Reconstruction: Rebuilding the Nation

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ReconstructionRebuilding the Nation

• Chapter 4
• U.S. History Grade 8

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Chapter 4, Lesson1

• Rebuilding the South

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Reconstruction 1865-1877

• When the American Civil War ended in 1865, the
  South was in shambles. The Union Army had
  destroyed homes, businesses, farm animals, and
  fields. The Southern economy was ruined. The
  social system that had existed in the South
  before the Civil War had been destroyed.
• With the Confederate government powerless, the
  North clearly had to deal with the situation.
• The plan for rebuilding the South and reuniting
  it with the Union was known as RECONSTRUCTION!

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Charleston, South Carolina, lies in ruins
following the war between the states.
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The Governments Role

• Of paramount concern was what role the federal
  government should take in the shaping of the
  political, economic and social fabric of the
  South. Integrating the roughly four million newly
  freed slaves into life in the new South was a
  particularly contentious issue.
• It was the issue of slavery that in large part
  had spurred secession of the Southern states in
  1860 and 1861, leading to the Civil War, and
  dealing with the newly freed slaves was no less
  problematic.
• The Civil War had left the South dramatically
  altered newly freed slaves struggled to survive
  in the new economy while co-existing with an
  often bitter and resentful white populace.

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Northern Reaction

• Most Northerners believed that Reconstruction was
  necessary because of the conditions in the
  Southern states, but few agreed what should be
  done.
• Northerners also disagreed about how to ensure
  the freedom of civil rights and former slaves
• Reconstruction caused one of the greatest
  disputes in the United States. PEOPLE STILL
  ARGUE ABOUT IT TODAY!

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Refugees of the Civil War atop a freight train
in Atlanta.
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Questions the Reunited Union Faced

• Under what conditions would southern states be
  readmitted to the Union?
• Should the South be punished?
• What would be the status of African Americans in
  the post war nation?
• Who would plan the reconstruction of the South?
• When the Civil War ended much of the South lay
  in ruins cities, railroads, trade systems and
  commerce perished in the war
• Southerners, also faced starvation problems due
  to high food prices and the land status

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A Divided Nation

• The nation was bitterly divided over the best way
  to answer those questions.
• Democrats and moderate Republicans tended to
  favor more lenient policies toward the South,
  with limited federal intervention in the process.
  
• However, a faction of the Republican Party known
  as the Radical Republicans pushed for a harsher
  program that would both punish the South and
  ensure that the newly freed black slaves would
  have total equality with whites.

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As We Discuss Reconstruction, Keep in Mind The
Following

• What were the opposing views of Reconstruction in
  the wake of the Civil War? 
• Who supported these competing views and why?
• Was Reconstruction a success?  Why or why not?

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The Three Phases

• Reconstruction came in three phases
• Presidential 1863-66 Goal Quickly reunite the
  country
• Congressional 1866-73 Goal Civil Rights and
  Voting Rights for Freedmen
• Redemption 1873-77 Goal The end of Reconstruction

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Abraham Lincolns View

• The 10 Plan
• Specified that a southern state could be
  readmitted into the Union once 10 percent of its
  voters (from the voter rolls for the election of
  1860) swore an oath of allegiance (LOYALTY) to
  the Union.

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Lincolns 10 Plan

• Voters could then elect delegates to draft
  revised state constitutions and establish new
  state governments.
• All southerners except for high-ranking
  Confederate army officers and government
  officials would be granted a full pardon.
• Lincoln guaranteed southerners that he would
  protect their private property, though not their
  slaves.
• Most moderate Republicans in Congress supported
  the presidents proposal for Reconstruction
  because they wanted to bring a quick end to the
  war.
• In many ways, the Ten-Percent Plan was more of a
  political maneuver than a plan for
  Reconstruction. Lincoln wanted to end the war
  quickly.
• Lincolns Ten-Percent Plan was thus lenientan
  attempt to entice the South to surrender.

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Congress Reaction

• Some politicians pointed out that Congress had
  the power to admit new states. They argued that
  Congress, not the president, should control the
  southern states return to the Union.
• Many Republican members of Congress simply
  disagreed with Lincolns 10 Plan

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Radical Republicans

• Many leading Republicans in Congress feared that
  Lincolns plan for Reconstruction was not harsh
  enough, believing that the South needed to be
  punished for causing the war.
• These Radical Republicans hoped to control the
  Reconstruction process, transform southern
  society, disband the planter aristocracy,
  redistribute land, develop industry, and
  guarantee civil liberties for former slaves.
• Although the Radical Republicans were the
  minority party in Congress, they managed to sway
  many moderates in the postwar years and came to
  dominate Congress in later sessions.

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The Wade Davis Bill

• Passed by Congress in July of 1864, this Civil
  War measure, introduced by two Radical
  Republicans, Ohio senator Benjamin F. Wade and
  Maryland representative Henry Winter Davis,
  asserted congressional power over
  Reconstruction..

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The Wade Davis Bill

• In the summer of 1864, the Radical Republicans
  passed the Wade-Davis Bill to counter Lincolns
  Ten-Percent Plan.
• The bill stated that a southern state could
  rejoin the Union only if 50 percent of its
  registered voters swore an ironclad oath of
  allegiance to the United States. The bill also
  established safeguards for black civil liberties
  but did not give blacks the right to vote.
• President Lincoln feared that asking 50 percent
  of voters to take a loyalty oath would ruin any
  chance of ending the war swiftly.
• Because the Wade-Davis Bill was passed near the
  end of Congresss session, Lincoln was able to
  pocket-veto it, effectively blocking the bill by
  refusing to sign it before Congress went into
  recess.

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SLAVERY????

• One issue Republicans agreed on was abolishing
  slavery.
• The Emancipation Proclamation had freed slaves
  only in the Confederate states and states that
  had been occupied by Union forces.
• Slavery still continued in the border states
• Many people feared that the federal courts might
  someday declare the Emancipation Proclamation
  UNCONSTITUIONAL

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The 13th Amendment

• On January 31, 1865, at President Lincolns
  urging, Congress proposed the 13th Amendment to
  the Constitution. The 13th Amendment made
  slavery ILLEGAL throughout the United States

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Changes for African Americans Lives

• Marriage Ceremonies taking new last names
• Search for relatives
• Freedom for Movement
• Freed-people demanded the same economic and
  political rights as white citizens
• Many slaves were unsure of their futures
• Tried to obtain farmland

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The Freedmens Bureau

• Congress created the Freedmens Bureau in early
  1865 to distribute food and supplies, establish
  schools, and redistribute additional confiscated
  land to former slaves and poor whites.
• Anyone who pledged loyalty to the Union could
  lease forty acres of land from the bureau and
  then have the option to purchase them several
  years later.

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The Effectiveness of the Freedmens Bureau

• The Freedmens Bureau was only slightly more
  successful than the pocket-vetoed Wade-Davis
  Bill.
• Most southerners regarded the bureau as a
  nuisance and a threat to their way of life during
  the postwar depression.
• The southern aristocracy saw the bureau as a
  northern attempt to redistribute their lands to
  former slaves and resisted the Freedmens Bureau
  from its inception.
• Plantation owners threatened their former slaves
  into selling their forty acres of land, and many
  bureau agents accepted bribes, turning a blind
  eye to abuses by former slave owners.
• Despite these failings, however, the Freedmans
  Bureau did succeed in setting up schools in the
  South for nearly 250,000 free blacks.