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Reconstruction (1865-1877)
1) “Reconstruction” is the term used to describe the
difficult period immediately following the Civil
War. This refers to the long and complicated
process of rebuilding the devastated
Confederate after the surrender at Appomattox.
Reconstruction
2) Cities like Petersburg, Richmond, Atlanta, Savannah, and
Columbia had been reduced to rubble in the paths of
massive Union columns of Sherman and Grant. Many
plantations were looted and burned while the slaves that
previously sustained them sought after the fruits of
emancipation. Many agricultural communities like the
Shenandoah Valley were also subjected to the scorched
earth tactics that Sherman’s Army first ignited in Atlanta.
Reconstruction
4) The war had completely
altered the economic,
social, and political
structure of the South.
The emancipation of the
slaves not only uprooted
the South’s economic
system of plantation
agriculture, but it also
fundamentally
challenged the
underlying social
system of white racial
supremacy.
Reconstruction
6) Many southerners scorned
the “freedmen” and the
implications of social
equality embodied by
northern reconstruction
policy. Many Republicans
disregarded the plight of
blacks and they used
reconstruction as an
opportunity to exact
political and economic
advantage at the expense
of poor Southerners.
Southern defiance and
northern corruption
undermined the peace and
subverted the true promise
of emancipation.
Lincoln’s Second
Inauguration
1) A little over a month before the
surrender at Appomattox,
President Lincoln stood on the
steps of the U.S. Capitol for a
second time to be sworn in for
another term as the President of
the United States. He was the first
President in world history to be
democratically elected in the
midst of Civil War. Despite the
temporary division of the Union,
the election revealed that the
American commitment to
democratic values endured.
Lincoln’s Second Inauguration
2) The iron dome atop the
U.S. Capitol was now
completed, symbolically
reflecting Lincoln’s
pledge to restore and
rebuild the nation. The
dome was topped with a
bronze statue of a
feminine heroine,
symbolizing liberty.
Ironically, the bill to
construct the dome was
introduced just before
the War by a Senator
from Mississippi named
Jefferson Davis.
Lincoln’s Second
Inauguration
3) Much like his first inaugural
address, Lincoln’s speech was
sensitive to the plight of the South,
but he remained pointed in his
justification of the northern cause.
With hope for a peaceful
reconstruction, Lincoln declared,
“With malice towards none; with
charity for all; with firmness in the
right as God gives us to see the
right, let us strive on to finish the
work we are in; to bind up the
nation’s wounds; to care for him
who shall have borne the battle and
for his widow, and his orphan – to
do all which may achieve and
cherish a just and lasting peace
among ourselves, and with all
nations.”
Post Civil War Leaders
After the Civil War came to a close Robert. E Lee
became president of Washington College in Lexington,
VA. He served for 5 years, until his death in 1870.
While President of the University Lee emphasized the
importance of education for the nation’s future and
promoted reconciliation with US.
Post Civil War Leaders
Robert E Lee would
agree with President
Johnson’s plan for
reconciliation but
would harshly
disagree with the
punitive measures
that encouraged
harsher treatment of
the South.
Post Civil War Leaders
Frederick Douglass
continued to advocate
for full equality for all
blacks. He would be
successful in pushing
for the passage of the
14th and 15th
amendments which
supported federal
protection of rights for
freedmen in the South.
Post Civil War Leaders
Frederick Douglass
would later become an
ambassador to Haiti in
his later years, until his
eventual death in 1895.
He never rested on his
commitment to
abolitionism and would
die from a massive
heart attack in his own
home.
Post Civil War Leaders
After the war, Ulysses S. Grant would be elected
as President in 1868 and serve two terms. During
this time he supported rights for freedmen and
opposed retribution against the South.
Reconstruction would come to a close after his
presidency.
Lincoln and the Moderate Republicans
1) Abraham Lincoln had been a moderate Republican with a fairly
sensitive view toward Southern reconstruction. He consistently
found himself at odds with the more radical factions within his own
Republican Party. With Lincoln’s assassination only days after
Appomattox, the door was now opened for the more Radical faction
of the Republican party to take control. The Radical Republicans
were led by Secretary of State William H. Seward, and Senator
Charles Sumner of Massachusetts,
Lincoln and the Moderate Republicans
2) The Radical Republicans strongly supported
emancipation and later lobbied for greater civil
rights for the freedmen (former slaves). Many
radicals sought to use federal power to ensure
racial justice while others were singularly
concerned with suppressing the ex-Confederates.
Lincoln and the Moderate Republicans
5) Lincoln’s more lenient approach to reconstruction would
have likely been more successful in diminishing Southern
defiance and building national unity. However, John Wilkes
Booth’s cowardly act at Ford’s theatre destroyed any
chance for consensus on reconstruction by thrusting the
immense responsibility on the shoulders of Vice President
Andrew Johnson.
Andrew Johnson
1) Andrew Johnson was the
first President to enter the
Oval Office as a result of
an assassin’s bullet.
Johnson was the only U.S.
Senator from the
Confederate States that
remained loyal to the
Union. Johnson was
appointed as War
Governor after Union
forces occupied his home
state of Tennessee.
President Andrew Johnson
4) President Johnson sought to disenfranchise and weaken
the planter aristocracy, but he opposed Radical
Republican policies that ensured civil rights or black
suffrage (voting). He ignored the infamous “black codes”
that Southern states passed in an attempt to make blacks
legally subservient to whites. (Blacks were forbidden from
serving on juries, owning land, voting, and running for
elective office).
President Andrew Johnson
5) These differences concerning reconstruction policy led the
moderate and radical factions of the Republican Party to
unite in opposition to the President. The midterm
Congressional elections of 1866 only produced greater
Republican majorities in both houses, easily giving
Republicans the 2/3rds vote required to override a
Presidential veto.
President Andrew Johnson
7) In fact, the Radical
Republicans disliked
Andrew Johnson so much
they attempted to impeach
him. However the vote did
not make it through the
Senate and Andrew
Johnson remained in
power.
President Andrew Johnson
8) Johnson’ opposition to black civil rights and Republican
reconstruction left him powerless as President, and his
position in a Republican administration dismissed him
from the ranks of his own Democratic Party. With many
ex-Confederates disenfranchised and large Republicans
majorities in Congress, General Ulysses S. Grant easily
won the election of 1868.
President Andrew Johnson
9) Ulysses S. Grant won the Presidency in 1868 and
was re-elected in 1872, but both of his terms were
defined by inefficiency and corruption that resulted
from the spoils system of political patronage.
Radical Reconstruction
1) After nullifying the influence of President
Johnson, the Republican Congress revolutionized
existing policy by passing Constitutional
Amendments that granted black civil rights and
suffrage (voting) to the freedmen (former slaves).
Radical Reconstruction
14th
2) The 14th Amendment was passed in 1866 in order
to combat the discriminatory state laws designed
to make the freedmen subservient to whites (Ex. the Black Codes). The 14th Amendment overruled
the previous Dred Scott decision by guaranteeing
citizenship and civil rights to all persons born
within the United States.
Radical Reconstruction
3) The 14th Amendment stated: “No State shall make or
enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any
State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law; nor deny to any person within
its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Radical Reconstruction
4) The “Equal Protection Clause” and the “Due
Process Clause” of the 14th Amendment extended
the protections of the Bill of Rights by prohibiting
state government from denying any citizen their
civil rights. This marked a great expansion of
federal power because state laws were required to
correspond with the new federal protections for
civil rights.
Radical
Reconstruction
5) The “Black Codes” and
the worsening plight of
freedmen convinced many
Radical Republicans that
reconstruction policies
would go un-enforced in
the South without a federal
military presence. The
Reconstruction Act of
1867 divided the South
into five military districts
that were each governed
by 20,000 Union troops.
Radical
Reconstruction
6) The act also temporarily
disenfranchised over ten
thousand ex-Confederates
and prevented them from
voting until their state
satisfied the requirements
to be readmitted into the
Union. Confederate
states were required to
ratify the 13th and 14th
Amendments and rewrite
their state constitutions
so that they guaranteed
black males the right to
vote.
Radical Reconstruction
15th
7) However, Radical Republicans feared that once exConfederate states were readmitted into the Union they
would amend their state constitutions in order to repeal
black voting rights. Congress eventually passed the 15th
Amendment in order to establish a federal guarantee for
black male voting rights. The Amendment states: “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.”
Radical Reconstruction
8) The Republican Congress also created the
Freedmen’s Bureau in order to provide various
forms of welfare in order to help former slaves
make the transition to citizen. The Bureau
provided food, clothing, medical care, education,
and a few economic opportunities like free land.
Radical
Reconstruction
9) Most success came in
the form of education as
the Freedmen’s Bureau
established a number of
schools through the wartorn South, teaching
approximately 200,000
formerly illiterate blacks
how to read. President
Johnson cared very little
for the “freedmen” and
he repeatedly tried to
veto bills that extended
the funding and existence
of the Bureau.
The Compromise of 1877
Hayes
Tilden
VS.
1) The corruption of the Grant administration and the
inefficiency of radical reconstruction policies weakened
the Republican stranglehold on politics and gave hope for
a Democratic resurgence in 1876. The Republican Party
nominated Rutherford B. Hayes, the obscure Governor of
Ohio, to run against Democrat Samuel Tilden, a reform
candidate from New York.
The Compromise of 1877
2) The Democratic Party dominated the South and gained
support from the industrial cities of the north. Tilden
gained 184 of the 185 electoral votes required for a
majority, but South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana
reported voting irregularities and failed to declare a winner
of the state electoral votes.
The Compromise of 1877
5) The Compromise of 1877 = Democrats agreed to
accept the Republican victory only if federal
troops were removed from the South and radical
republican reconstruction came to an end.
The Compromise of 1877
6) The Compromise of
1877 ensured peace,
but it effectively ended
the unfinished work of
reconstruction.
Republicans sacrificed
the civil rights of the
freedmen by allowing
the defiant forces of
the white South to
reclaim political
power.
The Compromise of 1877
7) Groups like the Ku Klux
Klan (KKK) and the White
League organized white
opposition to
reconstruction and served
as an indication of what
conditions in the South
would be like after the
Union bayonets left.
These groups employed
violent tactics to
intimidate blacks in order
to prevent them from
voting or gaining any
form of political and
economic independence.
The Compromise of 1877
th
14
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th
15 ?
8) State and local governments in the South soon passed a
series of “Jim Crow” laws that aimed to segregate blacks
and subject them to second-class citizenship. Blacks were
denied the equal protection of the law and the right to vote
despite the protections of the 14th and 15th Amendments.
The Compromise of 1877
9) Blacks were often denied the right to own land and labor
contracts were rigged to ensure their perpetual
indebtedness to white creditors and land owners. Most
“freedmen” found themselves working the same fields for
meager wages for decades following emancipation.
Landless blacks were forced to become “tenant farmers”
and “sharecroppers” that paid a monthly rent to white land
owners in order to have property to farm.