Presidential and Radical Reconstruction

1
Presidential and Radical Reconstruction
2
Ten Percent Plan

• Lincolns 10 Plan offered amnesty to all but
  high-ranking Confederates willing to pledge
  loyalty to the Union and accept the abolition of
  slavery
• When 10 percent of a state's 1860 voters had take
  this oath, that state could reapply to the Union.
• The Ten Percent Plan was aimed at subverting the
  southern war effort.
• In Louisiana, former slave owners attempted to
  reassert control over the newly freed black
  population with the aid of occupying forces, but
  the freedmen fought back.

3
Wade-Davis Bill

• The Wade-Davis Bill, a substitute for Lincolns
  plan, called for stern peace and full rights for
  freedmen.
• The Bill was passed on July 2, 1864 in Congress,
  but was effectively vetoed by Lincoln, who
  refused to sign the bill before the Congress
  adjourned.
• The Wade-Davis Bill's conditions for restoring
  the rebellious states to the Union include
• requiring an oath of allegiance by a majority of
  each state's adult white male population,
• that the new state governments can only be
  operated by those who never carried arms against
  the union
• the permanent disenfranchisement of all
  Confederate civil and military leaders.

Senator Wade of Ohio
4
African Freedmen's Inquiry Commission Report

• The American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission was
  established during the Civil War to determine the
  condition of freed slaves.
• Appointed in March of 1863 by U.S. Secretary of
  War to "inquire into the condition of the Colored
  population
• The 1864 report outlines the type or aid the
  commission recommends be provided to freemen.

5
The Freedmen's Bureau

• The Freedmen's Bureau was charged with
  distributing confiscated land to "loyal refugees
  and freedmen" and with regulating labor contracts
  between freedmen and planters.
• The Freedmen's Bureau also worked with the large
  number of northern voluntary associations that
  sent missionaries and teachers to the south to
  establish schools for former slaves.
• In February of 1866, President Andrew Johnson
  vetoed the Freedmen's Bureau Bill
• In July, Congress renewed the Freedmen's Bureau
  by overriding the Presidential veto with a
  two-thirds majority in both houses.

6
Lincoln's Assassination

• On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was
  shot in the head at the Ford's Theater in
  Washington by an actor named John Wilkes Booth.
• The President was attending Our American Cousin
  with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln Major Henry R.
  Rathbone, and Clara Harris.
• The bullet entered through Lincoln's left ear and
  lodged behind his right eye.
• Lincoln was carried across Tenth Street, to the
  Petersen House, a boarding-house opposite the
  theater, where he died very early the next
  morning.
• At roughly the same time Lincoln was attacked,
  Lewis Paine, a co-conspirator of Booth, attacked
  Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Henry
  Seward.

7
Andrew Johnson's Plan for Reconstruction

• In May of 1865, Johnson launched his own plan for
  restoration.
• In this plan, he automatically offered amnesty to
  all southerners save high-ranking Confederate
  officials and wealthy planters who could only be
  pardoned by presidential order.
• Johnson appointed provisional governors for the
  confederate states and required them to revoke
  the secession, reject their Confederate debts,
  and ratify the Thirteenth Amendment.
• Within months all of the former Confederacy had
  met the requirements and had functioning, elected
  governments.

8
Frederick Douglass' Reconstruction

• Frederick Douglass, a freed slave who became one
  of the most influential African Americans in
  history and eventually became the head of the
  Freedmen's Bureau, explained reconstruction from
  the eyes of a black American.
• Frederick Douglass detailed the miserable
  conditions of slavery and how the conditions are
  not much better after abolition before discussing
  the Reconstruction in general.

9
Thirteenth Amendment

• proposed 1865 ratified 1865
• By 1864 Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas,
  and Louisiana all amended their constitutions to
  free their slaves.
• Abolitionists feared that the Emancipation
  Proclamation would be invalidated at the end of
  the war and that the southern states would react
  by reestablishing slavery.
• President Lincoln persuaded the Republican
  dominate Congress to prohibit slavery, which they
  did when the Thirteenth Amendment to the
  Constitution of the United States was passed on
  January 31, 1865.

10
Fourteenth Amendment

• proposed 1866 ratified 1868
• Congressional Radical Republicans moved quickly
  to establish black civil rights in an amendment
  to the Constitution.
• The Fourteenth Amendment became a bundle of civil
  rights initiatives.
• The soul of the amendment declared that "all
  persons born or naturalized in the United States"
  were citizens, that no state could alter "the
  privileges or immunities of citizens" nor could
  they deprive "any person of life, liberty, or
  property, without due process of law."

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Fifteenth Amendment

• proposed 1869 ratified 1870
• The 15th Amendment forbids both the Federal and
  State governments from denying citizens the right
  to vote on the basis of race, color, or "previous
  condition of servitude,"
• The amendment left the use of poll taxes and
  property or literacy tests to discourage blacks
  from voting, but northern states valued those
  qualifications for use against immigrants and
  indigents.

12
Civil Rights Acts

• The Civil Rights Act called for complete equality
  for African Americans, which would essentially
  undermine the southern state's Black Codes.
• The Act also served to limit southern
  representation in Congress. As was to be
  expected, the Act and the Fourteenth Amendment
  received little support from the southern states
  and were viewed as unrealistic and unfair.
• In 1870, 1871, and 1875 amendments to the
  original Civil Rights Act were made to further
  secure and improve the civil rights of the freed
  slaves.

13
Black Codes

• Dissatisfied with the new freedoms enjoyed by
  African Americans, several Southern state
  legislatures passed their own laws which served
  to limit the rights afforded to African Americans
  by federal legislation.
• Black Codes were designed to drive freedmen back
  to the plantations, to restrict their freedom of
  movement, and to deny them equality before the
  law.
• They set curfews, required blacks who lived in
  town to have white sponsors, and sharply
  restricted their rights of assembly to keep any
  political unification from happening.

14
Reconstruction Acts

• The Reconstruction Act of 1867, enacted in March
  by the Republican Congress organized the South as
  a conquered land, dividing it (with the exception
  of Tennessee) into five military districts, each
  under the command of a Union general.
• The Second Reconstruction Act of 1867,
  effectively is an amendment allowing for more
  specific language clearing up points of confusion
  in the earlier Act.

15
Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

• Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, was in a
  position to hinder Johnson's plans for
  Reconstruction.
• Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act,
  essentially prohibiting Johnson from firing
  Stanton.
• In August 1867, Johnson suspended Stanton and
  appointed Ulysses S. Grant to the position.
• When Congress reconvened in the fall, it
  overruled Johnson's actions and Stanton was
  restored to his position.
• In 1868, Johnson fired Stanton outright and
  Republican Senators effectively brought 11
  articles of impeachment against President
  Johnson.
• Although acquitted of all charges, Johnson was
  ineffective in his plans for Reconstruction and
  finished his term quietly.

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