Reconstruction and the New South

1
Reconstruction and the New South

• Chapter 15

2
The Problems of Peacemaking

• The Aftermath of War and Emancipation
• The war is over, now what?
• South was destroyed
• Physically
• Socially (20 of white male pop.)
• Economically hyperinflation, no resources, no
  trade, no workers, no banks, etc.
• The Lost Cause sense of loss for southern
  whites

3

• 4 million slaves freed into far worse conditions?
• No family, no , no land, no donkeys?, no where
  to go, no food, you get the picture!
• Competing Notions of Freedom
• Reconstruction quest for freedom!!!
• Blacks land If I cannot live like a white man,
  than I am not free
• Whites freedom from foreign (federal)
  oppression white supremacy
• whites often times tried to keep black workers
  legally tied to plantations, aka sharecropping

4

• Competing Notions of Freedom contd
• Freedmans Bureau
• General Howard
• distributed food to millions of former slaves
• opened schools
• distributed land
• too small of an organization to deal effectively
  with huge problems

5

• Issues of Reconstruction
• Northern Beliefs
• Economics Northern Republicans had just passed
  huge legislation... if Southern Democrats
  regained control, programs would be in jeopardy
• punishment
• made over and urbanized
• Inter-party Disagreement
• Conservatives south just accept the abolition
  of slavery (Johnson)
• Radicals (T. Stevens and C. Sumner) Southern
  leaders punished, rights of blacks be protected
  and land Confederate leaders be distributed to
  freedmen.
• Moderates rejected the punitive goals of the
  radials but supported extracting some concessions
  from the South on black rights (Lincoln)

6
(No Transcript)
7

• Lincolns Plans for Reconstruction
• President Lincoln Moderate (10 Plan)
• Plan amnesty to white southerners who pledged
  and oath of loyalty to the United States and
  accepted the elimination of Slavery
• When 10 of eligible voters to the oath, they
  could set up a state government
• Radical Republicans outraged by Lincolns
  program, put forward Wade-Davis bill in July of
  1864 which authorized President to appoint a
  provisional governor for each conquered state...
  among other things... but left it up to the
  individual states to decide on the issue of black
  rights... Lincoln pocket vetoed it
• Lincoln realized he would have to give in to some
  of the radical demands

8

• The Death of Lincoln
• April 14, 1865 Lincoln and his wife Mary attended
  a play at the Fords Theatre.
• U.S. Grant and his wife were supposed to be there
  with him, but Grants wife couldnt stand the
  presence of Mary Lincoln.
• John Wilkes Booth entered Lincolns booth and
  shot him in the back of the head
• Militant Republicans exploited suspicions of a
  Southern Conspiracy

9

• Johnson and Restoration
• VP Johnson wrong man for the Job
• Changes name of Reconstruction to Restoration
• Pushed forward plan while Congress was in recess
• Plan resembled Wade-Davis Bill, in order to gain
  re-admission, states had to
• revoke its ordinance of secession
• abolish slavery
• ratify the Thirteenth Amendment
• repudiate the Confederate and state war debts
• By the end of 1865 all the seceded states had
  formed new governments and prepared to join the
  union as soon as Congress recognized them.
• Northern opinion now more hostile to the South in
  response to Lincolns assassination and Southern
  states electing Confederate leaders to legislature

10
Radical Reconstruction (Congressional
Reconstruction)

• The Black Codes
• Southern laws designed to reestablish planter
  control over black workers
• Variations from state to state, but all the codes
  
• authorized local officials to apprehend
  unemployed blacks
• fine them for vagrancy (Vagrancy Laws)
• hire them out to private employers to satisfy the
  fine
• underage children became custody of the state,
  and (c.)
• Radical Congress
• extended the life of the Freedmens Bureau
• First Civil Rights Act
• Johnson vetoed both acts, but 2/3 Congress
  overrode both vetoes (1866)

11

• The Fourteenth Amendment
• offered the first constitutional definition of
  American citizenship
• everyone born in the US and everyone naturalized,
  was automatically a citizen and entitled to equal
  protection of the laws by both state and national
  governments
• imposed penalties on states that denied suffrage
  to any adult male inhabitants
• prohibited individuals who had taken an oath to
  support the Constitution and later aided the
  Confederacy from holding any state or federal
  office unless 2/3 Congress voted to pardon them
• Congress made it clear that if states ratified
  the 14th they would be readmitted back to the
  union.... only Tennessee did so.... some northern
  states also refused
• Johnson campaigning idiot

12

• The Congressional Plan
• Three bills vetoed by Johnson and passed anyway
• Significance of two year delay
• States not readmitted to the Union, now under
  military control
• The Plan Military commanders were to register
  all adult black males and white males who had not
  participated in the rebellion, after completion
  of registration, voters would elect a convention
  and create a new constitution that accepted the
  14th Amendment and could be re-admitted into the
  Union

13

• The Fifteenth Amendment
• forbade states from denying suffrage on account
  of race, color, or previous condition of
  servitude
• important in theory and not impact for many
  years... for it did nothing to restrict literacy,
  property and educational interests, grandfather
  clause and poll taxes
• no reference to women (see Stantons comments)
• Impeaching the President and Assaulting the
  Courts
• Radical tried to impeach Johnson by passing two
  laws
• Tenure of Office Act forbade the president from
  removing officials without the consent of
  Congress (Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton)
• Command of the Army Act prohibited the
  president from issuing military orders except
  through the commanding General (U.S. Grant)
• Johnson fires Stanton to test the merit of these
  laws
• The House votes to impeach Johnson on High
  Crimes and Misdemeanors
• Goes to Senate for trial...35 to 19... one short
  of constitutionally demanded 2/3 for impeachment

14
The South in Reconstruction

• The Reconstruction Governments
• Carpetbaggers slang term for individuals from
  the North who came to the South during the
  Reconstruction era.
• Southern whites believed these individuals to be
  taking advantage of the South in their own self
  interest
• truth is that many of these individuals were well
  educated and the Southern frontier was more
  promising than the West

15

• The Reconstruction Governments Contd
• Largest contingency of southern Republicans were
  black freedmen
• colored convention
• served as delegates to the constitutional
  convention
• held elected offices
• Whites feared Negro rule but such was not the
  case... no black man was ever elected governor of
  a southern state
• Problems widespread corruption and debt
• Accomplishments public education, public works
  programs and poor relief

16

• Education
• 4,000 schools built and staffed by 1870
• By 1876 50 of all white children and 40 of
  black children were attending schools in the
  South
• Desegregated schools were a failure
• Civil Rights act of 1875 had its provisions for
  educational desegregation, but removed before it
  was passed
• Landownership and Tenancy
• biggest goal of freedmens bureau was reform in
  landownership in the South
• South Carolina, Georgia Sea Islands, and areas of
  Miss that belonged to JD....
• but for the most part it failed
• President Johnson supported Southern demands to
  have their property restored

17

• Landownership and Tenancy Contd
• Govt returned most confiscated land to Southern
  whites... due impart to the fact that few in the
  North supported the idea
• number of blacks owning land grew from none to
  20... but many lost all with the Freedmens Bank
  and the national depression of the 1870s
• many blacks became tenants... people who worked
  the land, but paid the landowner a percentage of
  their crop. aka tenant farming/sharecropping/debt
  peonage?
• system allowed blacks physical independence
• possibility of saving enough to purchase the land
  was virtually impossible

18

• Incomes and Credit
• Black income from 22 before the war to 56
  after... one of the most significant
  redistribution of wealth in American history
• but... black per capita income rose from about
  one-quarter of white per capita income to about
  one half of white per capita income in the first
  few years following the war and after this
  initial increase, it hardly rose at all.
• income re-distribution did NOT lift many blacks
  out of poverty

19

• Incomes and Credit Contd
• Crop-lien system post war system of credit
  centered around country stores, planters and/or
  independent merchants. aka sharecropping
• most tenets, black or white, depended on these
  stores for necessities
• many had to pay with credit
• limited competition ensured high prices and rates
  as high as 50-60
• a bad crop year a cycle of debt from which they
  could never escape (aka debt peonage)
• not only impoverished farmers, but contributed to
  decline in southern agriculture economy
• The African-American Family in Freedom
• efforts to find family members and loved ones
• lived on white property, but away from land owner
  and out of slave quarters
• desire for nuclear family
• married and working black women

20
The Grant Administration

• Johnsons presidency had left the country in
  political turmoil, and the nation wanted a
  stronger and more stable leader for the country.
  Thus, they voted in Civil War hero Ulysses
  Simpson Grant, who won the election, without a
  majority of the white voters, but he won the
  large majority of black voters who had just been
  given their right to vote with 10 southern states
  being readmitted in 1868.

21

• The Soldier President
• Grant could have run as either a Democrat or a
  Republican, but decided to run as a Republican
  because of their popularity in the nation. Grant
  won in a relatively close election, but the black
  vote helped him win the election.
• Grant had no political experience, but he was
  planning on running the country like a general,
  since that was his experience with leadership.
  Grant chose many friends and family to political
  offices, which many would say was a major mistake
  of his presidency. He also used patronage for
  many positions, which led to many of the
  political scandals that his administration would
  get connected to.

22

• The Liberal Republicans
• At the end of his first term, some members of the
  Republican Party referred to themselves as the
  Liberal Republicans, because they opposed what
  they jokingly referred to as Grantism. (aka
  Grants spoils system.)
• In 1872, they put up Horace Greeley, who was also
  the candidate of the Democrats, thus hoping to
  ensure that Grant was not reelected. However,
  Grant won in a landslide with 56 of the popular
  vote, and 286 electoral votes (Grant) to 66
  (Greeley)

23

• The Grant Scandals
• During his campaign for reelection, the first
  major political scandal of the Grant
  Administration came out, commonly referred to as
  Credit Mobilier.
• a French owned construction company, which helped
  to build the Union Pacific Railroad.
• The companies financial leaders had created
  fraudulent contracts to their own company, and
  thus coned the Union pacific and the federal
  government, who had given out large subsidies to
  the railroads.
• To keep any investigation from catching them,
  they had given stocks to key members in Congress.
  One particular member was Schuleyer Colfax, who
  was now Grants VP.

24

• The Grant Scandals Contd
• Scandal after scandal broke during his 2nd term.
• Ben Bristow, Grants secretary treasurer,
  discovered that some of his own officials and a
  group of distillers were operating as a whiskey
  ring, and were cheating the government out of
  taxes by filing false reports.
• a House investigation revealed William Belknap,
  sec. of war, had accepted bribes to retain an
  Indian-post trader if office, aka the Indian
  Ring.
• Grantism just added to the growing belief that
  there was rampant corruption in the govt.

25
(No Transcript)
26

• The Greenback Question
• to make things worse, the nation faced the
  financial crisis called the Panic of 1873.
• It was all started by investment companies who
  had overinvested in railroad construction.
• multiple panics before, 1819, 37, 57 but this
  was the worse and lasted 4 years.
• debtors requested that the govt. redeem federal
  war bonds with greenbacks, paper currency printed
  during the Civil War, which would increase the
  money supply and cause inflation. (this helps
  those in debt, and hurts lenders.)
• However, Grant and most Rep.s favor a sound
  currency based on gold reserves

27

• The Greenback Question Contd
• approx. 356 million greenbacks in circulation,
  and in 1873, treasury issued more in response to
  panic.
• 1875 Congress passes Specie Resumption Act
  govt. buys back greenbacks, and issues new
  certificates, based on gold standard.
• big problem, this causes deflation! (hurts
  borrowers/debtors, and helps lenders (aka banks
  and rich)
• 1875, the greenbackers formed the National
  Greenback Party active in next 3 elections, but
  unsuccessful in long run, as a third party.
  However, successful in keeping soft v. hard
  money issue in public discourse.
• currency would remain one of the most
  controversial and divisive issues in late 19th
  century politics.

28

• Republican Diplomacy
• Johnson and Grant administrations greatest
  successes were in foreign affairs.
• but success, was really based on the sec. of
  states.
• William Seward and Hamilton Fish
• Seward accepted offer from Russia to buy Alaska
  for 7.2 million, aka Sewards Folly or Sewards
  Ice Box Seward also worked out the deal to get
  Midway Islands (later important for WWII?)
• Fish worked on Alabama Claims, where English
  helped build the Confederacy ships for Civil War
  (the ALABAMA). Fed. govt. sued England for
  damages these ships caused Alabama Claims
• 1871, Treaty of Washington Britain apologized
  for letting Alabama escape from England. (also
  set up clear boundaries between British and US
  territories and some free navigation among
  waterways)

29
The Abandonment of Reconstruction

• Despite the presence of Federal troops, by the
  time Grant left office Democrats had taken back
  the governments of seven of the eleven former
  Confederate States
• The Southern States Redeemed
• States of the upper south had a majority of white
  citizens, thus had an easy time putting their
  candidates into power once they regained suffrage

30

• The Southern States Redeemed Contd
• In states where blacks had the majority, whites
  used intimidation and violence to undermine the
  Reconstruction regimes
• KKK secret society, midnight raids, military
  force thought of as a patriotic society by
  southern whites
• Knights of the White Camellia
• Red Shirts and White Leagues worked to force all
  whites to join Democratic party and exclude
  blacks from political activities
• economic intimidation land owners did not rent
  to blacks who voted

31
(No Transcript)
32

• The Ku Klux Klan Acts (Enforcement Acts)
• prohibited states from discriminating against
  voters on the basis of race
• authorized Federal district attorneys to take
  action against conspiracies to deny African
  Americans suffrage
• Also gave the president the power to suspend
  habeas corpus when violations of these rights
  were particularly egregious
• Grant declared a state of lawlessness in nine
  counties in South Carolina
• By 1872 violence against blacks had declined
  throughout the region

33

• Waning Northern Commitment
• Social Darwinism a harsh theory that argued
  that individuals who failed did so because of
  their own weakness and genetic unfitness
• Sharp departure from Transcendentalism gained
  popularity in the North
• Effects
• weakened support for Reconstruction program
• land distribution disappeared
• decline in willingness to spend money and
  resources to aid freemen (due to Panic of 1873)
• Democrats regain control of Congress in 1874 for
  the first time since 1861and come to power in
  nearly every southern state in 1876

34

• The Compromise of 1877
• Republicans decide not to run Grant again in
  1876, but Republicans decided to run Rutherford
  B. Hayes v. Democrat Tilden
• Tilden wins popular vote by wide margin, but
  electoral vote is contested...
• Comes down to a Congressional committee which is
  slightly biased towards Republicans and by one
  vote decides to give the election to Hayes
• Southern Democrats threatened a filibuster to
  block decision, but a compromise is made at a
  hotel Southern Democrats wont filibuster if as
  long as Hayes removes the last of the federal
  troops from the South.
• Deal is done and brings an abrupt and incomplete
  end to Reconstruction

35

• The Legacy of Reconstruction
• Brinkley Reconstruction was in the end largely a
  failure P.533
• WHY DIDNT IT ACHIEVE MORE? p. 533
• conservative powers
• poor leadership
• KKK
• Black codes
• Grant Scandals
• profound respect for private property and free
  enterprise
• African Americans looked upon as inferior
• Perhaps surprising that it did as much as it
  did
• 14th and 15th Amendments, although largely
  ignored in the South, would go on to fuel a
  Second Reconstruction in the 20th century

36
The New South

• The Redeemers
• by 1877 every southern state redeemed white
  Democrats in charge at nearly every level of
  Southern government
• South falls into control of a powerful,
  conservative oligarchy known as Redeemers or
  Bourbons
• Committed to home rule, social conservatism and
  economic development
• Democrats cut taxes, reduced government spending,
  drastically diminished state services
• Schools are not a necessity
• Dissenting movements (Readjusters, etc.)
  crushed

37

• The Industrialization of the New South
• Many Southerners believed they had lost the war
  because they had a weak industrial economy... now
  the goal of the New South was to Out Yankee the
  Yankees
• Southern literature and print depicted antebellum
  South with nostalgia and embraced the Lost
  Cause... portrayed slaves society as a
  harmonious world
• Textile factories appearing in greater numbers in
  the South
• Iron and the Railroad
• Women working in them, African Americans barred
• Efforts to unionize crushed
• Prisoners, chain gangs, often doing hard labor
  and being paid nothing

38

• Tenants and Sharecroppers
• Region remained primarily agrarian
• Black farmers generally had no money to pay for
  tools or land in advance, thus only means of
  payment was sharing the profit of the returns
  with the landowner, hence sharecropping
• fence laws and high rents infringe on
  backcountry residents

39

• African Americans and the New South
• Some African Americans managed to elevate
  themselves financially, although not socially
• Education vital
• Booker T. Washington established the Tuskegee
  institute to encourage blacks towards
  self-improvement
• adopt the standards of the white middle class
• believed blacks should forgo agitating for
  political rights and concentrate on
  self-improvement via economic skills
• did not challenge white segregation policies

40

• The Birth of Jim Crow
• In Civil Rights Cases, 1883, the U.S. Supreme
  Court rules that the 14th Amendment prohibited
  state governments from discriminating against
  people because of race, but did not restrict
  private organizations from doing so. Thus
  railroads, hotels, theaters could legally
  practice segregation. Ruled Civil Rights Act of
  1875 unconstitutional. Common theme govt. (via
  Sup. Court) supports segregation, racism and
  discrimination!
• Plessey v. Ferguson (1896) a case involving
  seating arrangements in railroads validated state
  legislation that institutionalized the separation
  of the races
• Cumming v. County Board of Education (1899) the
  Court ruled that laws establishing separate
  schools for whites were valid even if there were
  no schools for blacks comparable to the white
  schools from which the were excluded

41
(No Transcript)
42

• The Birth of Jim Crow Contd
• Evading the 15th Amendment
• poll tax
• literacy or understanding tests (often
  unfair)
• grandfather laws
• Williams v. Mississippi (1890) validated southern
  literacy tests
• Jim Crow an elaborate system of segregation
  reaching into almost every area of southern life.
  Served as a means for whites to retain control of
  social relations between the races in the newly
  growing cities and towns of the South.

43

• The Birth of Jim Crow Contd
• 1890s dramatic increase in white violence towards
  blacks 187 lynchings each year, more than 80 of
  them in the South, the vast majority of victims
  black
• prisoners seized from within prisons and hanged
  in front of large audiences
• Southern whites controlled black population
  through terror
• Jim Crow originated from minstrel shows, where
  white actor painted their face with black shoe
  polish and acted like a negro or sambo.
• Examples of Jim Crow Laws in TX, Miss., and
  Tennessee?

44
Jim Crow

• http// www.jimcrowhistory.org/scripts/jimcrow/gal
  lery.cgi?collectioncrow