Download Lincoln`s Plan of Reconstruction - Laurens County School District 56

THE PERIOD OF RECONSTRUCTION
LINCOLN’S PLAN OF RECONSTRUCTION
Lincoln held the view that the southern states had not left the Union; they had only been in a state of rebellion. While the war was still going on,
Lincoln put a plan of reconstruction into effect in areas occupied by Union troops. His plan provided for:
1. pardons to all southerners (with certain exceptions) who had participated in the war, provided they took and other of allegiance to the USA,
2. restoration of a seceded state to the Union after 10% of the qualified voters took the oath of allegiance and formed a state government
guaranteeing the abolition of slavery.
Congress opposed this plan, but Lincoln argued that his Presidential powers permitted him to go ahead with this program. When Lincoln died, his
successor, Andrew Johnson, adopted Lincoln’s Plan of Reconstruction.
JOHNSON BECOMES PRESIDENT
A man of humble background, Andrew Johnson was born and raised in North Carolina. He became a tailor and migrated to Tennessee to practice
his trade. Entering politics as a Democrat, he held a number of local offices, and was elected to Congress and to the Governorship of Tennessee.
Serving in the Senate at the outbreak of the war, he remained loyal to the Union when his state seceded. He was later appointed military governor of
occupied Tennessee. Johnson was nominated as Lincoln’s running mate in the election of 1864, was elected Vice President, and became the nation’s
17th President in 1865 upon the death of Lincoln.
JOHNSON ATTEMPTS TO RECONSTRUCT THE SOUTH
Adopting Lincoln’s reconstruction plan, Johnson
1. pardoned all southerners who took the oath of allegiance (except for a few important ex-Confederates who had to request special pardons).
2. recognized the loyal governments already established by Lincoln in four of the states, and
3. appointed temporary governors in the other seven states, empowering them to hold elections and form state governments.
By the end of 1865, all but one of the Southern states set up new state governments, abolished slavery by ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment, and
elected members to the United States Congress. Thereupon, Johnson announced that these states were restored to the Union.
CONGRESS REJECTS JOHNSON’S PROGRAM
When Congress convened in December 1865, it rejected Johnson’s actions. Congress refused to seat the newly elected Southern Congressmen, and
declared invalid the newly formed state governments in the South. Among the reasons why Congress condemned Johnson’s programs were the
following:
1. Congress was dominated by a group of Radical Republicans, led by Representative Thaddeus Stevens and Senator Charles Sumner. They
held the view that the former Confederate states were “conquered provinces” and should be punished for their disloyalty.
2. Congress wished to curb the powers of the President, which had expanded greatly during the war years. It claimed that only the legislative
branch had the authority to re-admit the seceded states.
3. Southern state legislatures had begun to enact laws, called “black codes,” prohibiting African Americans from moving from one place to
another, forcing them to work for white men, and allowing them to be bound to their former masters as “apprentices.”
4. Under Johnson’s plan, most Southern whites had the right to vote. However, little had been done to give the vote to Southern blacks.
Southern whites were overwhelmingly Democratic, and most Southern blacks were Republican. The Republicans in Congress feared that,
unless Southern blacks were allowed to vote, the Southern states would all vote Democratic and the Democratic Party would regain control
of the federal government.
CONGRESS ASSUMES CONTROL OF RECONSTRUCTION
Congress began to put its own plan of reconstruction into effect in 1866. To aid the African Americans, it enlarged the scope of the Freedmen’s
Bureau. This had been established the previous year to find jobs for former slaves; to furnish them with food, clothes, and shelter; and to supervise
their education. To protect the civil rights of African Americans, Congress enacted the Fourteenth Amendment. This amendment granted citizenship
to African Americans and provided that no state shall “deprive and person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any
person the equal protection of the laws.” The amendment, in addition,
1. barred Confederate leaders who had held government positions before the war from again holding public office.
2. voided the Confederate war debt, and
3. forbade payments to slave-owners for losses arising from emancipation.
Tennessee ratified the Fourteenth Amendment and was readmitted to the Union. The other ten former Confederate states rejected it.
CONGRESS PASSES THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS
To force the South to accept its terms, Congress in 1867 passed a series of harsh Reconstruction Acts over Johnson’s veto.
1. The ten unreconstructed states were divided into five military districts, each policed by federal troops under the command of a military
governor.
2. Southerners who had voluntarily fought in the Confederate armies were disenfranchised--deprived of the right to vote or hold office.
3. To qualify for readmission, a state had to hold a convention and frame a new constitution guaranteeing suffrage to African Americans.
4. Delegates were to be elected by all citizens eligible to vote.
5. When a state had organized a new government and ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, the state would be restored to the Union.
CARPETBAG GOVERNMENTS RULE THE SOUTH
Unscrupulous Northern politicians came to the South and rose to power with the aid of the African American voters. Since they carried their
possessions in bags made of carpet material, they were known as carpetbaggers. Southern whites that cooperated with the carpetbaggers in gaining
control of the state governments were called scalawags. Many of these politicians were dishonest. They deceived the illiterate and unsuspecting
African Americans and grew rich by corruption and bribery.
THE SOUTHERN STATES ARE READMITTED
Controlled by carpetbag governments, seven Southern states met the requirements laid down by Congress and were readmitted to the Union in 1868.
The following year Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment granting African Americans the right to vote. The three remaining states were now
required to ratify both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments as a condition for readmission. They did so, and in 1870 Congress approved their
readmission.
IMPEACHMENT OF JOHNSON
Relations between President Johnson and Congress were very strained. Republican Congressmen disliked Johnson because:
1. He opposed their plans for reconstructing the South.
2. He vetoed many of their bills.
3. He was tactless in his dealing with them
4. He had been a Southern Democrat before the war and was therefore distrusted.
In 1868 the House of Representatives, dominated by the Radical Republicans, impeached the President, that is, they charged him with
wrongdoing. They claimed that he had violated the Tenure of Office Act when he dismissed Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, a Radical
Republican. According to this act of 1867, it was illegal for a President to dismiss a federal official without the consent of Congress.
The Senate, sitting as a court, tried Johnson on the impeachment charges. By a margin of one vote, the Radical Republicans failed to muster the
two-thirds vote necessary for Johnson’s removal. Judged “not guilty”, Johnson remained in office until the end of his term.
ELECTION OF GRANT
Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio, the Civil War hero, was nominated by the Republicans for the Presidency in 1868 and was elected as our eighteenth
President. During his two terms in office (1869-1877), Grant supported the severe Congressional plan for reconstructing the South. Lacking
political experience, Grant chose his advisers and appointees unwisely, with the result that his administration was marred by political and
financial scandals. It was also beset by economic problems arising from the Panic of 1873.
THE WHITES REGAIN CONTROL IN THE SOUTH
Unable to vote or hold office, the Southern whites resorted to violence to help restore them to power. They organized secret societies, such as
the Ku Klux Klan, to terrorize the African Americans and scalawags and to drive out the carpetbaggers by threats of beatings, lynchings, and
destruction of property.
Gradually, Southern whites regained control of their local and state governments as:
1. Fear of violence kept many of the freedmen from the polls.
2. More young whites who had not participated in the war (and therefore had the right to vote) reached voting age each year.
3. In 1872 Congress restored the rights of suffrage and office holding to all but about 500 former Confederates.
PRESIDENT HAYES ENDS MILITARY OCCUPATION OF THE SOUTH
The two opposing candidates for President in 1876 were Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio, Republican, and Samuel J. Tilden of New York, Democrat.
Tilden polled a larger popular vote than Hayes and also led in electoral votes, but he was one electoral vote short of the total necessary for victory.
But there were 20 electoral votes from four states still uncounted because of election disputes. Both parties claimed these votes. Congress appointed
an Electoral Commission of seven Democrats and eight Republicans to settle the issue. This group assigned every disputed vote to Hayes, the
Republican, thereby giving him the election and making him the 19th President.
The Democratic members of Congress agreed to support the decision of the Electoral Commission in return for a Republican promise to withdraw the
last of the federal troops from the South. Shortly after his inauguration, Hayes recalled the soldiers, thereby ending military occupation of the South
and bringing the Reconstruction Era to an end. With the termination of military rule, the remaining Republican-controlled carpetbag governments in
the South were swept out of office. However, the South remained resentful of the Republican Party, and for the next 75 years, the Southern states
(the “Solid” South) cast their votes almost solidly for the Democratic Party.