Reconstructio

nChapter 18

Things to look for during this presentation:

1) Name given to newly freed slaves and the problems they faced

2) Name of Lincoln’s reconstruction plan and its parts

3) What was created in response to Johnson’s plan, and the people who opposed this new creation

4) The plan for Radical Reconstruction

5) Pros and cons of Reconstruction

6) 4 things that were passed during this period

During the Civil War, much of the southern U.S. was destroyed, especially the cities Richmond, VA and Atlanta, GA. As we learned, Grant’s plan for “total war” was to destroy anything that the South may use to fight the North.

What does reconstruct mean?

During the Civil War, much of the southern U.S. was destroyed, especially the cities Richmond, VA and Atlanta, GA. As we learned, Grant’s plan for “total war” was to destroy anything that the South may use to fight the North.

What does reconstruct mean?

It was necessary to rebuild the South after all of the devastation that was caused during the siege at Richmond and Sherman’s march to the Atlantic Ocean.

After the Civil War had ended, the United States divided the south into five military districts. The south needed to be rebuilt after the war had concluded in1865.

There was now a new class of 4 million new people called freedmen.Who were they?These people were not allowed to own property or learn how to read and write.Where could they go?

A month before Appomattox Court House, Congress helped to create the Freedmen’s Bureau, a government agency designed to help former slaves. They gave food and clothing to former slaves (and poor whites) as well as helped them find jobs.

The Freedmen’s Bureau help to establish the public school system in the South and created colleges for African Americans. These include Morehouse College, Howard University and Fisk University.

In 1863, Lincoln created the Ten Percent Plan, which had 3 parts.

1) A southern state could create a new government after 10 percent of its population swore loyalty to the United States. 2) The new government had to abolish slavery.3) After that, voters could elect members of Congress to take part in the national government.

Amnesty was offered to Confederates who swore loyalty to the Union. What is amnesty?But, this amnesty did not apply to the former leaders of the Confederacy.Lincoln’s plan was not liked by everyone, as some thought it was too easy on the South.

But Lincoln never got to see his plan through because he was assassinated while watching a play at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865. The killer, John Wilkes Booth, remained on the run until April 26, when he was fatally shot.

Booth’s motivation for killing Lincoln was the President’s support of extending voting right’s to African Americans.Lincoln’s death cast a shadow of grief across the nation.

Wade-Davis Bill

• Proposed by the Republicans1. Wanted harsher punishment for the South

2. Majority of white men must swear loyalty oath

3. Former Confederate volunteers cannot vote or hold political office.

• Lincoln refused to sign the bill.

13th AmendmentSection 1.

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.

Section 2.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Passed by Congress January 31, 1865. Ratified December 6, 1865.

When Vice President Andrew Johnson took office after Lincoln’s death, he called for 3 things:

1)a majority of voters in each southern state to pledge loyalty to the United States. 2)each state had to ratify the 13th Amendment (which banned slavery throughout the nation), which Congress had approved in January 1865.3)Former Confederate official may vote and hold office

In response, many southern states passed black codes, which limited the rights of freedmen.

Black codes:1.Allowed African Americans to marry and own some property; 2.African Americans could not: own guns, serve on a jury, or vote.3.Some states said that African Americans could only work as servants or farm laborers. Others said that they had to sign a contract for a year’s work, and if they were arrested without a contract they could be sentenced to work on a plantation. Radical (Northern) Republicans accused the South of trying to prolong slavery for as long as possible.Riots against the freedmen broke out, with one of the worst being in Memphis, TN. In 1866, angry whites burned homes, churches and schoolhouses in the black sections of the city. More than 40 African Americans were killed in the riots.A similar riot broke out in New Orleans when freedmen met to support their right to vote.

The Radical Republicans, led by Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, had two main goals.

1)to break the rule of the wealthy planters that had run the South for years

2) to give freedmen the right to vote.

SumnerStevens

Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which gave citizenship to African Americans. President Johnson vetoed the bill, but Congress overrode the veto.They were also concerned that the Supreme Court would rule the act unconstitutional, as they had in Dred Scott v. Sandford.

14th Amendment

Section 1.

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.

Passed by Congress on June 13th, 1866. Ratified on July 9th, 1868.

Republicans proposed the 14th Amendment,

which declared “all persons born or

naturalized in the United States” as

citizens.

In the Congressional elections of 1866, Johnson tried to make the 14th Amendment an issue, painting the Republicans in a bad light. His strategy backfired, as the Republicans ended up with the majority in both houses of Congress.

With these new majorities, they could easily override a presidential veto, which led to a period called Radical Reconstruction.

Reconstruction Act of 1867

1)threw out state governments that refused to ratify the 14th Amendment (all Confederate states except TN)2)Confederate states had to create new constitutions 3)Must ratify the 14th Amendment4) Give African Americans the right to vote.

•In the end, the Republicans had control of all of the southern state governments.

•Johnson, who did not support the Republicans, tried to limit the effect of the new laws. He fired several military commanders who supported Radical Reconstruction.

•House of Representatives voted to impeach Andrew Johnson, or bring formal charges against him.

To remove him from office, he had to be found guilty by two thirds of the Senate members.

Not all Republicans believed in the charges though, as the final vote was 35 -19, one vote short of the two thirds needed to convict. Johnson finished out his remaining two months.

The Republicans chose Ulysses S. Grant, the Union’s greatest war hero, as their nominee for the 1868 Presidential election.

By election day most African American men were allowed to vote. On that day, 500,000 of them did, with most votes going towards Grant, who won in a landslide.

15th Amendment

Section 1.

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--

Section 2.

The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Passed by Congress February 26, 1869. Ratified February 3, 187

The next thing the Republicans wanted to do was pass the Fifteenth Amendment, which made it illegal for any state to deny any citizen the right to vote based on “race, color, or previous servitude.” The 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870. After a long struggle and a long, bloody war, all African American men over the age of 21 now had the right to vote.

African Americans in Baltimore, MD celebrate the Amendment.

African Americans now had a voice in Southern politics. They were now becoming sheriffs, mayors and legislators in the new state and local governments. Hiram Revels finished out Jefferson Davis’ unfinished term in Mississippi. Blanche K. Bruce became the first African American to serve a full term in the Senate.

Hiram RevelsBlanche K. Bruce

Not everyone was happy with the advances that African Americans were making though. Conservatives wanted the South to change as little as possible, and resented the changes that were being forced upon them. Some Southerners formed secret societies to help regain their power. The most dangerous was the Ku Klux Klan, which worked to keep African Americans and white Republicans out of office. When threats and intimidation did not work, they turned to violence, murdering hundreds of African Americans and their white supporters.

From Harper’s Weekly, 1872

There were many moderate Southerners that disliked the Klan’s methods, but couldn’t do much to stop it.The freedmen finally asked for help from the federal government.In 1870, Congress made it illegal to use force to keep any person from voting. Even though this curbed some of the violence, the threat was still there. Some African Americans still voted and held office, but many were scared off.

Pros and Cons of Reconstruction

• Both black and white public schools built

• Women could now own property

• Telegraph lines, roads and bridges rebuilt

• 7,000 miles of RR track laid between 1865 and 1879

• Southerners now had to pay high taxes (unlike before the war)

• Corrupt Southern governments

• Dishonesty spread to governments in the North

PROS CONS

There was also the problem of the continuing cycle of poverty.Some Radical Republicans wanted to give each freedman “40 acres and a mule,” but this was an unpopular plan among Americans, as was splitting up plantations and dividing up the land among freedmen. In the end they got “nothing but freedom.”

Some were lucky enough to become landowners, but most had no other choice but to return to where they had lived in slavery.On the flip side, some large land owners had land, but no people to work it.

Some freedmen turned to sharecropping where they rented a piece of land to farm. To get a share of the crop at harvest time, the planters provided seed, fertilizer and tools. Sharecropping offered some independence, and most of them hoped to own their own land.

Unfortunately, many remained poor. They would get supplies based on credit each Spring, and had to repay what was borrowed out of their crop. If they did not have a good crop, it would not cover the credit, which put them further into debt. Many independent farmers lost their land and became sharecroppers.

Rutherford B. HayesBy the 1870s, many northerners had tired of rebuilding the South. They thought it was time for them to run their own governments. The Republicans were losing power after reports of widespread corruption in Grant’s administration, during his two terms as president.Reconstruction ended with the election of 1876.

Samuel Tilden

Samuel Tilden (D) won the popular vote, but only had 184 electoral votes; one vote fewer than was needed to win.Three states, with 20 votes remaining, were left to decide, with two of them being Republican. Congress set up a special commission to make the decision, but this commission was made up mostly of Republicans. They decided to give the votes to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, who agreed to end Reconstruction.

White southerners resented the Radical Republican policies and military rule. The South would be the home of Democrats for the next 100 years. But as Reconstruction ended, the decline of black southerner’s rights began.

Conservatives started passing legislature to keep African Americans from voting. Many states passed a poll tax, which charged people a fee each time they voted. How would this restrict their right to vote?

Poor whites couldn’t pass the literacy test, but to increase the number of whites that voted, states passed “grandfather clauses”, which said that if a voter’s father or grandfather was eligible to vote on January 1, 1867, then they didn’t have to take the test. Since African Americans couldn’t vote before 1868, the clauses ensured that only whites could vote.

Other states created literacy tests, which required voters to read and explain a portion of the Constitution. What about this one?

In the South, the legal separation of races, segregation, started in 1877. These laws, known as Jim Crow laws, separated blacks and whites in schools, restaurants, theaters, trains, streetcars, playgrounds, hospitals and even cemeteries. They kept blacks in a hopeless situation.

The term “Jim Crow” comes from a exaggerated, highly stereotypical character created in 1828. A white actor heard a black person singing a song called “Jim Crow”. He dressed in blackface makeup and became extremely popular, traveling throughout the country.This derogatory term would continue to be used in the United States well into the 1900s.

In 1896, the Supreme Court made a landmark decision, in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. In Plessy v. Ferguson, the court ruled that segregation was legal, as long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal. Would this be possible in the South in 1896?But even though this case was lost, the Constitution now recognized African Americans as citizens. The laws that had been passed just after the Civil War, during Reconstruction - especially the 14th Amendment - would be used 100 years later during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

During the years of Reconstruction, the South slowly started to rebuild its economy. The term “New South” was used to describe a South that was going to create its own resources instead of having to rely on the North. By 1880, cotton production, which had fallen sharply during the Civil War, was back up to the amount it was in 1860.

The South was still producing fewer textiles than the North, but more factories were being built.

The tobacco industry grew as well. James Duke’s American Tobacco company eventually controlled 90% of the industry.

The South also used its mineral resources. Large deposits of iron ore and coal helped Alabama to become the center of the steel industry.Oil production began in Texas and Louisiana

By the 1890s, the southern yellow pine became popular to use for hardwood furniture and cypress shingles, when many northern forests had been cut down.But as much as the South’s economy and industries were expanding, it simply could not keep up with the rapid growth in the North and West.