Reconstruction

I. The War Ends

Major difference from what the Confederate soldiers found back home after the Civil War and what the Union soldiers found back home in the North

Confederates: found most family and friends injured or dead, cities and homes destroyed, terrible economy with little job opportunities

Union: some friends and family injured or dead, cities and homes still standing and the economy was booming- lots of jobs

Reasons for some of the destruction most of the war was fought in the South

I. The War Ends

13th Amendment (1865): formally abolished slavery

Many newly freed slaves in the South chose to 1) remain with their masters simply for security

reasons for 1000s of former slaves were homeless and dying of starvation and disease

2) move to the cities 3) move to try and find lost family

II. Reconstruction Policy

2 critical questions regarding Reconstruction Policy

1. Who would control Reconstruction? President, Executive Branch, or Congress?

2. What would the terms of readmission be for the former Confederate states?

II. Reconstruction Policy

Three Answers

1. Get rid of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Let rebels off the hook, and allow them to rejoin the Union easily

Supported by Conservative Republicans & Southern Congressmen

2. Keep Emancipation Proclamation

States rejoin the Union by freeing slaves

Supported by the majority of Republicans & some Northern Democrats

3. Union and Emancipation Proclamation goal of the war, but work for equality of free slaves- social, political, and economic

Supported by Radical Republicans including Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner.

Thaddeus Stevens

II. Reconstruction Policy

Lincoln rejects Option 1: he wants the Emancipation Proclamation

Rejects 3rd Option, enough turmoil and upheaval in the South already, didn’t want to cause a total revolution of labor in the South. “Gradually learn to live together and cooperate”.

Chooses 2nd Option- this is in Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (Dec. 1863):

1) full amnesty to rebels who swore oath to Constitution and laws of reconstruction, restore property, excluded high ranking officials.

2) 10% rule: of population that voted in 1860 election, 10% can form state government will recognize state government if they write a new state constitution which includes the 13th Amendment

3) Requires state governments to free slaves and provide for their education, otherwise can treat freed slaves as landless, homeless, labor class.

Robert E. Lee’s Loyalty Oath

III. Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson took over as President when Lincoln was assassinated

He followed Lincoln’s policies very closely, making them only slightly more stringent by requiring ratification of the 13th Amendment, recommended the vote be given to blacks

He introduced policies that created new state governments in the South that also kept blacks as second class citizens

President Andrew Johnson

IV. Congressional Reconstruction

Radical Republicans: Northern Republicans who were very concerned with the plight of the newly freed slaves, reformers/ abolitionists

They wanted strong or tough measures against the South for retribution for the war.

Right after the war they gained 2/3s of the seats in Congress and began making Reconstruction policies

IV. Congressional Reconstruction

Civil Rights Act (1866)- addressed the Dred Scott decisions. Anyone born in country a citizen regardless of race or color, also allowed right to sue. Johnson vetoes- Congress overrides. Only a law, and tradition that Fed. Government has no business in state and citizen relationships. Radical Republicans feared conservative courts would overturn, so took up the 14th Amendment.

Reconstruction Act (1867): broke the south into 5 military districts, each former state who wanted to apply for readmittance into the Union had to write a new state constitution that ratified the 14th and 15th Amendments.

14th Amendment (1868)- established the citizenship rights of black people and their rights to due process and equal protection under the law; also prohibited Confederate war leaders from public office

Reconstruction Act of 1867

IV. Congressional Reconstruction

15th Amendment (1870)- established black suffrage (the right to vote). Helped set up educational opportunities for women, blacks, and poor whites. Colleges grew.

Johnson v. Radical Republicans: Battle of Executive Branch v. Legislative Branch. He was a state’s rights Democrat while Congress (Republican) emphasized the power of the Federal Government. Great power was given to Lincoln during the war and was needed in war, but now the war was over, and Johnson was trying to keep that executive power. Congress wants this power back.

Congress passes the Tenure of Office Act (1867), forbidding Johnson to dismiss Cabinet members without the Senate’s permission (thinking of Sec. of War Stanton, a Lincoln holdover who Johnson desired to dismiss).

August 1867 Johnson violated the Act by dismissing Stanton in order to test its constitutionality. Johnson was impeached by the House of Reps and came within one vote of being removed by the Senate. Johnson offered little resistance to the Radicals for the rest of his term.

V. Black Codes

Names for the many laws passed by embittered whites in the South to restrict blacks to menial employment and deprive them of their rights

Some laws denied blacks the right to vote, serve on juries, upheld segregation, denied intermarriages.

VI. Freedman’s Bureau

One organization set up by reconstruction policies (began with Lincoln right at the end of the war) to help the newly freed slaves

Bureau provided food, medical care, guidance, and education

But couldn’t help provide the most essential need- land, thus most became sharecroppers

Sharecropping: land tenancy agreement, owned by white family, farm it, pay for occupancy with share of crop.

An 1866 poster attacking the Freedman’s Bureau

VII. Election of 1868

Grant as Republican nominee, Seymour as Democratic nominee

Grant assumes blacks will vote Republican, but Georgia (mostly black) not 1 vote for Grant because of Ku Klux Klan, threats, murders.

Grant won by a narrow margin, some 700,000 blacks did vote in the Southern states with the support of Army occupation.

Prompted Republican leaders to decide it would be politically expedient to give the vote to all blacks 15th Amendment.

VIII. Life in the South

3 large groups that represented the white South after the war

1. Southern Diehards: white Southerners who wouldn’t change, hated Reconstruction

2. Scalawags: white Southerners who tried to work with new Reconstruction policies and blacks. Called this by the diehards (scalawag worthless animal)

3. Carpetbaggers: Northerners who came South, simply to make a personal profit- to exploit the low economy and position of many

Carpetbaggers

VIII. Life in the South

When blacks attempted to exercise their new rights in the South, outrageous reactions from diehards: schoolhouses burned, KKK terrorized anyone exercising his/her rights, some lynching. US armies presence did help in some areas

Many blacks migrated North, but attitudes of white Northerners wasn’t always friendly because of fear of job loss- especially by immigrants.

IX. Downfall of Reconstruction

Wealthy industrialists took over the Republican party from Radical Republicans in the mid-1870s

Democrats regained many seats in Congress

They had created huge fortunes from the war, and after during the economic boom in the North

They were not concerned with Reconstruction, but rather with how industrialization of the North could make more $$ for them

1873 – deep economic depression, lasted a long time with high unemployment. Now concerned about angry, hungry, and out of work whites

IX. Downfall of Reconstruction 1876 election: Tilden (Democrat) won the popular vote and led in the Electoral

College over Hayes (Republican).

Congress created a special commission to decide the matter, which voted to give all 20 disputed electoral votes to Hayes.

When Democrats threatened to reject the obviously fraudulent results, a compromise was worked out.

Compromise of 1877: Hayes promised to show consideration for Southern interests, end Reconstruction, and withdraw the remaining Federal troops from the South in exchange for Democratic agreement to his election.

This left no one in the South to enforce the new laws and rights of blacks

Thus when the troops left, the diehards took over and ignored the laws and the rights of the blacks who remained poor and in this situation for almost 100 more years.

South resisted social change and modernization

X. A Failed Revolution?

YES

A lot of potential powers, didn’t use them, and the next 100 years the powers mostly not enforced

Squandered the opportunity to achieve true equality and social justice

NO

Misses the point that is WAS a revolution

During Reconstruction 16 African Americans were elected to Congress, 600 to state legislatures, 1000s in local offices

Slave system destroyed, basis for Southern economy and society for the last 200 years was destroyed