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Now That We Are FreeReconstruction and the New South, 1863–1890

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Now That We Are Free

I. Preparing for Reconstruction

II. The Fruits of Freedom

III. The Struggle to Define Reconstruction

IV. Implementing Reconstruction

V. Reconstruction Abandoned

VI. The New South

RECONSTRUCTION AND THE NEW SOUTH, 1863–1890

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Preparing for Reconstruction

A. Emancipation Test Cases

B. Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan

C. Radical Republicans Offer a Different Vision

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Emancipation Test Cases

How did freedmen define freedom in the Sea Islands?

Why did Union officials define freedom for former slaves so narrowly in Louisiana?

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Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan

What advantage did Lincoln see in a moderate Reconstruction policy?

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Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan

Ten Percent Plan – Pardoned all Southerners (except high-ranking military officers and Confederate officials) who took an oath pledging loyalty to the Union and support for emancipation

–As soon as 10 percent of a state’s voters took this oath, they could call a convention, establish a new state government, and apply for congressional recognition.

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Radical Republicans Offer a Different Vision

Freedmen’s Bureau – Relief agency for the war-ravaged South created by Congress in March 1865

–Provided emergency services, built schools, and managed confiscated lands

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The Fruits of Freedom

A. Freedom of Movement

B. Forty Acres and a Mule

C. Uplift through Education

D. The Black Church

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Freedom of Movement

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Forty Acres and a Mule

Why did freedmen believe they were owed land?

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Uplift through Education

Why did education become such a priority for African Americans?

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The Black Church

How did the black church become such a vital institution in freedmen communities?

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The Struggle to Define Reconstruction

A. The Conservative Vision of Freedom: Presidential Reconstruction

B. Congressional Reconstruction and the Fourteenth Amendment

C. Republicans Take Control

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The Conservative Vision of Freedom: Presidential Reconstruction

What was Andrew Johnson’s primary motivation in devising his lenient Reconstruction policy?

What events in the South in 1865–1866 angered Northern Republicans?

How did Black Codes calling for freedmen to sign labor contracts curtail their freedom?

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The Conservative Vision of Freedom: Presidential Reconstruction

Black Codes – Laws designed by the ex- Confederate states to sharply limit the civil and economic rights of freedmen and create an exploitable workforce

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Competing VisionsDEMANDING RIGHTS, PROTECTING PRIVILEGE

Delegates to the Convention of Colored People claimed the rights of suffrage and of equal protection under the laws.

The Mississippi legislature passed vaguely-worded Black Codes that allowed freedmen to be arrested at will.

What is significant about the freedmen’s use of the term citizen?

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Congressional Reconstruction and the Fourteenth Amendment

How did the Civil Rights Act promote equal rights for all Americans, regardless of race?

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Congressional Reconstruction and the Fourteenth Amendment

Fourteenth Amendment – Drafted by Congress in June 1866, it defined citizenship to include African Americans, guaranteed equal protection before the law, and established the federal government as the guarantor of individual civil rights

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Republicans Take Control

Why did moderate Republicans decide not to remove Johnson from office?

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Implementing Reconstruction

A. The Republican Party in the South

B. Creating Reconstruction Governments in the South

C. The Election of 1868

D. The Fifteenth Amendment

E. The Rise of White Resistance

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The Republican Party in the South

Why did many Northerners move south after the Civil War?

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The Republican Party in the South

Carpetbagger – White Southerners’ derogatory term for Northerners who came south after the war to settle, work, or aid the ex-slaves

–It falsely suggested they were penniless adventurers who came south merely to get rich.

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The Republican Party in the South

Scalawag – White Southerners’ derogatory term for fellow whites considered traitors to their region and race for joining the Republican Party and cooperating with Reconstruction policy

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Creating Reconstruction Governments in the South

How did African American voting affect the political situation in the South in 1876–1868?

Why did Southerners charge that Reconstruction governments were corrupt?

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The Election of 1868

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The Politics of Racism

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The Fifteenth Amendment

Why did some women’s rights activists oppose ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment?

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The Fifteenth Amendment

Fifteenth Amendment – Constitutional amendment passed by Congress in 1869 providing an explicit constitutional guarantee for black suffrage

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The Rise of White Resistance

Why did groups like the Klan indulge in anti-black violence?

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Reconstruction Abandoned

A. Corruption and Scandal

B. Republican Disunity

C. The Election of 1872

D. Hard Times

E. The Return of Terrorism

F. The End of Reconstruction

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Corruption and Scandal

How did the scandals of the Grant administration undermine Reconstruction?

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Republican Disunity

Why did Liberal Republicans lose faith in Reconstruction by the early 1870s?

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The Election of 1872

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The Return of Terrorism

What was the political impact of the resurgence of white vigilante violance?

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The Return of Terrorism

Mississippi Plan – Campaign of violence and intimidation waged by armed groups of whites closely allied with the Democratic Party that drove Republicans from power in the Mississippi state elections of 1874

–Copied by other Southern states

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The Return of Terrorism

Redeemers – Name for white Southern political leaders who successfully returned their states to white Democratic rule in the mid-1870s

–The name was intended to depict these leaders as saviors of Southern society from rule by freedmen, scalawags, and carpetbaggers.

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The Return of Terrorism

Civil Rights Act of 1875 – Passed by Congress in 1875, it required state governments to provide equal access in public facilities such as schools and to allow African Americans to serve on juries. In 1883 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional.

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Images as History

What makes political cartoons so popular and effective?

POLITICAL CARTOONS REFLECT THE SHIFT IN PUBLIC OPINION

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Images as HistoryPOLITICAL CARTOONS REFLECT THE SHIFT IN PUBLIC OPINION

“Columbia” symbolizes America and democracy.

The cartoonist, Thomas Nast, believed blacks had earned their citizenship through service and sacrifice.

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Images as HistoryPOLITICAL CARTOONS REFLECT THE SHIFT IN PUBLIC OPINION

An Irish immigrant (left), an ex-Confederate (center), and a Northern capitalist (right) crush a freedman.

The ballot box has been kicked aside.

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Images as HistoryPOLITICAL CARTOONS REFLECT THE SHIFT IN PUBLIC OPINION

Columbia chastises African American leaders.

Nast’s views have changed; Blacks now are caricatured as inept and selfish.

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The End of Reconstruction

Why is the eventual result of the election of 1876 considered the end of Reconstruction?

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The End of Reconstruction

Compromise of 1877 – Resolution of the disputed presidential election of 1876 that handed victory to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden

–Democrats agreed to the deal in exchange for patronage and the continued removal of federal troops from the South.

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The New South

A. Redeemer Rule

B. The Lost Cause

C. The New South Economy

D. The Rise of Sharecropping

E. Jim Crow

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The New South

New South – Optimistic phrase white Southerners used to describe the post- Reconstruction South, reflecting the South’s development of a new system of race relations based on segregation and white supremacy and pointing to a profound economic transformation that swept across the region

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Redeemer Rule

What groups constituted the political leadership of the New South?

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The Lost Cause

How was the Lost Cause a useful myth for Southerners?

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The New South Economy

What weaknesses limited the success of the New South economy?

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The Rise of Sharecropping

How did sharecropping provide limited independence to freedmen?

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Jim Crow

What role did the black middle class play in the Jim Crow South?

How did the poll tax and literacy test allow Southerners to circumvent the Fifteenth Amendment?

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Choices and Consequences

• Homer Plessy was an African American who challenged Louisiana’s law requiring separate train cars for black and white passengers.

• Plessy bought a first-class ticket and was arrested for sitting in the whites-only car.

SANCTIONING SEPARATION

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Choices and Consequences

Choices Regarding Laws Imposing Segregation

SANCTIONING SEPARATION

Refuse to hear the case

Rule in favor of Plessy and strike

down the Louisiana law

Reject Plessy’s appeal and uphold the Louisiana law

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Choices and Consequences

Decision and Consequences• The Supreme Court rejected Plessy’s claim.• The court established the “separate but equal”

interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause.

• Segregation became entrenched in schools, hospitals, parks, theaters, and restaurants.

• Segregation laws also targeted Mexicans and Asians.

SANCTIONING SEPARATION

How did the Supreme Court play a role in the imposition of segregation?

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Choices and Consequences

Continuing Controversies

•How should African Americans respond to the imposition of Jim Crow laws?

SANCTIONING SEPARATION