 1868
1. Extended the governors term to 4 years
2. Provided universal manhood suffrage
(meaning that all men could vote)-15th
Amendment
3. Property qualifications for voting rights
were abolished
4. Allowed for tax supported schools open to
all races
Carpetbaggers
A northerner
who moved into
the South to help
carry out
Congress’s
Reconstruction
plan after the
Civil War.
Scalawags
A native white
southerner who belonged
to the Republican party
during Reconstruction.
W.W. Holden was the Governor of North
Carolina in 1865, and from 1868 to 1871.
He was the leader of North Carolina’s
Republican Party. After clashing with
the Ku Klux Klan, he was successfully
impeached in 1871.
Freedman
 A newly
freed slave
Freedmen’s Bureau
An agency of the Federal government, established in
1865 to provide food, clothing, shelter and education
for refugee blacks in the south immediately after the
American Civil War.
Freedmen School
House, 1868
The
Freedman’s
Bureau, as
seen through
a Southern
Democrats
eyes.
th
13
Amendment
 Ratified in 1865.
 Section 1.Neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof
the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist
within the United States, or any place subject to
their jurisdiction.
 Section 2.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
th
14
Amendment

Ratified in 1868.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall
make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of
persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President andVice
President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature
thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way
abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the
number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President andVice President, or hold any office, civil or
military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the
United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the
United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may
by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4.The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties
for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any
debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave;
but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
th
15
Amendment
 Ratified in 1870.
 The right of citizens of the United States to vote
shall not be denied or abridged by the United
States or by any state on account of race, color,
or previous condition of servitude.
 The Congress shall have power to enforce this
article by appropriate legislation.
Balance of Power in Congress
 With newly freed
blacks having the
right to vote in
1870, many white
southerners found
themselves in the
minority and at the
mercy of the black
vote.
State
White Citizens
Freedmen
SC
291,000
411,000
MS
353,000
436,000
LA
357,000
350,000
GA
591,000
465,000
AL
596,000
437,000
VA
719,000
533,000
NC
631,000
331,000
Southern Democrats
Southern Democrats (exConfederates) began to feel
threatened by the new civil
rights of the freedmen and
feared economic upheaval.
These whites became
determined to keep the blacks
“in there place.” They did this
in 2 ways…
1. Black Codes
Black Codes were laws passed on the state and
local levels in the Southern United States to limit
the civil rights and civil liberties of African
Americans directly after the Civil War. The main
goals of the Black Codes were;
1. to keep blacks as laborers (sharecropping)
2. to keep the same system of race relations
(white superiority)
Examples of Black Codes
Different states and different areas within a state had
different laws, some of these may have applied in some areas
and not others. Some places may have been very restricted
with many black codes ( like Mississippi) and some places
may have had little or no black codes (like North Carolina).
 Freedmen could not own guns
 Freedmen could not meet together after sunset
 Freedmen could be put in prison if they had no jobs
 In some places, freedmen could practice no trade other than
that of a farmer or a servant.
Sharecropping
A system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to
use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the
land (e.g., 50 percent of the crop). Common in the south in the
late 1800’s to mid 1900’s.
1880
2. Ku Klux Klan
A secret society founded in Tennessee in 1866 that
used intimidation and violence to return political
power to white men in the south during and after
Reconstruction.
The End of Reconstruction
Reconstruction officially ended
in 1877, when President
Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew
the army from the southern
states. By that time,
Republicans had lost interest in
helping African Americans and
in most cases southern white
democrats had won back power
in the state governments.