The Reconstruction

Plans for Reconstruction

• Lincoln’s plan vs. Radical Republican’s plan– Lincoln • Did not want to harshly treat the South• Did not believe the Union had been broken

– Radical Republican’s• Wanted harsh punishment of the South• Believed the Union had been broken

• Freedman’s Bureau– Created to provide relief supplies to both African

Americans and white Union refugees– Originally able to resettle freedmen on confiscated

land, but that practice was ended.

• Andrew Johnson 17th President

• Johnson’s Plan for Reconstruction– Followed Lincoln’s plan• Amnesty to Southerners who took loyalty oaths• Outlined steps for new civilian governments before they

could re-join the Union– New state constitutions

» Prohibiting slavery» Ratification of the 13th Amendment

• Failures of Johnson’s Plan– Radical Republicans claimed it was too lenient– Black Codes• Created after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act

of 1866. Southern reaction to the abolition of slavery & the loss of the Civil War• Southern legislators passed laws to exert more

control of African Americans– Signed labor contracts– Could not own land– Force orphans into apprenticeships that resembled slavery– Whites could physically abuse blacks without fear of

punishment

No need to write this.

• Impeachment of Andrew Johnson– Tenure of Office Act• Senate maintained power to interfere with presidential

changes in cabinet members.• This act passed over Johnson’s veto.• Created to protect Secretary of War, Stanton, who

sympathized with the Radical Republicans.

– Johnson tries to remove Stanton w/out Senate approval.• This violated the Tenure of Office Act.• House Judiciary Committee called for his impeachment.• House of Representatives indicted Johnson.• Trial last 3 months & is one vote short of 2/3 majority.• The Tenure of Office Act was eventually ruled

unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1926.

Important to Know• Amendments– 13th Amendment (1865)• Abolished slavery

– 14th Amendment (1868)• African American citizenship• Prohibited states from;

– abridging citizens’ “privileges & immunities”– depriving “due process under law”– denying equal protection under the law

• Declared Confederate debt null & void

– 15th Amendment (1870)• Prohibited voting discrimination on basis of “race,

color, or previous condition of servitude.”

• Federal/State Relationship– Increase in Federal involvement– Issue of state rights still an argument• Civil rights movement• Highway aid

• The South– Increase in agricultural industry• e.g., textile mills• Sharecropping

– Turning over a portion of crops in return for leased land.» Preferred by African Americans

• Crop lien system– Based on expectation of crop as a form of credit.

• Carpetbaggers– Northerners who moved south for many reasons• Promote education• Modernize the South• Seek fortunes

• Scalawags– The name for Southern Unionists

• The Ku Klux Klan–White-supremacist society formed in Tennessee in

1866 to terrorize blacks• Harassment• Beatings• Lynching • Tried to prevent blacks from voting

– Butchered several hundred black voters in Louisiana in 1868

• Former Slaves– To reduce the power of African Americans• Poll Taxes – to dissuade voting• Literacy Test were given

– Grandfather clauses were given to whites, whose grandfathers could vote before the Civil War.

• Social Segregation– Jim Crow Laws – formal segregation laws. De Jure

Segregation

• Ulysses S. Grant 18th President

THE GRANT ERA

• Scandals– Black Friday – price of gold dropped to an extreme

low b/c of a reversal of deal that he had made.• Jay Gould & Jim Fisk – tried to dominate the gold

market by buying all the gold, selling it at a higher price, & convincing the Grant, through his brother-in-law, that it would be unwise for the government to sell any gold.

– Credit Mobilier Scandal – Stock was distributed at ridiculously low prices to members of congress & Vice President Colfax, in order to block an investigation into how Credit Mobilier swindled 23 million from Union Pacific Railroad.

– Salary Grab Scandal – An act that was later repealed, it doubled the salary of the President & Congress for the previous 2 years.

– Indian Service Scandal – Secretary of War accepted bribes in assigning trading posts in Indian Territory.

THE END OF RECONSTRUCTION

• Civil Rights Act of 1875– Created to eliminate social discrimination– Proved to be highly ineffective• Democrats made it virtually unenforceable

– Blacks had to file their own claims, as the Federal government wouldn’t do it for them» It was very expensive

THE END OF RECONSTRUCTION• 1876 Election– Dispute b/n Samuel Tilden (Dem) & Rutherford B.

Hayes (Rep). There were disputed votes in South Carolina, Florida, &Louisiana. • Tilden won the popular vote but was 1 vote short the

Electoral College.

– A deal was made• Democrats agreed to support Hayes & treat African

American equitably• Republicans agreed to troop removal in the South.

• Rutherford B. Hayes 19th