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Chapter 22
The Ordeal of Reconstruction
1865-1877
The Problems of Peace
• Most of the Confederate leaders were
pardoned after 1865.
• The South was devastated after the war.
• After the Civil War, many white
Southerners still believed that their view of
succession was correct.
Freedmen Define Freedom
•
For Blacks, emancipation meant all of the
following:
1. The ability to search for lost family.
2. The right to get married.
3. The opportunity for education.
* In 1865, many Southern Blacks began
traveling to test their freedom and search
for family members and jobs.
Freedmen Define Freedom
Continued
• Exodusters – Blacks who moved from Louisiana,
Texas and Mississippi to Kansas.
• From 1878 – 1880 some 25,000 Blacks made the
trip to Kansas.
• The westward movement was faltered when
steamboat captains refused to transport them
across the Mississippi River.
Freedmen’s Bureau
• Set up by Congress in March 1865 in order to
provide for the immediate needs of refugees and
freedmen.
• This bureau established schools and hospitals and
provided courts to settle legal disputes involving
freed blacks and white planters.
• It also operated as an employment agency for the
former slaves.
• It provide food, clothing, etc.
Freedmen’s Bureau Continued
• The bureau confiscated land and took abandoned
lands that could be rented or sold to freedmen.
• “forty acres and a mule” –rumor
• The greatest achievements of the Freedmen’s
Bureau were in education!
• The white South view the bureau as a
meddlesome agency that threatened to upset
white racial dominance.
• President Andrew Johnson believed that the
agency should be killed or done away with.
Johnson: The Tailor President
• As Vice President, Johnson advocated
states’ rights.
• As a politician, Johnson developed a
reputation as a champion of the poor
whites.
Presidential Reconstruction
Lincoln’s 10% Plan
• Offered amnesty to most Southerner’s who
would accept the new laws. (help regain their
political & property rights)
• A former Confederate state would be allowed to
rejoin the Union if 10% of the voters in the 1860
election took an oath of loyalty to the United
States
• Lincoln promised rapid readmission of Southern
states into the Union.
Presidential Reconstruction
Continued
• Congressional Republicans held the view that the
Southern states were “conquered provinces” and
therefore at the mercy of Congress for the
readmission to the Union.
Johnson’s Plan
• Pardoned most rebels
• Required states to abolish slavery (13th
Amendment)
• States must nullify acts of succession
• Took away the right to vote from Confederate
leaders and wealthy planters.
The Baleful Black Codes
•
The main purpose was to ensure a stable labor
supply.
• Provide for all of the following:
1. A ban on jury service by blacks.
2. Punishment of blacks for idleness.
3. A bar on blacks from renting land.
• To many Northerners, the codes seemed to
indicate that possibly the North had not really
won the Civil War.
Congressional Reconstruction
• Confederate states had to abolish slavery
• Required all white males to take a loyalty oath
(Wade-Davis Bill)
• The Radical Republicans in Congress, most
notably Representative Thaddeus Stevens and
Senator Charles Sumner, did not support the
same lenient approach preferred by Lincoln and
Johnson, but rather wanted to punish the South
for the war.
Congressional Reconstruction
Continued
• At the same time, though, they wanted to
protect the rights of the former slaves, now
known as freedmen.
• For congressional Republicans, one of the
most troubling aspects of the Southern
states’ restoration to the Union was that the
South would be stronger than ever in
national politics.
Johnson Clashes with Congress
• The incident that caused the clash between
Congress and the president to explode into the
open was Johnson’s veto of the bill to extend the
Freedmen’s Bureau.
• The Republicans joined forces and overrode his
veto.
• They then passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
He vetoed the bill and they overrode his veto.
Fourteenth Amendment
• It did all of the following:
1. Declared all persons “born or
naturalized in the United States” to be
citizens.
2. Required “Equal Protection of the Laws”
3. Protected citizens from the denial of life,
liberty, or property without due process of law
4. Reduced the representation in Congress of
states that did not grant Black suffrage
Fourteenth Amendment
Continued
5. Banned Confederate officials from taking office
6. Forbade the repayment of Confederate war debt
* While its primary goal was essentially to declare
the former slaves full citizens, it also served to
punish the South, despite the approach
preferred by Lincoln and Johnson.
Swinging ‘ Round the Circle
with Johnson
• The basis of the battle between Congress
and Andrew Johnson was Johnson’s “10
percent” governments that had passed
Black Codes.
• Johnson’s appeal to the public failed and
the Radicals gained over a two-thirds
majority in Congress.
Republican Principles and
Programs
• Both moderate and radical Republicans
agreed that freed slaves must gain the right
to vote.
Reconstruction by the Sword
• Radical congressional Reconstruction of
the South ended when federal troops were
removed.
Continued
Congressional Reconstruction Acts (1867)
• Passed over Johnson’s vetoes
1. Military Reconstruction Act: a moderate
compromise, required acceptance of the
Fourteenth Amendment and black
suffrage by the South.
* Ten states were divided into five
military districts.
Continued
* Statehood could result from a
constitution approved by adult males
(white and black)
2. Command of the Army Act: limited the
president’s military authority.
3. Tenure of Office Act: required Senate
approval for removal of presidential
appointees.
No Women Voters
• Many feminist leaders were disappointed with
the Fifteenth Amendment because it failed to give
women the right to vote.
Fifteenth Amendment
• Forbade the denial of the right to vote based on
race, color, or previous condition of servitude
• Failed to extend the right to vote to women.
The Realities of Radical
Reconstruction in the South
• Blacks in the South relied on the Union
League to educate them on their civic
duties.
• During Reconstruction, African-American
women assumed new political roles like
monitoring state constitutional
conventions, participating in political
rallies, and organizing mass meetings.
Continued
• Carpetbaggers – Northerners who came to the
South to participate in state conventions.
• Scalawags – Southern whites who supported the
Union and Reconstruction
• Radical Reconstruction state governments passed
much desirable legislation and badly needed
reforms.
• Political corruption during Reconstruction was
present in both the North and the South.
The Ku Klux Klan
•
Members used the following methods to
achieve their goal of white supremacy:
beatings, scare tactics, and murder.
• The following were goals of the KKK:
1. “keep blacks in their place” – that is
subservient to whites.
2. Prevent blacks from voting.
3. Keep white “carpetbaggers” from voting.
Johnson Walks the Impeachment
Plank
• Congress’s impeachment of President
Johnson and attempt to remove him from
office were directly precipitated by his
dismissal of Secretary of War Stanton in
1867.
A Not-Guilty Verdict for
Johnson
• The House of Representatives voted to
impeach President Johnson because he
violated the Tenure of Office Act, making
scandalous speeches, and bringing
Congress “into disgrace.”
• In the Senate, Johnson fell one vote short
of being impeached.
Continued
•
The Senate voted to acquit President
Johnson for the following reasons:
1. Opposition to abusing the Constitutional
system of checks and balances.
2. Concern about the person who would
become President.
3. Fears of creating a destabilizing period.
The Purchase of Alaska
• In 1867, Secretary of State Seward
accomplished an enduring success in
foreign relations for the Johnson
administration when he purchased Alaska
from Russia.
The Heritage of Reconstruction
• Reconstruction might have been more
successful if Thaddeus Stevens’s radical
program of drastic economic reforms and
stronger protection of political rights had
been enacted.