Rebuilding the

Nation

Key Questions:

• How do should the South be brought back to

the Union?

• How will the South be rebuilt after its

destruction during the war?

• How will all the newly freed slaves be

integrated into American society?

• Which branch of government should control

the process of Reconstruction?

Presidential Plans for

Reconstruction:

Lincoln vs. Johnson

Abraham Lincoln’s Plan

• Once a Southern State– Had 10% of voters took oath of

allegiance to the Union– Ratified the 13th amendment

• It could rejoin the Union and send representatives to Congress

Andrew Johnson’s Plan• From Tennessee, a border state

and Vice President to Lincoln

• Sympathetic to poor southern

whites.

• Pardoned many rebel leaders.

• Recognized newly formed state

governments in the South.

• Did not support full legal rights for

freedmen

• Believed the President to run

Reconstruction

Congress’ Plan for Reconstruction:

The Radical Republicans

• Reconstruction Act 1867

– Established military rule over

Confederate States and

Divides the Confederate

States into 5 military districts

• Rad. Republicans wanted strict

requirements and punishment

for the South

Bringing Freedmen into

American society.

Freedman’s Bureau 1865• Established by Congress.

• Helped freedmen with food,

clothing, and medicine.

• Searched for lost family

members, made marriages

legal, and dealt with civil

rights issues.

• Opened schools for children

and adults

• Registered freedmen for

voting

Civil War Amendments: Free Citizens

Vote

• 13th Amendment:

• 14th Amendment:

• 15th Amendment:

The Aftermath of

Reconstruction:

Did it work?

The New Republican South

• Carpetbaggers Northerners who went to

Southern states to be apart of the new state

governments

• More than 700,000 new freedmen voters

• Hiram Rhodes Revels elected Senator from

Mississippi along with 2,ooo other blacks elected

to public office

• Republican leaders elected throughout the South

– Established schools, hospitals, roads, and

railroads. Banned racial discrimination

Sharecropping: ECONOMIC SLAVERY

• Done to keep plantation farming alive

without slavery

• Plantation owner would provide the land,

tools, and materials to a freedman to work.

• The freedman would give a share of his

crop to the plantation owner as payment

• It developed into a new form of oppression

of the freedman Many sharecroppers were

also poor white farmers.

The Ku Klux Klan

• Ku Klux Klan- formed by ex-Confederate soldiers.

• Secret, terrorist designed to create fear on African Americans

• Bombing, lynching, murder, arson, rape, etc…

The Black Codes• Laws passed by Southern States. Based on

older slave laws.

• To preserve traditional southern society

despite the abolition of slavery.

• Examples:

– Illegal for freedmen to hold public office.

– Illegal to travel freely, to serve on a juries.

– Freedmen without jobs can be fined or jailed.

– Voting Tax and Literacy test before able to

vote.

Impeachment of Andrew Johnson• Congress already wanted

him gone for some time

• Congress passed the

Tenure of Office Act which

barred Johnson from firing

is Cabinet

• Johnson fired his Sect. of

War and Congress

impeached him

• He survived the dismissal

vote by one!

The “New South”

• A modern, industrial South has been born!

• Moved away from plantation culture since

slave labor no longer existed.

• Northerners came to the South to help

rebuild, put in new rail lines and develop

new industries including cotton and steel

mills.

• Urban Industrialization begins