reconstruction georgia performance standards: ssush9b-f

Reconstruction

Georgia Performance Standards:

SSUSH9b-f

SSUSH10 The student will identify legal, political, and social dimensions of Reconstruction.

a. Compare and contrast Presidential Reconstruction with Radical Republican Reconstruction.

b. Explain efforts to redistribute land in the South among the former slaves and provide advanced education (Morehouse College) and describe the role of the Freedmen’s Bureau.

c. Describe the significance of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.

d. Explain Black Codes, the Ku Klux Klan, and other forms of resistance to racial equality during Reconstruction.

e. Explain the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in relationship to Reconstruction.

f. Analyze how the presidential election of 1876 and the subsequent compromise of 1877 marked the end of Reconstruction.

Reconstruction

• The rebuilding of the South after the Civil War

• Plans for reconstruction:– Lincoln: 10% Plan

• Required 10% of state’s eligible voters to swear allegiance to U.S. for state to reenter union

– Wade-Davis Bill: • Required over 50% of state’s eligible voters to

swear allegiance to U.S. for state to reenter union

DID YOU KNOW: The Wade-Davis Bill would also have permanently banned any Confederate politician or soldier from voting or holding public office.

Assassination of Lincoln

• Assassinated on April 14, 1865– Attending “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s

Theatre

– Killed by John Wilkes Booth

Freedman’s Bureau

• Operational from 1865-1872

• Goal:– Protect rights of African-Americans in the South– Advance education, provide work opportunities

and negotiate labor contracts

• Eventually even operated as courts for suits involving African-Americans

Different Views of Reconstruction

Presidential• Lenient (forgiving)

Radical Republican• Punitive (punishment)

Johnson and Reconstruction

• Andrew Johnson, a Democrat from the South, becomes President after Lincoln’s death

• Civil Rights Act of 1866– Vetoed by Johnson

• Overridden by Congress

– Why? • Guaranteed equal rights to black Americans

Johnson and Impeachment

• Johnson was unpopular– Northerners → Southern, too friendly to South– Southerners → Traitor to the South

• Impeachment– Tenure in Office Act (1867)

• Fired Secretary of State Seward

– Congress impeaches Johnson (1867)• Acquitted by one vote• Johnson becomes compliant with the Republicans.

Radical Reconstruction

• Period beginning in 1866

• Goals:– Punish the South– Protect Rights of Freedmen

• How?– Keeping former Confederates from voting– 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments– Use of military forces

Civil War Amendments

• 13th Amendment– Abolishes slavery

• 14th Amendment– Makes former slaves citizens of the U.S.– All people born in the U.S. (except Indians or

visitors) are citizens

• 15th Amendment– Gives all men the right to vote, regardless of

"race, color, or previous condition of servitude"

Military Reconstruction

• South divided into 5 military districts– All states except Tennessee– Georgia was in the 3rd District

• Last to be reinstated to the Union (July 15, 1870)

Reforms of Reconstruction

• Land:– Attempt to redistribute land– “40 acres and a mule”– Failed– Never was an official policy of the United

States Government, policy by General Sherman.

– President Andrew Johnson gave the land back to the original white owners.

Reforms of Reconstruction

• Education:– Emphasized in black community– Public, segregated schools created– Higher Education:

• Ex. Morehouse College, founded 1867 in Atlanta to provide advanced education to freed slaves.

“Carpetbaggers” and “Scalawags”

• Carpetbagger:– Southern term for a Northerner who moved to

the South during Reconstruction• Viewed as an opportunist trying to take advantage

of Southerners

• Scalawag:– Term for a Southern

Republican or supporter of Reconstruction

• Viewed as a traitor to the South

Southern Reactions to Reconstruction

• Black Codes:– Laws that limited

African-American rights

• Ku Klux Klan:– Terrorist group– Sought to punish

Republicans & African-Americans who attempted to exercise their rights

Political cartoon threatening lynching to carpetbaggers Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Independent Monitor, 1868

African-American Politics

• Many African-Americans given right to vote

• 15 African-Americans elected to the House of Representatives, 2 to the Senate

Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first African-American U.S. Senator, from Mississippi. Served 1870-1871.

Blanche Bruce, the second African-American U.S. Senator, from Mississippi. Served 1875-1881.

Rise of the “Redeemers”

• Southern Democrats

• Took over state governments across the South

• Beliefs:– White supremacy– Economic modernization was needed

DID YOU KNOW: The Redeemers took away African-American and poor white voting rights by requiring poll taxes, literacy tests or residency requirements (“grandfather clauses”) to vote.

Sonny Perdue, the 81st Governor of GA, was the

first Republican elected Governor in Georgia

since the end of Reconstruction in 1872.