Download Reconstruction - Geary County Schools USD 475

Issues of Reconstruction
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How to readmit southern states?
How to treat Ex-confederate soldiers?
Civil Rights of African Americans
Make-up of new southern state governments
Goals of Reconstruction
1. Northern politicians:
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Reconstruct Southern Society
Insure rights of former slaves
Political base for Republican Party
2. Lincoln wanted a speedy recovery for the
south.
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Crippled south would cripple nation.
Political realist = Unity = heal war wounds.
President Lincoln’s Plan
« 10% Plan
*Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction
(December 8, 1863)
*Replace majority rule with “loyal rule”
*Didn’t consult Congress regarding plan.
*Pardon all but highest ranking military and
civilian Confederate officers.
*When 10% of voting population in 1860
election takes oath of loyalty>establish &
recognize government
Congressional Reconstruction
• South should be more severely punished for
bringing war to the nation.
• South should be made to pay war costs.
• Did not want key Confederate political or military
leaders to be leaders of post-war South.
Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
Senator
Benjamin
Wade
(R-OH)
« 50% of 1860 voters take “iron
clad” oath of allegiance (swearing
they never voluntarily aided
rebellion ).
« Banned Ex-confederates from
Office.
« State constitutions repudiate
Confederate debts & prohibit
slavery
« Pocket veto by Lincoln.
Congressman
Henry
W. Davis
(R-MD)
Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
« “Iron-Clad” Oath.
« “State Suicide” Theory [MA Senator Charles
Sumner]
« “Conquered Provinces” Position
[PA Congressman Thaddeus Stevens]
President
Lincoln
Pocket
Veto
Wade-Davis
Bill
Lincoln Assassinated
April 14, 1865
Ford’s Theater
by John Wilkes Booth
th
13
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.
Jeff Davis Under Arrest
President Andrew Johnson
« Pro-Union Southern Jacksonian
Democrat.
« Despised “Old South.”
« 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 must apply directly to Johnson)
« New constitutions> repudiate slavery, secession and state debts.
« Named provisional governors to oversee elections for constitutional
conventions.
1. Disenfranchised
leading Confederates.
2. Pardoned planter aristocrats=they regained
political dominance.
RESULTS
3. Republicans were outraged that confederate
leaders were back in power! (Alexander
Stephens)
Growing Northern Alarm!
« Many Southern state constitutions fell
short of minimum requirements>deny
African Americans right to vote.
« Johnson granted 13,500 special
pardons.
« African Americans kept out of schools
« Black Codes: Freedman written where
word “slave” had been in slave codes.
Slavery is Dead?
Black Codes
« Purpose:
* Guarantee stable labor
supply now that blacks
were emancipated.
* Restore pre-emancipation
system of race relations.
« Forced many blacks to become
sharecroppers [tenant farmers].
« Former slaves kept out of
schools.
Congress Breaks with the President
« Congress bars Southern Congressional
delegates.
« Joint Committee on Reconstruction
created.
« February, 1866 President vetoed
Freedmen’s Bureau bill.
« March, 1866
Rights Act.
Johnson vetoed 1866 Civil
« Congress passed both bills over Johnson’s
vetoes 1st in U. S. history!!
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)
14th Amendment
« Ratified in July, 1868.
* Constitutional guarantee of rights of freed people.
* Citizenship rights for African Americans
* Due process rights for all Americans
« Southern states punished for denying right to
vote to black citizens!
The Balance of Power in Congress
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
The 1866 Bi-Election
« Referendum on Radical Reconstruction.
« Johnson made ill-conceived propaganda tour of
country to push his plan.
« Republicans won 3-1
majority in both houses
and gained control of
every northern
state.
Johnson’s “Swing around
the Circle”
Radical Reconstruction
« Southern states treated like conquered land.
« Blacks had vote and civil rights.
« Punish the south for causing the war.
« Freedman’s Bureau
« 14th Amendment
« Former Confederate officials & officers banned
from elective office.
« Confederate war debts repudiated.
« “Waving the bloody shirt”
« 15th Amendment---right to vote
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.
« Women’s rights groups were furious that they
were not granted the vote!
Freedmen’s Bureau (1865)
« Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen,
and Abandoned Lands.
« Many former northern
abolitionists risked their lives to
help southern freedmen.
« Called “carpetbaggers” by white
southern Democrats.
Freedmen’s Bureau Seen Through
Southern
Eyes
Plenty to
eat and
nothing to
do.
Freedmen’s Bureau School
Reconstruction Acts of 1867
« Military Reconstruction Act
* Restart Reconstruction in 10 Southern states that refused to
ratify 14th Amendment.
* Divide them into 5 military districts.
Reconstruction Acts of 1867
« Command of the Army Act
* President must issue all Reconstruction orders
through commander of military.
« Tenure of Office Act
* The President could not remove
any officials [esp. Cabinet members] without
Senate’s consent,
§ Question on Constitutionality of the Laws!
Edwin Stanton
President Johnson’s Impeachment
« Johnson fired Stanton in February, 1868.
« Johnson replaced generals in field who were
supporters of Radical Reconstruction.
« House impeached him on February 24
before drawing up
charges by
vote of 126 – 47!
The Senate Trial
« 11 week trial.
« Johnson acquitted
35 to 19 (one short of
required 2/3rds
majority).
« Deciding vote cast by
Republican Edwin Ross,
KS, ruining his political
career
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
«
Ruled unconstitutional by supreme court in 1883
«
No new civil rights act was attempted
for 80 years!
lacked a strong
enforcement mechanism.
Waving the Bloody Shirt!
Republican “Southern Strategy”
Sharecropping
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.
"First African American Senator and Representatives in the 41st and 42nd Congress
of the United States." (Left to right) Senator Hiram Revels of Mississippi,
Representatives Benjamin Turner of Alabama, Robert DeLarge of South Carolina,
Josiah Walls of Florida, Jefferson Long of Georgia, Joseph Rainey and Robert B.
Elliot of South Carolina.
What was the
truth about
Black
officials?
Blacks in Southern Politics
« Core voters were black veterans.
« Were Blacks politically unprepared?
« Blacks could register and vote in states since 1867.
The “Invisible Empire of the South”
The Failure of Federal Enforcement
«
Enforcement Acts of 1870 & 1871 [also
known as the KKK Act]. « “The Lost Cause”-
Conferate nobility &
chivalry
« The rise of “Bourbons”
(pro-business Democrats
« Redeemers (sought to
oust Radical Coalition).
« Radical coalition>
Freedmen, carpetbaggers,
scalawagsl
Election of 1876
1876 Presidential Election
The Political Crisis of 1877
•20 electoral votes in
dispute
•Florida, Louisiana, South
Carolina, Oregon
•Tilden short one
electoral vote.
A Political Crisis: The “Compromise”
of 1877
•Electoral Commission determine
victor
•Hayes declared winner, nicknamed
“His Fradulency” or “Rutherfraud”
Hayes
•Hayes would not seek 2nd term.
•Military withdrew from south
•Federal funds for internal
improvements in south
Results:
•Poll taxes & literacy tests &
grandfather clauses deny Black
vote.
Alas, the Woes of
Childhood…
Rutherfraud Hayes wins
Sammy Tilden—Boo-Hoo! Ruthy Hayes’s got my
Presidency, and he won’t give it to me!
Exodusters
• Benjamin “Pap” Singleton
• Migration to Kansas
Nicodemus, Kansas
Westward Migrations
Deadwood Dick
Booker T. Washington
• Former Slave
• Founder of Tuskegee
Institute
• Became Leading Black
Spokesman.
• Atlanta Compromise
– Education, job skills,
economic equality first
– Abandon fight for political &
social rights.
Establishment of Historically
Black Colleges in the South
Plessy v. Ferguson
Homer Plessy
• 1896
• Supreme Court Ruling>
Separate but Equal”
• Legalized Segregation
One dissent by John Marshall Harlan