Download Reconstruction

Reconstruction
1865-1877
Reconstruction: Major Questions
Reconstruction: the era in which the federal government struggled in
dealing with the 3 issues of the Civil War:
1.
How will Southern states rejoin the union? Treat them like they
never left or continue military occupation? Are they equals?
2.
How will the Southern Economy be rebuilt?
3.
What rights will African Americans have? Whose job is it to protect
those rights-federal or state government?
4.
Who has authority to decide these answers-President or Congress?
*Come up with some ideas to fix these problems!*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nowsS7pMApI
Part 1
PLANS FOR RECONSTRUCTION
VOCABULARY
 Explain the significance of the following words:
 1.
Wade-Davis Bill
 2. Thirteenth Amendment
 3. Fourteenth Amendment
 4. Civil Rights Act of 1866
 5. Black Codes
 6. Fifteenth Amendment
Southern States Rejoin
 Should leaders be tried




for treason?
How do Southerners
claim seats in Congress?
What about the
Constitution?
Should Congress or the
President lead?
Stipulations to joiningloyalty oaths?
Southern Economy Rebuilt
 1860-1870: Wealth
declined from 30% to
12%
 ¼ of soldiers died in
war, land destroyed, no
farm equipment, no
workforce
 Land=most valuable
asset
 Sherman- “40 acres and
a mule” idea
Rights for African Americans
 13th Amendment:
abolition of slavery;
passed Dec. 6, 1865
 Citizenship? Full rights?
 Republican Party
supports; Southerners
reject (power stance)
Lincoln’s Stance on Reconstruction
 Felt some sympathy for the south; offered 10% Plan:
As soon as 10% of voters took a loyalty oath to the Union,
the state could set up a new government
 Willing to grant pardons for former Confederates
 Considered compensation for property loss

 Opposition to 10% Plan:
Thaddeus Stevens/Charles Sumner “Radical
Republicans”
 Advocated full citizenship for AA and punishment for
South

Wade-Davis Bill
 Raised in opposition to
the 10% Plan
 Demanded a majority of
voters to take loyalty
oath to the Union AND
guarantee AA equality
 Lincoln kills with a
pocket-veto
Freedmen’s Bureau
 “Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned
Lands”
 Goal: provide food, clothing, healthcare, and
education for black and white refugees in the South



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Reunited families separated at wartime
EDUCATION; Oliver O. Howard (3,000 schools)
Negotiated labor contracts
Represented black citizens in court; LEGAL RIGHTS
Fed funding stops 1870, disbands in 1872
Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan
 Agreed with Lincoln-fast acting restoration of Union
 Required states to accept 13th Amendment and
abolish slavery in their state constitutions
 Did NOT agree that AA should vote- “White Man’s
Government”
 Supported state’s rights: laws and customs of state
can outweigh federal regulations
Black Codes
 Laws that sought to limit
the rights of African
Americans and keep them
as landless workers
1. Could not borrow money
2. Could not testify against
a white man in court
3. Limited occupations and
property rights

Vagrancy laws: any black
person who did not have a
job could be sent to work as a
prison laborer
“Who won the war?”
-Republicans
Johnson V. Congress
 Rad Republicans refused
Southerners their seats
 Committee created to
investigate treatment of
former slaves
 Civil Rights Act of 1866:
federal guarantee of civil
rights and superseded
state laws

Johnson vetoes law
Congressional Reconstruction
 With 2/3 majority, Congress overrides President
Johnson to pass Civil Rights Act of 1866


First time ever!
Again with Military Reconstruction Act of 1867

Divided states into 5 military districts controlled by Union
generals until they accepted the 13th/14th amendment
 Moderate+Radical Republicans work together
 14th Amendment: equality under law for citizens
 If states refused, they lost seats in the House
Congress Tries to Impeach Johnson
 Crisis of 1867: Congress
and Pres don’t agree
 Tenure of Office Act:
Pres needs senate
approval for removal of
certain offices
 Impeachment debate
after Johnson tries to get
rid of Sect. of War-failed
by ONE vote
Grant and the 15th Amendment
 1868: Ulysses S. Grant is elected president
 Wins electoral vote, significant lead in popular vote thanks to
African American population
 1869 Passed 15th Amendment: no state can deny
suffrage on the grounds of race, color, or previous
conditions of servitude
 Both 14th/15th amendments ratified by 1870
 Loopholes: literacy/property/gender qualifications
Part 2
RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SOUTH
Congress takes the Power
 2nd round of
Reconstruction: Congress
leads
 Ex-Confederate States:
republican controlled gov’t
under military protect of
the US army until “ALL
RECONSTRUCTION
REQUIREMENTS ARE
MET”

Republicans rule :TN (1
year), FL (9 years)
 Southern Government:


Majority in both houses
are white men
Only exception: SC


1873 House
Legislators included
native-born white
southerners, freemen, and
northerners
Supporters of Reconstruction
 Scalawags: white men
locked out of pre-Civil
War politics because of
wealthier neighbors



Southern Republicans
Former Whigs
Economic development
and peace
 Formed allies in the
north and with
whites/blacks in the
south
Supporters of Reconstruction
 Carpetbaggers:
northerners seeking to
improve their
economic/political
situations
 Make a fortune out of the
South’s misfortune
 Young, basic education,
worked to get political
career
African Americans Get Power
 1500 black men help Republicans Party
 Superintendents, sheriffs, coroners, police, state legislature
 Legislators: well-educated property holders, moderate stance

Blanche K. Bruce, Hiram Revels-Senators (one for J. Davis’s seat!)
 Loyalty Oaths required to vote-AA men quickly sign
up to vote


White southerners struggling to accept-many avoid voting all
together
Black majorities rising throughout the South
Republican Owned Gov’t
Brief control of southern politics…
1.
Did they abuse their power for selfish
ends?
2.
OR Did they govern responsibly in
the public interest?
Reconstruction: Success v. Failure
Successes
 Women receive property






rights/shape schools
Debt relief
Universal male suffrage
Tax supported education
Aggressive econ. growth
Internal growth
Hospitals/asylums
Failures
 No woman suffrage
 Segregation of schools
 Illiteracy, low quality med
care, housing, and econ
opportunities
 Limited protection of legal
rights for AA
 Political corruption (took $)
 Mismanagement of money
Freedmen: New Community Life
Family Life
Schools and Churches
 AA men and women have
 Freedmen’s Bureau combats
legal rights: can build
families and get married
 Start schools, churches, and
social institutions
 Issues in the South:
 Settle for substandard
living conditions
 Hard to find jobs
 Rural v. City life
illiteracy- arithmetic
 Tuition: 10% of earnings
 Est. black churches
 Helped build community,
employment opp, political
rallies, and schools
 Several AA political
activists start off as
ministers
Southern Economy: Problems
1.
Uneven distribution of land
2. 90% of land owned by only 50% of the population
3. Competition between landless whites and blacks
4. “40 acre and a mule” plan did not offer a solution
5. Did not want to take land from wealthy (Stevens)
Systems for Sharing Land
 Sharecropping:
landowner dictates the
crop AND provides
sharecropper with shelter,
seeds, and tools in return
for a “share” of the harvest
 Tools: costly, high int. rate
 Sharecropper perpetually
in debt to landowner;
often lied to about debt
Systems for Sharing Land
 Share-tenancy: similar
to sharecropping BUT
worker chose his crop
and bought own supplies
 More freedom, could
better judge prices,
possible to save $$$
System for Sharing Land
 Tenant Farming: paid
cash rent to landowner
then free to manage his
own crops and free to
choose where he lives
 All depended on
management skills
Reconstruction: the North
 Concerned with railroads, labor problems, and
money
 Grant Administration: Gilded Age


Concerned with material interests
From reformers to Spoilsmen: political manipulators (spoils
system back again)


Senator Roscoe Conklin, James Blaine
Business/Political bosses scheme to enrich themselves

Bossman Tweed, Jay Gould, James Fisk
Violence Over Reform
 Money competition fuels white southerner’s fire
 Did not want AA to have full citizenship
 Ku Klux Klan
 Terrorist group, TN 1866
 Burned homes, schools, churches
 Beat, maimed, and killed AA/White allies
 Purpose: keep freed people from the polls
Government Responds
 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments cause racial violence
 Legislators murdered, riots breaking out
 Enforcement Acts (KKK Acts): 1870-71, federal
offense to interfere with a citizen’s right to vote
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Congress invited politically involved AA men in to hearings
Marines sent to protect AA voters in N&S
Decline in violence by 1872 due to feds readiness to punish
End of Reconstruction
 Grant is reelected for a second term: corruption
 Panic of 1873
 Over-speculation and overbuilding (railroads)
 Businesses fail, jobless/homeless population
 Inflation rampant; farmers in debt

Radical Republicans waning, Southern conservatives
“redeemers” controlling southern government

State’s rights, reduced taxes, reduced spending on social
programs, white supremacy
Election of 1876
 Federal troops withdrawn
from all but SC, FL, and LA
 Democrats return to power
in other S. states


R: Rutherford B. Hayes (OH)
D: Samuel J. Tilden (NY)
 Hayes wins 1876:
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Immediate end to
Republicans in South
Support building a S
transcontinental railroad