lecture 1: civil war and reconstruction

The Civil War and

Reconstruction

What Caused the Civil War?

Abolitionism?

Economic Differences?

Free Soil?

Lincoln’s Election?

Possible Causes of the Civil War

Abolitionism Economic differences Free Soil Lincoln’s election Each comes back to slavery

The Aftermath

Over 600,000 Dead Widows & Pensions Bereavement & Religion The Economy

The South: Devastation The North: Booming

Freed Slaves

ReconstructionWhat was “Reconstruction”?

What challenges did the federal government face at the end of the Civil War?

Create your own plan for solving these challenges.

Reconstruction Presidential Reconstruction, 1865-1867 Congressional Reconstruction, 1867-

1870 Counter-Reconstruction, 1870-1874 “Redemption,” 1874-1877 The Election of 1876 and the

Compromise of 1877

Presidential Reconstruction, 1865-1867

President Andrew Johnson Southern elections “Black codes” The New Orleans and Memphis Riots of 1866 The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th

Amendment

Congressional Reconstruction, 1867-1870

The Radical Republicans Military Reconstruction Acts The impeachment (but not removal) of Johnson The 15th amendment guarantees the right to

vote New, progressive, Republican state

governments

Counter-Reconstruction, 1870-1874

Race-baiting and white Southern violence The Ku Klux Klan The fall of the Republican regimes The failure of the Northern will “Scientific” racism

“Redemption,” 1874-1877 The Democratic party Democrats swept the 1874 election

across the south Louisiana and the White League South Carolina and the election of 1876 The Civil Rights Act of 1875

The Election of 1876 and the Compromise of 1877 Samuel J. Tilden v. Rutherford B. Hayes The “Corrupt Bargain” The End of Reconstruction

Evaluating Reconstruction How well do you think things went? Could things have gone differently?

Discussion

SharecroppingWhat is sharecropping?

Sharecropping Former slaveholders wanted labor

contracts and gang labor Former slaves wanted land

redistribution and independence Sharecropping was a compromise

Sharecropping Contracts What do these documents say about the

obligations of the sharecropper? What do they say about the obligations of the landowner?

What other information can you glean from these documents?

Is there anything that surprises you?

Think Like a HistorianHow do historians know what they know?

Black American Representatives and Senators Based on this document, when did

Reconstruction end? What else can you learn from this

document? Does anything surprise you? http://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-

Publications/BAIC/Historical-Data/Black-American-Representatives-and-Senators-by-Congress/

Memory and Commemoration:What Did the Civil War Mean?How did different groups create their distinct “memories” of the Civil War?

Commemoration & Memory“The Emancipationist Vision” “The White Supremacist Vision”“The Reconciliationist Vision”

DiscussionCompare and contrast “What the Centennial Ought to Accomplish”

and “Life on the Color Line”

The Birth of a Nation, 1915 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4v

_yRFf4-Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t-7SVbLjBw

The New South

The New South

Disenfranchisement Intimidation Fraud Poll taxes Literacy tests Restrictive or arbitrary registration

practices The white primary

Jim Crow

Jim Crow laws Plessy v.

Ferguson (1896)

Lynching“During six weeks of the months of March and April just past, twelve colored men were lynched in Georgia, the reign of outlawry culminating in the torture and hanging of the colored preacher, Elijah Strickland, and the burning alive of Samuel Wilkes, alias Hose, Sunday, April 23, 1899.“The real purpose of these savage demonstrations is to teach the Negro that in the South he has no rights that the law will enforce. Samuel Hose was burned to teach the Negroes that no matter what a white man does to them, they must not resist.”~ Ida B. Wells

The Lives of Freed Blacks

Were blacks better off under Reconstruction and Jim Crow than they had been under slavery?

Some left the South for the West and North Churches and schools became the center of

black community Black newspapers, organizations Booker T. Washington v. W. E. B. Du Bois Anti-lynching crusade

End