Download Reconstruction - New Smyrna Beach High School

Reconstruction, 1865- 1877
•
•
•
1865, the end of the Civil War, to 1877,
the Compromise of 1877
Rebuilding the nation after the Civil War
tore it apart
3 phases:
1. Presidential- Lincoln and Johnson, goal- Union
2. Congressional- (Radical Reconstruction),
attempted protection of Black rights
3. Redemption- White Democratic Southerners
regained power through violent means
And now with my latest writing and utterance, and with
what will [be] near to my latest breath, I here repeat,
& would willingly proclaim, my unmitigated hatred to
Yankee rule—to all political, social and business
connections with Yankees, & to the perfidious,
malignant, & vile Yankee race
Florida Gov. John Milton
Edmond Ruffin
Key Questions
1. How do we
bring the South
back into the
Union?
2. How do we
rebuild the
South after its
destruction
during the war?
4. What branch
of government
should control
the process of
Reconstruction?
3. How do we
integrate and
protect newlyemancipated
black freedmen?
President Lincoln’s Plan
10% Plan
*
Proclamation of Amnesty
and Reconstruction
(December 8, 1863)
1864  “Lincoln
Governments” formed in LA,
TN, AR.
Perpetual Union Theory:
Never believed the South
left the Union
Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
 Required 50% of the
number of 1860 voters to
take an “iron clad” oath of
allegiance (swearing they
had never voluntarily aided
the rebellion ).
Senator
Benjamin
Wade
(R-OH)
 Required a state
constitutional convention
before the election of
state officials.
 Enacted specific safeguards
of freedmen’s liberties.
Congr.
Henry
W. Davis
(R-MD)
Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
 “Iron-Clad” Oath.
 “State Suicide” Theory.
 “Conquered Provinces” Position.
President
Lincoln
Pocket
Veto
Wade-Davis
Bill
13th Amendment
 Ratified in December, 1865.
 Neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude, except as punishment for
crime whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted, shall exist within
the United States or any place
subject to their jurisdiction.
 Congress shall have power to enforce
this article by appropriate legislation.
Freedmen’s Bureau (1865)
 Helped slaves
adjust to freedom
 Negotiated labor
contracts
 Set up schools for
both races
 Northerners risk
lives, Called
“carpetbaggers” by
white southern
Democrats.
Freedmen’s Bureau Seen Through
Southern
Eyes
Plenty to
eat and
nothing to
do.
Opposition to the Freedmen’s Bureau in a
Penn. Newspaper
Freedmen’s Bureau School
Establishment of Historically
Black Colleges in the South
-Fisk
-Howard
-Hampton
President Andrew Johnson
 Jacksonian Democrat.
 Anti-Aristocrat.
 White Supremacist.
 Agreed with Lincoln
that states had never
legally left the Union.
“Damn the negroes! I am
fighting these traitorous
aristocrats, their masters!”
President Johnson’s Plan (10%+)
 Offered amnesty upon simple oath to all except
Confederate civil and military officers and those with
property over $20,000 (they could apply directly to
Johnson)
 In new constitutions, they must accept minimum
conditions repudiating slavery, secession and state
debts.
 Named provisional governors in Confederate states and
called them to oversee elections for constitutional
conventions.
1. Disenfranchised certain leading Confederates.
EFFECTS?
2. Pardoned planter aristocrats brought them back
to political power to control state organizations.
3. Republicans were outraged that planter elite
were back in power in the South!
Andrew Johnson’s Pardons:
Is this Reconstruction or
Restoration?
Restoration States in 1865
• Elections to fill open seats
• Elect 58 Confederate Congressmen, 8
CSA colonials, 4 CSA Generals, and the
VP of the Confederacy, Alexander
Stephens!
Growing Northern Alarm!
 Many Southern state
constitutions fell short of
minimum requirements.
 Johnson granted 13,500
special pardons.
 Revival of southern defiance.
BLACK CODES
Slavery is Dead?
Black Codes
 Purpose:
*
*
Guarantee stable labor
supply now that blacks
were emancipated.
Restore pre-emancipation
system of race relations.
(replaced slave codes)
 Forced many blacks to
become sharecroppers
[tenant farmers].
Congress Breaks with the President
 Congress bars Southern
Congressional delegates.
 Joint Committee on
Reconstruction created.
 February, 1866  President
vetoed the Freedmen’s
Bureau bill.
 March, 1866  Johnson
vetoed the 1866 Civil Rights Act.
 Congress passed both bills over
Johnson’s vetoes  1st in U. S.
history!!
Memphis Riot,
May 1-2, 1866
New Orleans Riot 1866
“The more information I obtain . . . the more revolting it becomes.
It was no riot; it was an absolute massacre by the police which was not
excelled in murderous cruelty by that of Fort Pillow.” Sheridan to Grant
th
14
Amendment
 Ratified in July, 1868.
*
*
*
Provide a constitutional guarantee of the
rights and security of freed people.
(Protecting the Civil Rights Act of 1866)
Insure against neo-Confederate political
power.
Enshrine the national debt while
repudiating that of the Confederacy.
 Southern states would be punished for
denying the right to vote to black citizens!
The 1866 Bi-Election
 A referendum on Radical Reconstruction.
 Johnson made an ill-conceived propaganda
tour around the country to push his plan.
 Republicans
won a 3-1
majority in both
houses and
gained control
of every
northern state.
Johnson’s “Swing around
the Circle”
Radical Plan for Readmission
 Civil authorities in the territories were
subject to military supervision.
 Required new state constitutions,
including black suffrage and ratification
of the 13th and 14th Amendments.
 In March, 1867, Congress passed an
act that authorized the military to
enroll eligible black voters and begin the
process of constitution making.
Reconstruction Acts of 1867
 Military Reconstruction Act:
 Command of the Army Act
 Tenure of Office Act
Bayonet Rule
The Tenure of Office Act
 The Senate must
approve any presidential
dismissal of a cabinet
official or general of
the army.
 Designed to protect
radical members of
Lincoln’s government.
 Question of the
constitutionality of this
law.
Edwin Stanton
President Johnson’s Impeachment
 Johnson removed Stanton in February, 1868.
 Johnson replaced generals in the field who
were more sympathetic to Radical
Reconstruction.
 The House impeached him on February 24
before even
drawing up the
charges by a
vote of 126 – 47!
The Senate Trial
 11 week trial.
 Johnson acquitted
35 to 19 (one short
of required 2/3s
vote).
The 1868 Republican Ticket
The 1868 Democratic Ticket
Waving the Bloody Shirt!
“Soldiers, every scar you have on your heroic bodies was
given you by a Democrat. Every scar, every arm that is
lacking, every limb that is gone, is a souvenir of a
Democrat. I want you to recollect it . . .”
1868 Presidential Election
Grant Administration Scandals
 Grant presided over an
era of unprecedented
growth and corruption.
*
*
*
Credit Mobilier
Scandal.
Whiskey Ring.
The “Indian
Ring.”
*
Credit Mobilier
Scandal. 5 Congressmen
forced to resign
The Tweed Ring in NYC
William Marcy Tweed
(notorious head of Tammany Hall’s political machine)
The Panic of 1873
 Caused Northerners to
become more concerned
about the economy than
Reconstruction
Black
“Adjustment” in
the South:
Is free simply the
condition of not
being a slave?
Sherman’s Special Field Order #15
•40 acres and a mule promise
•Latter overturned, land given back
•Land redistribution never took place
Economic- Sharecropping
<<< Before
Civil War
<<< After
Civil War
Freedmen Adjust
• First thing many do was to wander the
countryside looking for sold off family
members
• Rename to get rid of slave family name,
i.e. George Washington Carver
• Built black independent churches
Blacks in Southern Politics
 Core voters were black Civil War veterans.
 Most white southerners were unprepared
to give Blacks political power.
 Blacks could register and vote in states
since 1867.
The 15th
Amendment
guaranteed
federal
voting.
The Balance of Power in
Congress
State
White
Citizens
Freedmen
SC
291,000
411,000
Miss
353,000
436,000
Louis
357,000
350,000
GA
591,000
465,000
AL
596,000
437,000
VA
719,000
533,000
NC
631,000
331,000
Colored Rule
in a Reconstructed State ?
Black & White Political Participation
Black Senate & House Delegates
Hiram Revels (Miss) & Blanche Bruce
(Miss): 1st black Senators
15th 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.
 Women’s rights groups were furious that they
were not granted the vote! Republicans
motivated to protect black voting rights to win
elections
VI. Redemption
• The rise of Southern control
• The abandonment of Reconstruction
The “Invisible Empire of the South”instrument of the Democratic Party
Ku Klux Klan & Carpetbaggers
Word Origins of the KKK
• The Scots-Gaelic Sanas of Ku Klux Klan
Cu Cleócach Clainn
Cloaked heroes of the Clann
Cu: Champion, hero. (Dwelly, Faclair Gaidhlig Gu
Beurla, Gaelic-English Dictionary , p. 283
Cleóc, Cloak, mantle, cover or conceal
Cleócach, adj. cloaked (pron. Klukah)
Clann, gs. clainn: Offspring, descendants, children; tribe,
family.
• During the evening the organization was perfected. Captain John B.
Kennedy, on the committee to select a name mentioned one which
he had considered, "Kukloi," from the Greek word "Kuklos," meaning
a band or circle. James R. Crowe said, "Call is Ku Klux," and no one
will know what it means. John C. Lester said: "Add Klan as we are
all Scotch-Irish descent."
• He then repeated the words: "Ku Klux Klan," the first time these
words ever fell from human tongue. The weirdness of the alliteration
appealed to the mysterious with them; so the name was adopted
with a feeling that they had chosen something which would excite
the curiosity of their friends and carry out their idea of amusement,
which most unexpectedly to them, proved a boon to Pulaski and the
South.
• Emily Thach run the computer
• Leslie and Jesse are on the
Reconstruction was a success side
• Have class fill in blanks for slides 66-93
• Do notecards as a class for the remaining
time
The Failure of Federal Enforcement
 Enforcement Acts of 1870 & 1871
[also known as the KKK Act].
 “The Lost Cause.”
 The rise of the
“Bourbons.”
 Redeemers (prewar
Democrats and
Union Whigs)
people who want
to take back
white rule.
The South continued to fight the
Civil War after the war, guerilla
warfare
Southern Politics
• Republicans • Democrats
– Freedmen
– Carpetbaggers
– Scalawags
– Former Confederate
soldiers
– KKK
– Most whites
The Civil Rights Act of 1875
 Crime for any individual to deny full &
equal use of public conveyances and
public places.
 Prohibited discrimination in jury
selection.
 Shortcoming  lacked a strong
enforcement mechanism.
 No new civil rights act was attempted
for 90 years!
Why did Northern Support Wane?
 “Grantism” & corruption
seen as wasteful.
 Panic of 1873 [6-year
depression].
 Concern over westward
expansion and Indian
wars.
 Tired after 12 years
1876 Presidential Tickets
1876 Presidential Election
1876 Presidential Election
• Close election
• 3 states contested, Florida, Louisiana, &
South Carolina
• Republicans claimed Blacks were not
allowed to vote and contested the results
• Dispute dragged on to the next year
The Political Crisis of 1877
 “Corrupt Bargain”
Part II?
A Political Crisis: The
Compromise of 1877
Democrats agreed
to give all four of the
contested states to
the Republicans
and Hayes if they
agreed to end
Reconstruction and
remove the federal
troops from the
South (Wormley
Hotel Agreement)
The North won the Civil War, but the South won Reconstruction
“Regional Balance?”
“The New South”
• Idea articulated by
Henry Grady, editor
of the Atlanta
Constitution in the
1880’s
• The Old South was
based on plantation
slavery, the New
South would be
urban and industrial
like the North
• Did it come true?
Vs.
Economic Progress
• Boom in textiles
• Tobacco and cigarette
production, James Duke
• Steel-Birmingham
• Memphis center of the lumber
industry
• Agriculture- George
Washington Carver promoted
peanut production to replace
cotton
Continued Poverty
attended a funeral once in Pickens county in my
• Sharecropping/ cotton IState.
. . . This funeral was peculiarly sad. It was a
fellow. They buried him in the midst of a marble
production continues poor
quarry: they cut through solid marble to make his
grave; and yet a little tombstone they put above him
• Cycle of debt
was from Vermont. They buried him in the heart of a
pine forest, and yet the pine coffin was imported from
Cincinnati. They buried him within touch of an iron
• Poor education
mine, and yet the nails in his coffin and the iron in the
shovel that dug his grave were imported from
system
Pittsburg. They buried him by the side of the best
sheep-grazing country on the earth, and yet the wool
• Late start
in the coffin bands and the coffin bands themselves
were brought from the North. The South didn’t furnish
industrializing
a thing on earth for that funeral but the corpse and
the hole in the ground. There they put him away and
• Most business owned the clods rattled down on his coffin, and they buried
him in a New York coat and a Boston pair of shoes and
by Northern investors a pair of breeches from Chicago and a shirt from
Cincinnati, leaving him nothing to carry into the next
and banks
world with him to remind him of the country in which
he lived, and for which he fought for four years, but
chill of blood in his veins and the marrow in his
• Did the South become the
bones.
-Henry Grady to the Bay State Club of
a colony of the North?
Boston, 1889
Per Capita Income
1857
1879
Black
$28.95
42.22
White
124.79
80.57
Avg.
74.28
60.13
• The South did not recover economically from the war
until the 1940’s
Politics
• Solid South is the
electoral support of
the Southern US
(Former CSA) for the
Democratic Party
candidates for nearly
a century from 1877,
the end of
Reconstruction, to
1964, during the
middle of the Civil
Rights era.
Nadir (low point)
of Race Relations
• Civil Rights Act of 1875 &
14th Amendment supposed
to protect Black Civil Rights
• Instead Jim Crow laws
developed that legally
separated the races in all
parts of Southern society
– Education, public
restrooms, theatres,
trains…
Segregated Drinking Fountain
• Routine acts like
using a rest room or
getting a drink were
an exercise in
humiliation for blacks.
• Blacks who
challenged “Jim
Crow” laws often met
with violence.
Black Codes were not the same
as Jim Crow Laws
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Black Codes outraged public opinion in the North because it seemed
the South was creating a form of quasi-slavery to negate the results of the
war.
After winning large majorities in the 1866 elections, the Republicans put
the South under military rule.
They held new elections in which the Freedmen could vote.
Suffrage was also expanded to poor whites.
The new governments repealed all the Black Codes; The 14th
Amendment's equal protection clause ensured that the Black Codes could
not reappear in southern legislation. It was adopted on July 9th, 1868.
The Black Codes of the 1860s are not the same as the Jim Crow laws.
The Black Codes were in reaction to the abolition of slavery and the
South's defeat in the Civil War.
Southern legislatures enacted them in the 1860s.
The Jim Crow era began later, nearer to the end of the 19th century after
Reconstruction.
Voting Rights After
Reconstruction
• Poll taxes, literacy
tests, and grandfather
clauses were all used
to deny blacks the
right to vote.
• The 15th amendment
was circumvented.
Plessy v. Ferguson 1896
• The US Supreme
Court officially
approved segregated
facilities.
“Separate but Equal”
• The court found that
states could legally
separate the races by
providing “separate but
equal” facilities.
• This, according to the
Court, would not violate
the equal protection
clause of the 14th
Amendment
• Of course, from schools to
waiting rooms at train
stations the facilities were
not equal.
The United States of America
are a great place to live.
Vs.
The United States of American
is a great place to live
The End
RECONSTRUCTION
HISTORIOGRAPHY
“Traditional” Interpretations
• Late 19th century
• Radical Republicans dominated southern life
• Unscrupulous carpetbaggers and scalawags
exploited the poor South; graft rampant!
• Black supremacy oppressed poor white
Southerners; nothing but barbaric!
• Argues race the major issue,
• Reconstruction A BIG failure!
• Interpretation is now considered racist.
William Archibald Dunning
• From New Jersey
• 1857-1922
• Defined first
decades of
Reconstruction
history
• Condoned KKK
• Poor abused South
• Evil scheming North
• Child-like Negroes
Progressive Historians
•
•
•
•
Early 20th century
Second American Revolution
Largest issue: ECONOMICS
Dominant northern capitalists exploit
defeated South
• South still exploited, but for different
reasons, evil plot nonetheless.
• A handful of scholars dispute this view.
Charles A. Beard
• 1874-1948
• Dominant northern
capitalists exploit
defeated South
• Economic
interpretation
beginning in 1923
• Focused on
material self
interest, not
ideology
W.E.B. DuBois
• 1868-1963
• Brought African
American
experience to the
table
• Wrote Black
Reconstruction
• Communist
• Reconstruction had
a good side,
benefits.
Revisionist Historians
• Second Reconstruction Era: 1950’s and
1960’s
• African-Americans at center of issue
• Andrew Johnson now a pig-headed racist
• Radical Republicans are GOOD guys!
• Reconstruction had positive effects!
• Revolutionary impulse thwarted
LaWanda F. Cox
• 1909-2005
• Moderate
Republicans
spearheaded
Reconstruction
• Not economics but
race relations the
major issue
• Genuine conviction
for legal equality
Kenneth Stampp
• 1912• Refutes Dunning
• Reconstruction a
success
• Last “great crusade
of 19th century
reformers.”
• Issue: too many
secondary sources
C. Vann Woodward
• 1908-1999
• Reconstruction was
not revolutionary
• Very conservative
• Strange Career of
Jim Crow (1955)
• Dissertation
advisor: Howard K.
Beale
John Hope Franklin
• 1915• Focused on AfricanAmerican contribution
• “And what historians
have written tells as
much about their own
generation as about the
Reconstruction period
itself.”
• Civil Rights influence
Post-revisionism
• 1970’s
• Racial prejudice compromised efforts to
aid freedmen.
• Reconstruction was “superficial”
• New South just continuation of Old South
• Reconstruction was conservative and not
revolutionary at all!
Eric Foner
• Marxist
• Issue is changing class
relationships
• Use of law to preserve
plantation system and
control of labor
• Economic role
pertained to labor
control
• Reconstruction was the
2nd American
Revolution
The End
Tenancy & the Crop Lien System
Furnishing Merchant
 Loan tools and seed
up to 60% interest
to tenant farmer to
plant spring crop.
 Farmer also secures
food, clothing, and
other necessities on
credit from
merchant until the
harvest.
 Merchant holds
“lien” {mortgage} on
part of tenant’s
future crops as
repayment of debt.
Tenant Farmer
 Plants crop,
harvests in
autumn.
 Turns over up to ½
of crop to land
owner as payment
of rent.
 Tenant gives
remainder of crop
to merchant in
payment of debt.
Landowner
 Rents land to tenant
in exchange for ¼
to ½ of tenant
farmer’s future
crop.
Military Reconstruction Act
Johnson the Martyr / Samson
“If my blood is to be shed
because I vindicate the
Union and the preservation
of this government in its
original purity and
character, let it be shed;
let an altar to the Union be
erected, and then, if it is
necessary, take me and lay
me upon it, and the blood
that now warms and
animates my existence shall
be poured out as a fit
libation to the Union.”
(February 1866)
• Some historians have
argued that Manifest
Destiny was a form
American Imperialism.
Support, modify, or
refute this contention
using specific evidence.
• Evaluate the
effectiveness of political
compromise in reducing
sectional tensions like a
historian would by using
specific evidence from
1820 to 1861.
• Some historians have
argued that on the eve of
the Civil War, the North
and South were two
separate societies.
Support, modify, or refute
this contention using
specific evidence.
• Some historians have
argued that the Civil
War was fought over
slavery. Support,
modify, or refute this
contention using
specific evidence.
• Some historians have
argued that
Reconstruction from
1865 – 1877 was a
failure. Support, modify,
or refute this contention
using specific evidence.