Reconstruction: Triumphs and Tragedies

Base Problems

• Treason?

• Status of the States

• Rights of ex-slaves

• Rights of Unionists

• Veteran’s Rights

• Law and Order

• Repairs

• Economic Wasteland

The Freedman’s Bureau -- Education

• Schools

• Teachers

• Literacy

Sea-Island School

Freedmen--Economic Change

• Land for the Freemen:– Field Order No. 15

– Southern Homestead Act

– Upper South

– Mixed Success

– Tenant Farming and Farm Labor

• Migration:– Internal

– Urban

Freedmen--Religion

• Black Churches as Communal Foci

• Education and Organization

• Defense of Black Rights

A Black Church

The Lincoln Plan

• State Status• Ten Percent Plan• Ban Slavery• Minimal Reconstruction

The Johnson Plan (1865-1867)

• Rebellion, Not Suicide

• Free Pardon

• No Concern for Black Civil Rights

• Promotion of Poor Whites

Southern Response

• Stubborn Resistance

• Black Codes

Congress Fights Back

• December 1865

• Congress’ Desires• Extend Suffrage to Blacks

• Protect Civil Rights of Ex-Slaves

• The Whites had to acknowledge these civil rights

• Moderates take Command– Civil Rights Act of 1866– Fourteenth Amendment

1866 Mid-Term Elections

• Johnson’s Tour

• Johnson Fails

• Congressional Reconstruction Begins

Congressional Reconstruction, 1867-1870

• Military Reconstruction Act

• Tenure of Office Act

• Impeachment of Johnson

• 1868 Election of Grant

• Fifteenth Amendment: 1869

The Southern Republican Party

• Southern Whites

• Northern Whites

• Southern Blacks– The Union Leagues.

• Mobilization

• Measures

Black Politicians:Senator Blanche K. Bruce, Frederick Douglass, and Senator

Hiram Revels

Expansion of State Government

• Debt and Stay Laws

• Building Projects

• Public Education

• Child Support

• Legal Aid

• Medical Assistance

• The Unfortunate Side Effects: – Higher Taxes

– Corruption

Counter-Reconstruction

• Racism• Overcoming Class

• Violence• the Klu Klux Klan

• Counter-Violence

“The Union as it was,”

Thomas Nast, Harper’s Weekly, 1874

Failure of Northern Will

• Corruption

• Racism

• Anti-Immigration

• New Political Issues– Fiscal Responsibility– Tariffs– Hard Money

1872: ‘Liberal Republican’ Insurgency

• Republican Reform

• Platform: • Civil Service Reform

• Tariff Reductions

• End of Federal Grants to Railroads

• Amnesty for Southern Whites

• Southern Self-Government

• 1872

‘Redemption’: 1874-7

• ‘Redeemers’

• Violence

• Civil Rights Act of 1875

• Grant’s Paralysis

1876: Tilden v. Hayes

• Tilden vs. Hayes

• Compromise of 1877– Hayes becomes President– Hayes abandons Reconstruction

The Failure of Reconstruction

• The Lost Cause

• Survival of Segregation

• Sharecropping

• Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)

• United States vs. Cruikshank (1876)

• Gutting of Protections