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Chapter 12:
Reconstruction
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12-1 Presidential
Reconstruction
 Reconstruction: the federal program
designed to repair the damage done to the
south and bring the southern states back
into the Union
 Lasts from the War’s end in 1865 until 1877
The South in Ruins
 Physical Destruction
 Shipping industry
 Farms and equipment
 Entire cities
 Human costs
 364,000 Northern troops
 260,000 Confederate
troops
 Countless civilian
casualties
 Southern Hardships
 African Americans
 Farmers
 Captured and
Abandoned Property
Act of 1863
 Laborers
 Punishment or Pardon?
 The Constitution provided
no policy for the situation
being faced
Lincoln’s Reconstruction
Plan: The Ten Percent Plan
 1. Offered a pardon to any confederate soldier
who pledged allegiance to the Union and
obeyed federal policy
 2. Denied Pardons to military/government
officials and those who killed African American
POW’s
 Each state could create its own constitution
after 10% of voters pledge allegiance to the
Union
 Could then hold elections and take part in the
Union
Lincoln’s plan (continued)
 Faces heavy resistance
 Radical Republicans believe the war was
fought of the moral issue of slavery
 Wade Davis Bill – 1864 asked that former
confederates pledge past and future allegiance
and state that they never willingly took arms
against the U.S.
 Lincoln used a Pocket-Veto against the bill
Andrew Johnson;
Presidential Reconstruction
 1. Pardoned southerners who
swore allegiance to the Union
 2. Permitted each state to
write its own constitution
 3. void secession, abolish
slavery, repay debt
 4. States could then hold
elections and rejoin the Union
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A Newfound Freedom
 The ability to move
freely
 Freed slaves could now
move in search of jobs,
families, and shelter
 Freedom to Own Land
 True freedom from
economic independence
 Freedom of Religion
 Many sought refuge in
the comfort and
involvement of churches
 Freedom of Education
 90% of African
Americans illiterate in
1862
 Freedmen’s Bureau
 The first major federal
relief agency in United
States history
12-2 Congressional
Reconstruction
 Johnson’s plan allows southern states to
re-establish their own governments and
make new laws
 Black Codes: Laws that restricted the
rights of freedmen, creating a different
sort of slavery.
 Curfews – Vagrancy Laws – Labor Contracts
– Land Restrictions
The Fourteenth
Amendment
 Radical Republicans and Congress oppose
Democratic control in the south.
 1866 Civil Rights Act: meant to outlaw all Black
Codes
 Johnson vetoes the bill
 Overridden
 Fourteenth Amendment: States that no state shall
make a law that deprives a person of “life, liberty, or
property” without due process of the law
Radical Reconstruction
 Radicals opted for more reform than
others.
 Civil Rights: wanted civil liberties to be
protected by law for the African American
people.
 Moderates were uncertain about this
 This begins to lessen as whites show more
and more aggression and violence towards
the African Americans
Radicals vs. Johnson
 Reconstruction Act of 1867
 Military rule…. 5 districts, 5 northern
generals
 New elections and new constitutions
 African Americans can vote! –
temporarily, confederate supporters
could not
 South must guarantee equal rights
 Must ratify the 14th Amendment
 Pres Vs. Congress
 Charles Sumner –
Massachusetts Senator,
founded Republican Party,
fought for civil rights
 Thaddeus StevensPennsylvania
congressman who
threatened Johnson’s
presidency
 Edwin Stanton
 Johnson attempts to fire
him to prevent his taking
over military rule in the
south (Stanton was a
Radical)
 Tenure in Office Act
(1867): restricted the
presidents abilities, he
had to clear any hiring or
firing with Congress.
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 Impeachment: to charge a president
with a crime while in office.
 February 24th, 1868 – Thaddeus Stevens
leads effort and a vote of 126 to 47 is cast to
impeach Johnson
 Tried by Chief Justice Salmon Chase
 May 16th, 1868 a vote is taken and Johnson
escapes removal from office by only one vote
 Johnson quietly served the rest of his term,
but Republicans elected Ulysses S. Grant
into office in the 1868 election.
The Fifteenth Amendment
 Demands in the south build from freedmen
 Voting, holding office, serving in juries, and testifying
in court
 The amendment passed in 1869 and was ratified
in 1870.
 It stated that no citizens could be denied the right to
vote, including African Americans
 Some voting had occurred earlier for African
Americans while the military had registered them in
the south.
 African Americans Get Elected
 The new voters created by the amendment
nearly all voted Republican, while white
democrats refused to vote
 A massive sweep of elections put a large
Republican majority in the south
 More than 600 African Americans elected to state
legislatures
 Many would form alliances with white republicans to try
to acquire better positions
 By 1875 there would be eight African Americans in the
House of Representatives
 By 1876, confidence in these elections would
decline.
Republicans in the South
 Carpetbaggers: Northern Republicans
who moved south after the war.
 Often seen as trying to make a quick dollar
off of the destruction in the south
 Scalawags: White southern Republicans
 They were seen by other southerners to be
traitors.
12-3 Birth of the “New
South”
 Reconstruction begins to take effect in
the lives and society of the southern
people
Agricultural changes
 Cotton production decreased due to a
lack of interest in the labor force
 Sharecropping: A process in which a
person or family would be provided housing,
they would farm land for a landowner and
then be paid with a portion of the harvest.
 Tenant Farming: Individuals would pay to
rent land and then be free to farm that land
however they wished. Because they had this
freedom, they were seen as a higher social
class than the sharecroppers
 Changes
 White labor was now more prominent in
agriculture.
 Cash Crops: Farmers now focused on
products that were in high demand such as
cotton, tobacco, and sugar
 Many southerners became trapped by debt
 the Southern Homestead Act of 1866 offered
cheap land to those who would farm it.
 Still, by 1876 only 1 in 20 African American
families owned land.
 Merchants: many southerners opened
stores to sell the cash crops that were being
produced.
Southern Industry
 Railroads build cities: The rebuilding of
railroads in the south allow for the
movement of people and products
between cities
 Most southern industries dealt with the
production of Raw Materials: products
which were freshly harvested. These
were sent north for further production.
How do you pay for
reconstruction?
 “gospel of prosperity” – It was thought that
increasing business would solve problems for
everyone.
 Rebuilding the infrastructure of the south after the
war took its toll on the people.
 Government was forced to raise taxes in order to
pay for these things, putting further stress on
citizens
 With all this cash flow…. Corruption takes its
toll
12-4 Reconstruction
Comes to an End
 Rising violence in the south:
 Ku Klux Klan: a secret society that was
formed in 1866 and committed violent acts
against African Americans and whites who
attempted to help them.
 The claim they fought to defend “white
superiority”
 Nathan Bedford Forrest
 The Klan also acted violently towards
Republicans
Government responds to
the Klan
 Enforcement Act of 1870: banned “the
use of terror, force, or bribery” as a way
of keeping anyone from voting
 Military force arrested thousands and
held them on trial for participating in KKK
actions.
 Still…. Violence continued towards African
Americans
Reasoning for the Close of
Reconstruction




Corruption
The Economy
Violence
Strengthened Democrats
 Supreme Court shifts control of Civil
Rights to state governments
Election of 1876
 Rutherford B. Hayes (Rep)
 Samuel Tilden (Dem)
 Hayes loses to Tilden in the popular vote but
controversy arises from the electoral college
 Two sets of tallies were submitted that were
different
 A commission investigated and named Hayes the
winner, but this was rejected by Democrats in
Congress
 Compromise of 1877: Hayes would be
given the victory he hadn’t won if…
 Federal troops were removed from the south
 Railroad and levee funding was provided
 This highlighted the end of reconstruction
and gave the Democrats a window of
opportunity to regain control of southern
politics
Success/Failure of
Reconstruction
 Successes
 African American civil
rights including right
to vote for men
 Rebuilt the Union
including southern
states
 Repaired damaged
Southern states
(cities, transportation
systems, etc..)
 Failures
 Racism continued
 Ex: KKK
 Economic problems
happened
 Corruption on a large
scale (south and
federal gov)
 Black southerners
remained in poverty
 So did poor white ppl