http://www.archives.gov/research_room/research_topics/civil_war/civil_war_photos.html

ReconstructionAngela Brown

Reconstruction

• Americans struggled to rebuild the South from 1865-1877

• Four presidents were involved

• http://encarta.msn.com/• media_461530633/• American_Civil_War_• Destruction.html

Physical and Human Toll

• 2/3 of southern shipping destroyed

• 9000 miles of railroads destroyed

• Farms, livestock, homes, bridges destroyed

• Property value dropped 70%.

• The North had lost 364,000 soldiers including 38,000 African Americans.

• The South lost 290,000 or 1/5th of its adult white men.

• One out of three southern men were killed or wounded.

• http://www.civil-war.net/cw_images/files/images/695.jpg

Southerner’s Hardships

• The south was made up of three major groups..– Black Southerners– Plantation owners– Poor white

southerners

• http://www.cityofbarnesville.com• /5/images/2080.jpg

Lincoln’s Plan

• Lincoln wanted to restore the Union gently.

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/Thomas_Nast/Thomas_Nast_Grant_Lee.jpg

Provision One

Offered a pardon to nearly all Southerners who pledged an oath of loyalty and accepted the elimination of slavery.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/railroad/j1.html

Provision Two

• Once 10 percent of a Confederate state’s voters had taken a loyalty oath, that state could resume full participation in the union.http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Confederate_Cabinet.htm

Lincoln’s Plan

• It denied pardons of all Confederate military and government officials and to southerners who had killed African American war prisoners.

• It did not require the new constitutions to give voting rights to black Americans.

• Nor did it “readmit” southern states to the Union. Lincoln viewed their succession as unconstitutional.

http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/HIUS403/

freedmen/images/blackworkers.JPG

Radical Republicans

• Some Republicans criticized Lincoln’s plan as to easy on the South.

• They wanted to punish the Confederate states and make major changes in the South.

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/Southern_Exiles.htm

Congressional Reconstruction

• Congress passed its own tough Reconstruction bill, the Wade Davis Act, in July 1864.

• It proposed putting the South under military rule.

• Lincoln refused to sign it.

http://www.civil-war.net/cw_images/files/images/188.jpg

Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln’s Assassination

• Lincoln was murdered by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865.

• Vice-President Andrew Johnson became President.

• A one-time slave owner from the South; with a strong hatred of southern planters.

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John Wilkes Booth

The Thirteenth Amendment

• This amendment abolished slavery in the United States.

• It became law in December 1865.

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/slavery_pictures.htm

Johnson’s Plan

• Johnson’s plan was known as Presidential Reconstruction.

• Johnson followed most of Lincoln’s Reconstruction plan.

• He offered amnesty and the return of property to all Southerners who would take an oath of loyalty to the Union.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Johnson

More Generous to the South?

• States were required to void secession, abolish slavery, and ratify the Thirteenth Amendment.

• It officially denied pardons to all Confederate leaders but Johnson often issued pardons to those who asked him personally.

• He pardoned 13,000 southerners in 1865.

http://members.aol.com/historybks/images/gasoldr1.gif

The Freedmen’s Bureau

• Created by Congress in March 1865 to help black southerners adjust to freedom.

• It was the first federal relief agency.

• 250,000 African American students received their first formal education.

• Largely dismantled in 1869

• http://cla.calpoly.edu/~lcall/204/freedmans_cartoon.jpg

Black Codes

• Laws that restricted freedmen’s rights.• Curfews (couldn’t gather after sunset)• Vagrancy Laws (not working = fined, whipped,

sold for a year’s labor)• Labor Contracts (sign in January for a year)• Limits on women’s rights (forced farm labor)• Land restrictions (rent land or homes only in

rural areas)

http://www.africanaheritage.com/graphics/images

/AfricanAmericanFamilyLiveOak400.jpg

The Fourteenth Amendment

• Outraged over the black codes…

• The Radicals drafted a constitutional amendment which gave African Americans the rights of citizens.

• Ratified by the states in 1868

http://www.schoolhousevideo.org/media/MRcartoon.jpg

Election of 1866

• The Radicals gained control of the House and Senate.

• They now had the strength to implement their plan.

• Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867.

Radical Reconstruction

• It abolished the South’s new state governments and required new state constitutions.

• It placed them under military rule, five districts were governed by a northern general.

http://www.swcivilwar.com/RichmondDestruction7.html

More Restrictions

• Required all qualified male voters, including African Americans to be allowed to vote.

• Temporarily barred southerners who had supported the Confederacy from voting.

• It required southern states to guarantee equal rights to all citizens.

• It required the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment.

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/

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The Fifteenth Amendment

• In 1869, Congress protected African Americans right to vote by passing the Fifteenth Amendment.

• In 1870, with federal troops stationed across the south, proud African Americans voted…republican.

• Many whites refused to vote = landslide republican victories and African American office holders.

• http://www.allenscreations.com/images/mkmor.jpg

Carpetbag Government

• Government in the Southern States was left to “scalawags” and “carpetbaggers”.

• Carpetbaggers were Northern Republicans who moved to the south.

• Scalawags were white southern republicans.

http://encarta.msn.com/media_461520820/Cartoon_of_the_Carpetbaggers.html

The Tenure of Office Act

• This act passed by Congress in March 1867, prohibited the President from removing certain government officials without Senate approval.

• Johnson ignored the act and removed his secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton – the only cabinet member who openly sided with the Radicals.

http://www.picturehistory.com/find/p/598/mcms.html

Impeachment

• In response to Johnson’s violation of the Tenure of Office Act, the House voted to impeach the President in February 1868.

• The Senate narrowly found Johnson not guilty. He was acquitted by one vote.

http://www.picturehistory.com/find/p/12157/mcms.html

Election of 1868

• The Radical Republicans nominated Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant.

• The Democrats chose Horatio Seymour, a former governor of New York.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-11,GGLD:en&q=Ulysses+S+Grant+pictures

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1862/horatio-seymour.htm

Did you know?

• Upon leaving office, President Andrew Johnson won election to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee in 1874.

• He died in July 1875, just months after taking his Senate seat.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-11,GGLD:en&q=us+flag+pictures

Reconstruction Ends

• President Grant won reelection in 1872.

• He tried to pursue the goals of Reconstruction.

• Government corruption reminded voters of the faults of reconstruction.

• Legislature taxed and spent heavily.

• Reconstruction came to symbolize corruption, greed, and poor government.

Solid South

• As federal troops withdrew from the South, white-dominated southern states blocked many federal Reconstruction policies.

• Northern voters never fully supported the Radicals’ goal of racial equality.

• 1872 the last ex-confederates were pardoned.

• They joined with other white southerners to form a new bloc of democratic voters called the solid south.

• They reversed many reforms of the Reconstruction legislatures.

The Election of 1876

• Republican Rutherford B. Hayes lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel Tilden of the solid south.

• The electoral vote was disputed.

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/files/images/198.jpg

President Hayes

Compromise of 1877

• Democrats agreed to give Hayes the Presidency.

• The new President would remove the remaining federal troops from the South.

• He would give huge subsidies to Southern railroads.

• Democrats regained the control of southern politics.

• This marked the end of Reconstruction.

• For years historians marked Reconstruction as a dismal failure.

• The truth is more complex.

Successes of Reconstruction

• The union was rebuilt and the South was repaired.

• Economic growth was stimulated in the South and new wealth created in the North.

• The 14th and 15th Amendments were passed.• The Freedmen’s Bureau helped black families.• Southern States adopted the system of tax-

supported, mandatory education practiced in the North.

Failures of Reconstruction

• Most black southerners remained in a cycle of poverty with little hope of escape.

• After federal troops withdrew Southern State governments and the Ku Klux Klan denied African Americans the right to vote.

• Left bitterness toward the federal government and the Republican party by most southerners.

• Racial attitudes continued in the South and North.

• Southern economy (agricultural) lagged behind the industrialized North.

• http://www.cursor.org/images/klan.jpg