Ordeal of Reconstruction

APUSH: 2nd Block

Define Freedom & Freedmen's Bureau

• South was confused about what "freedom" for blacks really meant• emancipation was not all of a sudden in the South; it was a process• many slaves were freed only to be enslaved again• some slaveowners turned to violence to keep their slaves, other

used legal ways• Emancipation demonstrated complexity of master-slave

relationships• some slaves stayed loyal to their masters• many slaves had outbursts with emancipation; joined Unions with

the stealing of their masters possessions• masters were forced to recognize their slaves' freedom• many newly freed slaves took new names and demanded to be

addressed by "Mr." or "Mrs." • some abandoned their cotton slave clothes and used silks, satins,

etc.

Freedmen Define Freedom Cont.

• Freedmen went to serach for long-lost spouses, parents, and children• some went to test their freedom• Strengthened black family, formalized "slave marriages" • Some left to work in the city, where black communities already existed • Church became a focus of black community• Formed their own churches with black minsiters • churches gave rise to other societies, helped protect blacks freedom • emancipation led to education• established societies to purchase land, build schoolhouses, and to hire

teachers • accepted help from northern white women teachers (American Missionary

Association)• turned to federal government for help; wnated friends and power in

Washington

The Freedmen's Bureau

• Congress created freedmen's bureau on March 3, 1865• intended to be a "welfare" agency; it's pirpose was to

provide food, clothing, health care, and education to freedmen and white refugees

• Oliver O. Howard headed the bureau• taught about 200,000 blacks how to read (greatest

success)• Mischievious acts of the bureau included getting

freedmen to sign working contracts with their former masters

• President Andrew Johnson tried to kill this bureau, and it expired in 1872

Johnson: The Tailor President & Presidential Reconstruction

Grew up in a poor family in North Carolina.

Never went to school but worked as a tailor.

Became active in politics in Tennessee.

Excelled at speaking in front of angry crowds

Andrew Johnson

• Gained favorable attention from the North after refusing to secede with his own state.

• After being appointed war Governor, he was voted to be vice-president.

• On March 4, 1865, he showed up to the Inauguration drunk.

• He was intelligent, able, forceful, gifted with homespun honesty, and was a dogmatic champion of states’ rights

Presidential Reconstruction

• President Lincoln felt restoration of the Union would be relatively simple.

• In 1863 he proclaimed his “10 percent” Reconstruction plan.

• Republicans thought that this wouldn’t be enough.

• Rammed the Wade-Davis Bill through Congress.

Presidential Reconstruction

• Lincoln pocket-vetoed the bill.

• 2 types of Republicans

• Moderates: shared the same views as Lincoln.

• Radicals: believed that the South should’ve received greater punishment.

Black Codes• Black Codes• What were they?• Codes created and passed by Southern states Immediately after the Civil War ended.• ● Mississippi was the 1st to pass the law• ● The black codes varied in severity from state to state (Georgia was the most

Lenient• & Mississippi was the harshest)• It allowed African Americans certain rights such as :• + legalized marriage , ownership of property and limited access to the courts• but denied them the rights to :• - testify against whites, to serve on juries or in state militias, vote, or start a job• without the approval of the previous employer.• * These laws denied ex-slaves the complete civil rights enjoyed by whites and

intended• to force them back to plantations and poor lifestyles.

Congressional Reconstruction• Clash between the North and the South within Congress.

• Many former Confederate leaders tried to reclaim their seats.

• The Northern Republican members of the congress did not wn to give up their advantage over the South.

• This is because the Rebublicans were able to pass legislation that favoured the North.

• The Republicans also feared that the South's congressional representation would increase since slaves were no longer considered only three-fifths of a person.

• Most of the Southern members were Democrats. This would put the Republican at a disadvantage.

• On the first day of the congressional session, December 4, 1865, they refused to allow the newly elected Southerners participate.

• The North also believed the Southerners would try to perpetuate the Black Codes, allowing African Americans to be re-enslaved.

Johnson Clashes with Congress• Do to this turmoil, a clash between congress and the President was definite.

• President Johnson vetoed a bill to extend the life of the Freedmen’s Bureau.

• In retaliation, Congress passed the Civil Rights Bill in March 1866• This granted American citizenship to blacks and denied the states the power to restrict their

rights to hold property, testify in court, and make contracts for their labor.

• President Johnson, again, vetoed it.

• Congress aimed to destroy the Black Codes and justified the legislation as implementing freedom under the Thirteenth Amendment.

• Congress believed they would never be able to cooperate with Johnson.

• These Republicans wanted to ensure the principles of the Civil Rights Act by adding a new amendment to the Constitution.

• This would keep the Southerners from repealing it.

• This led to the creation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

Swinging Around the Circle• This was a nickname for Andrew Johnson's series of political

speeches in the congressional campaign of 1866 to get support for his Reconstruction plan.

• This was a series of “give ’em hell” speeches• He accused the radicals in Congress of having planned large-scale

antiblack riots and murder in the South.• He would often retaliate to those that insulted him.

• His dignity sank to a new low and he was accused of being drunk.

• These speeches failed in the end.• People began to support Congress instead of him.

Republican Principles and Programs

• Veto-proof Congress and unlimited control of reconstruction policy • Moderates and radicals still disagreed over things • Charles Sumner led the radicals in the Senate • He worked for not only black freedom; he worked for racial equality • The most powerful radical in the House was Thaddeus Stevens

from Pennsylvania • He defended for the runaways slaves in court without a fee • He wanted to be buried in a black cemetery • Devotion to blacks was matched by his hate for the rebellious white

southerners • Leader of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction because of his

sharp mind and his wit

Republican Programs

• Opposed to a sudden restoration of the southern states because they wanted to keep the south out the union, apply for federal power to bring about a drastic social and economic change in south

• While the moderates wanted to quicker reconstruction • Republicans were aware to the principles of states’ rights and self-

government • Preferred policies that restrained the states from reducing citizens’

rights rather than the policies that directly had the federal government in there individual lives

• The policies actually showed the influence of both sides even though the moderates had the upper hand

• Had to agree on the necessity to give blacks the right to vote by 1867, even if the troops had to get involved

Reconstruction Act

• March 2, 1867- Congress passed the Reconstruction Act• - passed due to vicious and bloody race riots that

had happened several Southern cities, • -divided the South into 5 military districts, each

commanded by a union general and policed by Union soldiers.• -  It required that states wishing to be re-admitted

into the Union had to ratify the 14th Amendment• - states' constitutions had to allow former adult

male slaves to vote. 

Military Reconstruction

• martial law on the South• Union general• new state constitutional conventions• - blacks to vote• 1870- states meet with the standards of Reconstruction• 1877- last of the states were given their home rule back • -Reconstruction ended.

No Women Voters• The passage of the three Reconstruction-era Amendments—the 13th, 14th, and 15th

—delighted former abolitionists but deeply disappointed advocates of women’s rights• Women had played a prominent part in the prewar abolitionist movement and had

often pointed out that both women and blacks lacked basic civil rights (right to vote)• The struggle for black freedom and the crusade for women’s rights were one and the

same in the eyes of many women; yet during the war, feminist leaders such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony had temporarily suspended their own demands and worked wholeheartedly for the cause of black emancipation

• The Women’s Loyal League had gathered nearly 400,000 signatures on petitions• Now with the war ended and the Thirteenth amendment passed, feminist leaders

believed that their time had come; they reeled with shock when the wording of the Fourteenth Amendment, which defined equal national citizenship, for the first time inserted the word male into the Constitution in referring to a citizen’s right to vote

• Both Stanton and Anthony campaigned actively against the 14th amendment despite the pleas of Frederick Douglass, who had long supported woman suffrage but believed that his was the Negro’s hour—women lost the battle with the Fifteenth Amendment as well

Radical Reconstruction in the South

• Lincoln and Johnson had proposed to give the ballot gradually to selected blacks who qualified for it through education, property ownership, or military service

• Began to organize politically• Union League: (pro-Union) educated members and campaigned for Republicans• African American women• Black political community- Conventions• 14 black Congressmen and two senators served in D.C. • State and local gov.- lieutenant governors and representatives, mayors, magistrates,

sheriffs, and justices of the peace• “scalawags” and “carpetbaggers”• Many new reforms: establishing adequate public schools, tax systems, launching

public works, and women's’ rights• Graft

Ku Klux Klan: Founding the Klan

• The Ku Klux Klan was founded on the day before Christmas in 1865 but did not become very active until 1866

• Founded in Tennessee by groups of Radicalists • Nicknamed the “Invisible Empire of the South”• Created in the “Reconstruction” of the South

What did it do

• The Klan was made up of radicalists that did not approve of the way that they were supposed to be ruled now.

• At first they just tried to bully the blacks• They then began to murder those you were in

agreement with free blacks

Results

• The Klan intimidated blacks and others to a far extent

• The government passed the harsh Force Acts of 1870 that led the federal army to stop the Klan and other organizations like it

• The goal was to try and make blacks feel under whites and they succeeded in some cases

Impeachment of President Johnson

• Radicals in the United States began to attempt to impeach President Johnson. They falsely accused him of maintaining “a harem of ‘dissolute women’”.

• In 1867, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act which required the president to secure the consent of the Senate before he could remove his appointees. Passing this law was an initial step made by the radicals to have Johnson impeached. With this law, radicals ensured that the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, a spy for the radicals, would remain in the White House.

• Because of this law, when Johnson abruptly dismissed Stanton in 1868. The House of Representatives voted 126-47 to impeach Johnson for “high crimes and misdemeanors”, charging him with various violations of the Tenure of Office Act.

• When the trial for impeachment arose, Radicals in the House of Representatives had a hard time making a compelling case for Johnson’s impeachment.

• When the day came to vote for impeachment in the senate, Radicals failed to win the 2/3 vote requirement to have Johnson impeached. Therefore, President Johnson was found not guilty and continued to be president.

Alaska Purchase

Achieved by the Johnson administration. bought from Russia. believed that they wouldn’t lose their province in the event of another war. preferred to sell to the U.S liability Secretary William Seward sign a treaty that bought Alaska for 7.2 million dollars. Territory was profitable American people somewhat against it. Allowed the United states access to the Pacific northern rim.

The Heritage of Reconstruction

• Many southern whites saw reconstruction as worse than the war itself

• They resented the upending of their social and racial system, political empowerment of blacks, and the insult of federal intervention in their local affairs

• Lincoln, Johnson, and Republicans had no clear picture of what federal policy toward the south should be

• Policymakers searched for the right policies to impose a specific program on the south

• The republicans wanted to protect freed slaves as well as promote the fortune of the republican party

• Reconstruction conferred only fleeting benefits on the blacks and virtually extinguished the Republican party in the south for nearly 100 years