So the civil war is over…

NOW WHAT???

The Reconstruction After The Civil War

1865 - 1877

Destruction

The war destroyed…• 2/3 of Southern shipping• 9,000 miles of railroads• 654,000 soldiers

• southern farm property value plunged 70%

• Black southerners were homeless and starving, plantation owners were broke and without labor and poor white southerners couldn’t compete with the new freedman

Lincoln’s Got a Plan!

• A state could be readmitted when the number of men who had taken a loyalty oath to the Union equaled one tenth of the number of voters in the 1860 presidential election (“ten percent plan”)

• Most ex-Confederates would be granted amnesty if they took the loyalty oath

• High-ranking ex-Confederate officials would have to ask the President for a pardon to be granted amnesty

• The new state constitutions had to ban slavery

• States had to provide free public education to blacks

…But, sadly, it never fully went into effect

• On April 14 1865, Abraham Lincoln, while watching a performance with his wife, was shot in the back of the head by John Wilkes Booth

• After Lincoln’s death, Vice-President Andrew Johnson, who had been the only Southern senator not to leave Congress after secession, became president

Johnson’s Plan

• Granted amnesty to former Confederates who would take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution and the federal laws

• Property was restored, except for slaves, and any land or goods all ready in the process of being confiscated

• The ordinances of secession had to be revoked

• Confederate war debts could not be collected

• The states had to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment

• During the first eight months of his term, Johnson took advantage of Congress being in recess and

rushed through his own policies for Reconstruction,

which included allowing the South to set up "black codes," which essentially

maintained slavery under another name

Black Codes

1) Allowed former slaves to:

• Marry fellow blacks• Own personal property• Sue and be sued

2) Didn’t allow them to:• serve on juries • vote• carry weapons without a license• hold public office own land• travel without a permit• be out after curfew• assemble in groups without a white

person in attendance

3) required a former slave to buy a license to work

4) authorized the arrest and fining of

unemployed blacks

5) allowed an employer to pay the fine of an unemployed black in exchange for the person’s labor

Now what about those amendments?

13th Amendment• On January 1865, Congress passed the

Thirteenth Amendment, and by December, the necessary twenty-seven states ratified it.

• “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States.”

14th Amendment

• All persons born in the United State or naturalized were citizens of the U.S. and of the state in which they lived (blacks included)

• States were forbidden to deny citizens their rights without due process of law

• All citizens were to enjoy equal protection under the law

• A state that denied voting rights to any adult male would have its representation in Congress reduced in proportion to the number of citizens who had been denied the vote

15th Amendment

• In March, 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified

• “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Citizens

Vote

Free

can14th

15th

13th

Reconstruction finally came to an end by 1876, when Hayes was elected president…

Did reconstruction work?

The Successes Republicans carried out their main goals: • To rebuild the Union and help repair the war-

torn South• Stimulated economic growth in the South &

created new wealth in the north

• The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were passed

• Freedman’s Bureau helped newly freed blacks with schooling, housing, and jobs

• Southern states adapted public school systems

Failures

• Blacks were still in poverty and lacked property, economic opportunity, & political power

• Anti-black organizations (Ku Klux Klan) still prevented blacks from voting

• Racism still continued

• White southern bitterness towards the North and the government

• Southern economy was still slow and agriculturally based

• Did not address the regulation of railroads, safer working conditions, or woman suffrage