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Reconstruction and its Effects
Reconstruction
• The period during in which the U.S. began to
rebuild after the Civil War
• Also refers to the process the federal government
used to readmit the defeated Confederate states to
the Union.
Lincoln’s Plan
Ten percent plan
• The government would pardon all Confederates
except high ranking officials and those accused of
crimes against prisoners of war.
• As soon as ten percent of those who had voted in
1860 took this oath of allegiance, a Confederate
state could form a new state government.
Turn and talk
• Q1: The election of 1860 was when Lincoln was
voted into office and wasn’t even on the ballot in
most places in the South. Why would he want 10%
of the population of those who voted in the 1860
election to take an oath in order to be readmitted as
a state?
Radical Republicans
• Wanted to destroy the political power of former
slaveholders.
• Most of all, they wanted African Americans to be
given full citizenship and the right to vote.
Lincoln Assassinated
• John Wilkes Booth shoots and kills President Lincoln
at Fords Theatre.
• Andrew Johnson becomes President
Turn and Talk
• Q2: Why would Lincoln’s assassination change the
course of the country after the war?
Johnson’s Plan For
Reconstruction
• Excluded high-ranking Confederates and wealthy
southern landowners from taking the oath needed
for voting privileges.
• Pardoned more than 13,000 former Confederates
because he believed that “White men alone must
manage the South.”
Johnson’s Plan For
Reconstruction
• Congress refused to admit the new Southern
legislators.
• Civil Rights Act of 1866 gave African Americans
citizenship and forbade states from passing
discriminatory laws or black codes.
• Johnson vetoed Civil Rights Act of 1866.
Turn and Talk
• Q3: From what you know about Johnson, why
would he use his veto power to stop the Civil Rights
act of 1866?
Congressional Reconstruction
• Overrode the president’s vetoes of the Civil Rights
Act and Freedmen’s Bureau Act.
• Fourteenth Amendment prevented states from
denying rights and privileges to any U.S. citizen,
now defined as “all persons born or naturalized in
the United States”
Congressional Reconstruction
Reconstruction Act of 1867
• Act divided the former Confederate states into five
military districts.
• The states were required to give African Americans
the right to vote and ratify the fourteenth
amendment in order to reenter the Union.
• Johnson vetoed Reconstruction Act of 1867
Johnson vetoed Reconstruction
Act of 1867
Turn and Talk
• Q4: Johnson vetoed yet another act of Congress.
Why would he do this? Explain.
Johnson Impeached
• Johnson’s removal of Secretary of War Edwin
Stanton from office, violated the Tenure of Office
Act.
• The House Impeached Johnson
• The Senate voted not to convict.
U.S. Grant Elected
• More than 500,000 Southern African Americans
voted.
• 9 out of 10 voted for Grant.
• Fifteenth Amendment, no one can be kept from
voting because of “race color or previous condition
of servitude.”
Turn and Talk
• Q5: Why would so many African Americans vote for
Grant as president in the first election most of these
men were able to vote? Explain.
Reconstructing Society
Conditions of a Postwar South
• The Republican governments began public works
programs to repair the physical damage and to
provide social services.
Politics in the Postwar South
• Scalawags were white Southerners who joined the
Republican Party.
• Carpetbaggers were Northerners who moved to the
South after the war.
Turn and Talk
• Q6: Why would people from the North want to
move South during Reconstruction? (Think about
why modern contractors move to Iraq to expand
businesses).
African Americans
• Gained voting rights due to Fifteenth Amendment.
• Registered to vote for the first time.
• Eager to exercise their voting rights
Former Slaves Improve Their Lives
• Founded their own churches.
• First public schools established by Reconstruction
governments.
• Churches help create schools.
African Americans in
Reconstruction
• First time they held office in local, state, and federal
government.
• Hiram Revels was the first African American
Senator.
• Gen. Sherman promised former slaves who followed
his army 40 acres per family and the use of army
mules.
Sharecropping and Tenant
Farming
Sharecropping
• Landowners divide their land and assigned each
head of household a few acres, along with seed and
tools.
Turn and Talk
• Q7: Explain why farming the major focus for
African American livelihoods (careers) by the
government?
Opposition To Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan
• Southern vigilante group.
• Wanted to destroy the Republican party
• Throw out the Reconstruction governments.
• Prevent African Americans from exercising their
political rights.
Support for Reconstruction Fades
Panic of 1873
• Series of bank failures that triggered a five year
depression.
• Supreme Court began to undo some of the social
and political changes the Radicals made.
Democrats “Redeem” the South
• In the Election of 1876, Democrat candidate Samuel
Tilden won the popular vote but was one vote short
of electoral victory.
• Southern Democrats in Congress agreed to accept
Hayes if federal troops were withdrawn from the
South.
Election of 1876
• Q8: Why would withdrawal of
soldiers in the south be very bad
for Blacks?