Presidential Reconstruction

Congressional Reconstruction

The Conflicted South

Collapse of Reconstruction

Reconstruction 1863-1877

Lincoln’s second inaugural address deep compassion for the enemy guided his thinking about peace

Lincoln’s plan for reconstruction (1863) was designed to shorten the war and end slavery

“To Bind Up the Nation’s Wounds”

demanded that half of the voters in a rebel state take an oath of allegiance to the US before reconstruction could begin;

prohibited ex-Confederates from participating in drafting new state constitutions,

and guaranteed the equality of freedmen before the law

Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction

included full pardons for rebels willing to renounce secession and accept the abolition of slavery; it angered abolitionists

Wade-Davis Bill

Lincoln endorsed suffrage for Southern Blacks for the first time four days before his assassination

Lincoln refused to sign Wade-Davis

Wartime reconstruction failed to produce agreement about whether the president or Congress had the authority to devise and direct policy

Who Has the Authority?

2.1 mil Number of Northerners mobilized to fight for the

Union army 880,000 Number of Southerners

mobilized for the Confederacy 2 out of 3 Number of Civil War deaths

that occurred from disease rather than battle

360,000 Federal soldiers killed 260,000 Confederate soldiers killed

Civil War statistics

Biggest problem facing the South was transition from slave labor to free labor

What to do with federally occupied land? Jan 1865, Gen Sherman set aside part of the

coastal land south of Charleston for black settlement

He wished to be rid of the thousands straggling after his army

Land and Labor

400,000 acres of land — a strip of coastline stretching from Charleston, South Carolina, to the St. John’s River in Florida, including Georgia’s Sea Islands and the mainland thirty miles in from the coast

Sherman’s Land

Lincoln’s successor was a southern sympathizer and overturned the Sherman’s Order. He returned the land to the planters who had originally owned it

— to the very people who had declared war on the United States of America.

President Johnson overturns Sherman’s Order

Johnson’s Program of Reconciliation

◦ He was the only senator from a Confederate state to remain loyal to the Union

◦ Held the planter class responsible for secession◦ Republicans did not like him as he had been a

slave owner and a defender of slavery, only a begrudgingly acceptance of emancipation

Presidential Reconstruction

the states’ citizens to renounce the right of secession

disown Confederate war debts ratify the Thirteenth Amendment

Johnson instructed military and government officials to return to pardoned ex-Confederates all confiscated and abandoned land, even if it was in the hands of freedmen.

Johnson’s Plan

Major Reconstruction Legislation Thirteenth Amendment Freedmen’s Bureau Acts Civil Rights Act of 1866 Fourteenth Amendment Military Reconstruction Acts Fifteenth Amendment Civil Rights Act of 1875

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

The amendment to abolish slavery became part of the U.S. Constitution at the end of 1865

Thirteenth Amendment

To determine the social, political, economic status of 4 million ex-slaves

The Task at hand

The U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, popularly known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, was established in 1865 by Congress

Under pressure from Southern whites, Congress closed the Bureau in 1872

Congress Authorizes help

It distributed food and clothing to destitute Southerners and eased the transition of blacks from slaves to free persons

Congress authorized the agency to divide abandoned and confiscated land into 40-acre parcels, to rent them to freedmen, and eventually sell them

By June 1865 the bureau had situated nearly 10,000 black families on a half million acres abandoned by fleeing planters

Freedmen’s Bureau

A school formed by the Freedmen’s Bureau

Freedmen wanted economic independence, restoration of family life, literacy, freedom of worship

Whites believed that without the discipline of slavery, blacks would be lazy, wild and irresponsible

African American Quest for Autonomy

Southerners miscalculated and assumed Republicans would accept everything Andrew Johnson accepted

The black codes became a symbol of the South’s intention to restore all of slavery but its name;

Moderate Republicans did not champion black equality, but they did wish slavery and treason to be dead. They remained distrustful of ex-Confederates

Expansion of Federal Authority and Black Rights

Southern obstinacy forged unity among Republicans

Republicans drafted two bills to strengthen protection for the newly emancipated

Johnson vetoed the first bill, an extension of the Freedmen’s Bureau, and Congress failed to override the veto by a narrow margin.

Republicans Unite

Johnson’s veto galvanized support for the Civil Rights Act 1866, which nullified Black Codes.

Johnson vetoed the bill again; Congress overrode Johnson’s veto

Congress also submitted another bill to extend the life of the Freedmen’s Bureau and successfully overrode the president’s veto.

Civil Rights Act 1866

Congressman James Rapier

All native born and naturalized persons deemed citizens; equal protection of the laws

dealt with voting rights, giving Congress the authority to reduce the congressional representation of any state that withheld suffrage from some of its adult male population.

Republicans stood to benefit by gaining black votes or by lessening representation where black suffrage was rejected

The suffrage provisions ignored women

Fourteenth Amendment

introduced the word “male” into the Constitution; it provided for punishment for any state denying suffrage on the basis of race but not sex

Johnson advised southern states to reject the Fourteenth Amendment

He made it the main issue of the congressional election of 1866—the opponents of the Fourteenth Amendment gathered into a new conservative party, the National Union Party

Fourteenth Amendment (cont’)

June 1866 Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment; two years later it gained the necessary ratification of three-fourths of the states

Congressional Reconstruction

Every southern state except Tennessee voted down Fourteenth Amendment

March 1867 Congress overturned the Johnson-approved southern state governments and initiated military rule of the South

The Military Reconstruction Act divided the ten unreconstructed Confederate states into five military districts and place a Union general in charge of each district to oversee political reform, which including drawing up new state constitutions and guaranteeing black suffrage.

Radical Reconstruction and Military Rule

Post-war reconstruction failed to produce agreement about whether the president or Congress had the authority to devise and direct policy

Who Has the Authority?

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.

Fifteenth Amendment

Summer 1865 delegates gathered across the South to draw up new state constitutions

They did not want Northerners to shape Reconstruction

State governments adopted a series of laws known as the Black Codes, which kept blacks subordinate to whites by subjecting black to every sort of discrimination and attempting to limit them to farm work or domestic service

White Southern Resistance

Johnson refused to intervene and personally pardoned 14,000 wealthy or high ranking ex-Confederates and he accepted new southern state governments even when they failed to satisfy his minimal demands for re-admittance to the Union

Elections in the fall of 1865, Southerners chose former Confederates to represent them in Congress

Whites in several southern cities when on rampages against blacks, shocking north and making it suspect southerners still could not be trusted

Congressional 1866 election overwhelming Republican victory

Violence in the South

When voters of each state had approved a new state constitution and the state legislature had ratified the Fourteenth amendment, the state could submit its work to Congress

The Military Reconstruction Act of 1867 disappointed those who advocated the confiscation and redistribution of southern plantations to ex-slaves.

Johnson vetoed the Military Reconstruction Act; Congress overrode his veto on the same day, dramatizing the shift in power from the executive branch to the legislative branch of government

Power Shift

The North grew tired of the financial and political demands of Reconstruction

The Supreme Court narrowed Congress’s powers in preference of state governments and undermined federal protection of blacks

Disintegration of Republican state governments in the South

Terrorism in the South by the Redeemers and the KKK, and success of white supremacy

Why did Reconstruction fail?

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