Download Reconstruction - Farrell`s History HQ

Key Questions
1. How do we
bring the South
back into the
Union?
2. How do we
rebuild the
South after its
destruction
during the war?
4. What branch
of government
should control
the process of
Reconstruction?
3. How do we
integrate and
protect newlyemancipated
black freedmen?
Charleston, South Carolina, in Ruins, April 1865
President Lincoln’s Plan
10% Plan
*
Proclamation of Amnesty
and Reconstruction
(December 8, 1863)
1864  “Lincoln
Governments” formed in LA,
TN, AR.
Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
 Required 50% of the
number of 1860 voters to
take an “iron clad” oath of
allegiance (swearing they
had never voluntarily aided
the rebellion ).
Senator
Benjamin
Wade
(R-OH)
 Required a state
constitutional convention
before the election of
state officials.
 Enacted specific safeguards
of freedmen’s liberties.
Congr.
Henry
W. Davis
(R-MD)
Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
 “Iron-Clad” Oath.
 “State Suicide” Theory.
 “Conquered Provinces” Position.
President
Lincoln
Pocket
Veto
Wade-Davis
Bill
Freedmen’s Bureau (1865)

Goals: to help unskilled,
uneducated, povertystricken ex-slaves to survive

Provided food, clothing,
medicine, and eduction to
ex-slaves

Many former northern
abolitionists risked their
lives to help southern
freedmen.

Called “carpetbaggers” by
white southern Democrats.
Freedmen’s Bureau Seen Through
Southern Eyes:
Plenty to
eat and
nothing to
do.
Freedmen’s Bureau School
Educating Young Freedmen and Freedwomen, 1870s
President Andrew Johnson
 Jacksonian Democrat.
 Anti-Aristocrat.
 White Supremacist.
 Agreed with Lincoln
that states had never
legally left the Union.
Damn the negroes! I am
fighting these traitorous
aristocrats, their masters!
President Johnson’s Plan for Southern Readmission(10%+)
 10% of registered voters in the election of 1860 had
to take an oath of allegiance to the US.
 Offered amnesty to the rest upon a simple oath to all
except Confederate civil and military officers and
those with property over $20,000 (they could apply
directly to Johnson-he would then pardon them
personally)
 Southern states had to write new constitutions which
at minimum repudiated slavery, secession, and
Confederate debts.
EFFECTS?
1. Pardoned planter aristocrats rapidly took back
political power and controlled Southern states.
2. Republicans were outraged that planter elite
were back in power in the South!
Growing Northern Alarm!
 Many new Southern state
constitutions fell short of the
minimum requirements.
 Johnson granted 13,500
special pardons.
 Revival of the Planter Class.
BLACK CODES
Black Codes
 Purpose:
*
*
Guarantee stable labor
supply now that blacks
were emancipated.
Restore slavery in
everything but name.
 Forced many blacks to
become sharecroppers
[tenant farmers].
Congress Breaks with the President
 In December 1865 Congress bars
Southern Congressional delegates
(whitewashed Rebels).
 Joint Committee on Reconstruction
created.
 February, 1866 The Freedmen’s
Bureau reauthorized-Johnson vetoes
it.
 March, 1866  Civil Rights Act of
1866 passed to negate the Black
Codes-Johnson vetoes it .
 Congress passed both bills over
Johnson’s vetoes  1st in U. S.
history!!
An Inflexible
President,
1866
•This Republican cartoon shows
Johnson knocking blacks out of
the Freedmen’s Bureau by his
veto.
The Drivers of Radical
(Congressional) Reconstruction
Thaddeus Stevens
Charles Sumner
th
14
Amendment
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the
United States and of the State wherein they reside. 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.
th
14
Amendment
 Ratified in July, 1868.
*
*
*
Set in stone the Civil Rights Act of
1866
Provide a constitutional guarantee for
the civil rights of the freedmen.
Guarantee the national debt while
repudiating that of the Confederacy.
 Southern states would be punished for
denying civil and voting rights to black
citizens!
Post-War Southern
Demographics
State
White
Citizens
Freedmen
SC
291,000
411,000
Miss
353,000
436,000
Louis
357,000
350,000
GA
591,000
465,000
AL
596,000
437,000
VA
719,000
533,000
NC
631,000
331,000
The 1866 Mid-Term Election
 A national referendum on Radical
Reconstruction.
 Johnson fought it with his “Swing around the
Circle” tour—bad idea. He was hammered most
of the time.
 Republicans
won a 3-1
majority in both
houses and
gained control
of every
northern state.
Johnson’s “Swing around
the Circle”
Military Reconstruction Act of 1867-The Radical
Republican Plan for Southern Readmission
 States readmitted under Johnson’s 10% plan were not
legally back in the union.
 Congress would now decide the terms of Southern
readmission. These terms were as follows:
 The South was divided into 5 military districts, each
commanded by a Union general and policed by a
Union army (many black soldiers).
 Thousands of former Confederates, including most
of the Planter class, not allowed to vote
 Southern states had to write new constitutions that
included black suffrage and ratification of the 13th
and 14th Amendments.
 The military would enroll eligible black voters so
they could participate in constitution making.
Military Reconstruction Act of 1867
•For many white Southerners, military Reconstruction amounted to
turning the knife in the wound of defeat. An often-repeated story of
later years had a Southerner remark, “I was sixteen years old before I
discovered that damnyankee was two words.”
Military Reconstruction Act of 1867
Military Reconstruction Act of 1867-The Radical
Republican Plan for Southern Readmission
What this law didn’t’ do:
•It did not give the Freedman land from their
former masters (40 acres and a mule). Why?
•It did not guarantee the Freedmen an
education at Federal expense.
By 1868, all but three Southern states were back in
the Union and Federal troops had gone home.
•The North didn’t think it needed to protect the
Freedmen long-term. They figured “mission
accomplished”-state governments could handle it
from here.
•Effect?
Other Reconstruction Acts of 1867
 Command of the Army Act
*
The President must issue all
Reconstruction orders through
the commander of the military.
 Tenure of Office Act
*
The President could not remove
any officials [esp. Cabinet members]
without the Senate’s consent, if the
position originally required Senate
approval.
 Designed to protect radical
members of Lincoln’s government.
 Constitutional?
Edwin Stanton
President Johnson’s Impeachment
 Johnson removed Sec. of War Stanton in February,
1868, violating the Tenure of Office Act.
 Johnson had also replaced generals in the field who
were more sympathetic to Radical Reconstruction.
 The House impeached him on February 24
before even
drawing up the
charges by a
vote of 126 – 47!
The Senate Trial
 11 week trial.
 Johnson acquitted
35 to 19 (one short
of required 2/3s
vote).
The 1868 Republican Ticket
The 1868 Democratic Ticket
Waving the Bloody Shirt!
Republican “Southern
Strategy”
1868 Presidential Election
Grant Administration Scandals
 Grant presided over an era of
unprecedented
growth and
corruption.
*
*
*
Credit Mobilier
Scandal.
Whiskey Ring.
The “Indian
Ring.”
More Corruption: The
Tweed Ring in NYC
William Marcy Tweed
(notorious head of Tammany Hall’s political machine)
[Thomas Nast  crusading cartoonist/reporter]
And They Say He Wants a Third Term
The Election of 1872
 Rumors of corruption
during Grant’s first
term discredited and
diveded Republicans.
 Horace Greeley runs
as a Democrat/Liberal
Republican candidate.
 Greeley attacked as a
fool and a crank.
 Greeley died on
November 29, 1872!
1872 Presidential Election
Popular Vote for President: 1872
The Panic of 1873
Major economic depression caused
by overproduction of railroads,
farms, factories and mines
 It raises “the money
question.”
*
*
Debtors want devalued
greenback in circulation
creditors, intellectuals
support hard money.
 1875  Specie
Redemption Act.
 1876  Greenback Party formed & makes gains in
congressional races  The “Crime of ’73’!
President Ulysses S. Grant
•Although many freed
slaves found themselves
picking cotton on their
former masters’
plantations, they took
comfort that they were
at least paid wages and
could work as a family
unit.
•In time, however, they
became ensnared in the
web of debt that their
planter bosses spun to
keep a free labor force
tightly bound to them.
Tenant Farming/Sharecrop Slavery
General Store
Owner
 Loan tools and seed
with up to 60%
interest to tenant
farmer to plant
spring crop.
 Farmer also secures
food, clothing, and
other necessities on
credit from
merchant until the
harvest.
 Merchant holds
“lien” {mortgage} on
part of tenant’s
future crops as
repayment of debt.
Tenant Farmer
 Plants crop,
harvests in
autumn.
 Turns over up to ½
of crop to land
owner as payment
of rent.
 Tenant gives
remainder of crop
to merchant in
payment of debt.
Usually can’t pay
entire debt. Balance
carried over to next
year, and the next,
and the next.
Landowner
 Rents land to tenant
in exchange for ¼
to ½ of tenant
farmer’s future
crop.
Southern Cotton Production and
Distribution of Slaves, 1860
Sharecropping
Sharecroppers Picking Cotton
Blacks in Southern Politics
 Core voters were black veterans.
 Most white southerners were unprepared
to give Blacks political power.
 Blacks could register and vote in states
since 1867.
The 15th
Amendment
guaranteed
federal
voting.
Black Senate & House Delegates
Colored Rule
in a
Reconstructed
State ?
What’s the key
to black
political power
in the South?
15th Amendment
 Ratified in 1870.
 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.
 The Congress shall have power to enforce
this article by appropriate legislation.
 Women’s rights groups were furious that
they were not granted the vote!
15th Amendment
IF Black men could vote,
how did whites regain
political power during the
Reconstruction?
The Answer: Terror
The Rise of the Redeemers
 Amnesty Act of 1872-150,000 former
high ranking Confederates pardoned and
now eligible to vote and hold political
office.
 These former high ranking Confederates
were of the Planter class, and were
determined to restore the old order
 They became known as “The Redeemers”
The Failure of Federal Enforcement
 Enforcement Acts of 1870 & 1871
[also known as the KKK Act].
 Too little, too late.
Blacks knew that
the troops would one
day leave again, and
they would have to
deal with the white
southerners.
The Civil Rights Act of 1875
 Crime for any individual to deny full &
equal use of public transportation and
public places.
 Prohibited discrimination in jury
selection.
 Fatal Flaw lacked a strong enforcement
mechanism.
 No new civil rights act was attempted
for 90 years!
Northern Support Wanes
 Republican party was weakened and divided by corruption. The
public no longer trusted them with Reconstruction.
 Panic of 1873 [6-year depression]. Focus turned to the
economy and away from the Reconstruction.
 Concern over westward expansion and Indian wars.
 Monetary issues-the Greenbacks became a major issue among
Farmers and Northern laborers. People figured the Freedmen
could fend for themselves like everyone else.
 The Republic Party became the party of big business. The
party’s focus turned toward facilitating its growth.
 Weariness-the North tired of trying to change the South.
The Northern public wanted the war to finally be over.
1876 Presidential Tickets
1876 Presidential Election
The Political Crisis of 1877
 “Corrupt Bargain”
Part II?
Alas, the Woes of Childhood…
Sammy Tilden—Boo-Hoo! Ruthy Hayes’s got my
Presidency, and he won’t give it to me!
A Political Crisis: The
“Compromise” of 1877
Terms:
•Hayes gets the presidency
•All northern troops leave the
South
Effects:
•the Freedmen are left to the
mercy of white southerners.
•100 years of Jim Crow
•100 years of disenfranchisement
for Southern Blacks
Supreme Court Compromises
Reconstruction
Slaughterhouse Cases-1873
– Court rules 14th Amend. only
protects against Fed.
infringement of rights, not
states
– Leaves opening for states to
discriminate
•
•
Civil Rights Cases
– Court rules 14th Amend. only
protects against state
discrimination, not
discrimination by individuals
•
U.S. vs. Reese
– Court rules 15th Amend.
Doesn’t grant voting rights,
but rather restricts voter
discrimination
Chief Justice Morrison
Waite