Reconstruction

1
Reconstruction

• Chapters 22 23

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Objective 1

• Examine Reconstruction including
• The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments
• The Freedmens Bureau
• Lincoln and Johnsons moderate policies
• Radical Reconstruction
• Military occupation of the South

3
Objective 2

• Examine Southern responses to the policies of
  Reconstruction including
• The rise of the Redeemers
• Black Codes
• Jim Crow Laws

4
Objective 3

• Examine the Compromise of 1877 and its effect
  upon the political, social and economic status of
  African-Americans in the South.

5
Objective 4

• Describe the importance of the Supreme Courts
  decision in Plessy v. Ferguson and its
  ramifications for the enforcement of civil rights
  of African-Americans.

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Key Questions
1. How do webring the Southback into the Union?
4. What branchof governmentshould controlthe
process ofReconstruction?
2. How do we rebuild the South after
itsdestruction during the war?
3. How do weintegrate andprotect
newly-emancipatedblack freedmen?
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What Branch of Government Should Control
Reconstruction?

• Hinges on this question Was secession legal?
• Lincoln NO
• Never left Union, so he is in charge of enforcing
  law and Reconstruction
• Congress YES
• CSA states are now conquered territories
• Must apply for statehood
• Congress in charge of dictating terms

8
How do we bring back the South?

• Peacefully?
• Punish leaders?

9
Political Parties

• Republicans have control of Presidency and
  Congress
• Republicans want to show bipartisan effort to
  reunite country
• Democrats could take blame if Reconstruction
  failed
• Lincoln nominated Democrat Andrew Johnson as his
  VP in 1864

10
Impact of Civil War on Economies How do we
rebuild South?

• North
• Successful factories
• Strong cities
• Productive farms
• Superiority of free over slave labor
• South
• Land in ruins
• Railways destroyed
• Failed banks
• Economic limbo

11
What do we do with 4 million Freedmen?

• Many left plantations
• Many returned when opportunity was not found
• Others moved to cities or out west
• Many old ways of treating whites gone
• Many could not afford land

12
Freedmens Bureau (1865)

• Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned
  Lands.
• Many former northern abolitionists risked their
  lives to help southern freedmen.
• Called carpetbaggers by white southern
  Democrats.

13
Freedmens Bureau School
14
Freedmens Bureau Seen Through Southern Eyes
Plenty to eat and nothing to do.
15
White Response to Freedmen

• Southern society was shaken
• Competition for jobs in cities
• Many offended of new boldness of blacks
• Many Southerners believed slavery was lawful
  until state legislatures outlawed it or Supreme
  Court ruled
• Many only acknowledged freedmen when military
  came through
• Fear

16
President Lincolns Plan

• 10 Plan
• Believed individuals rebelled, not whole states
• Restore Union quickly didnt consult Congress
• Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction
  (December 8, 1863)
• Pardon to all but the highest ranking military
  and civilian Confederate officers.
• When 10 of the voting population in the 1860
  election had taken an oath of loyalty and
  established a government, and pledged to abide by
  emancipation, it would be recognized.

17
Congress Reaction

• Congress believed Lincoln was overstepping his
  Constitutional authority
• Radical Republicans War was over slavery
• Wanted to destroy Southern power
• Also wanted full citizenship for blacks (which
  was not covered in Lincolns plan)

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Wade-Davis Bill (1864)

• Required 50 of the number of 1860 voters to take
  an iron clad oath of allegiance (swearing they
  had never voluntarily aided the rebellion ).
• State constitutions had to be approved before
  Southern leaders enacted.
• Enacted some safeguards of freedmens civil
  liberties.

SenatorBenjaminWade(R-OH)
CongressmanHenryW. Davis(R-MD)
19
Congress Adjourned After Passing Wade-Davis Bill

• Lincoln killed it by Pocket Veto
• Lincolns plan goes into effect while Congress
  was out of session.
• Radical Republicans angry with Lincoln

20
President Lincolns Plan

• 1864 ? Lincoln Governments formed in LA, TN, AR
• loyal assemblies
• They were weak and dependent on the Northern
  army for their survival.
• Congress refused to seat many of the newly
  elected reps.

21
After Civil War

• Lincoln assassinated and Andrew Johnson becomes
  President
• Many Confederate leaders were arrested and put in
  prison.
• Andrew Johnson will pardon most of them in 1868.

22
President Andrew Johnson

• Jacksonian Democrat.
• Anti-Aristocrat.
• White Supremacist.
• Agreed with Lincolnthat states had neverlegally
  left the Union.

Damn the negroes! I am fighting these traitorous
aristocrats, their masters!
23
President Johnsons Plan (10)

• Offered amnesty upon simple oath to all except
  Confederate civil and military officers and
  those with property over 20,000 (they could
  apply directly to Johnson)
• In new constitutions, they must accept
  minimumconditions repudiating slavery (13th
  Amendment) and secession.
• Named provisional governors in Confederate states
  and called them to oversee elections for
  constitutional conventions.

1. Disenfranchised certain leading Confederates.
2. Johnson pardoned many planter aristocrats who
were then brought back to political power by
their states.
EFFECTS?
3. Republicans were outraged that planter elite
were back in power in the South!
24
13th Amendment

• Ratified in December, 1865.
• Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except
  as punishment for crime whereof the party shall
  have been duly convicted, shall exist within the
  United States or any place subject to their
  jurisdiction.
• Congress shall have power to enforce this article
  by appropriate legislation.

25
Growing Northern Alarm!

• Many Southern state constitutions fell short of
  minimum requirements.

• Johnson granted 13,500 special pardons (mentioned
  previously).
• Many reps in Southern govts were old
  Confederates, Black Codes

• Revival of southern defiance.

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Black Codes

• State Laws (first enacted in Nov. 65)
• Forbidden intermarriage, bear arms, possess
  alcohol, ownership of land, vagrancy
• Purpose
• Guarantee stable labor supply now that blacks
  were emancipated.
• Restore pre-emancipationsystem of race
  relations.
• Forced many blacks to become sharecroppers
  tenant farmers.

27
Congress Breaks with the President

• Congress bars SouthernCongressional delegates.
• February, 1866 ? Presidentvetoed the
  FreedmensBureau bill.
• March, 1866 ? Johnsonvetoed the 1866 Civil
  Rights Act.
• June, 1866 Congress approves the 14th Amendment
  and sends it to states
• Get around Johnsons vetoes
• Make sure South couldnt repeal a Civil Rights
  law if they gain control of Congress in the
  future.

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14th Amendment

• Proposed in 1866, ratified in July, 1868.
• Provide a constitutional guarantee of the rights
  and security of freed people--equal protection
• States would have to guarantee black male
  suffrage in their constitutions.
• Enshrine the national debt while repudiating that
  of the Confederacy.
• Amendments cannot be touched by President
• Black voters would vote Republican and prohibit
  old Confederate control of South.

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The Balance of Power in Congress
State White Citizens Freedmen
SC 291,000 411,000
MS 353,000 436,000
LA 357,000 350,000
GA 591,000 465,000
AL 596,000 437,000
VA 719,000 533,000
NC 631,000 331,000
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The 1866 Mid-Term Election

• Johnson made an ill-conceived propaganda tour
  around the country to push his plan.
• Many moderates pushed into Radical camp
• Republicanswon a 2/3 majority in
  both
  houses and gained control of every northern
  state.

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Reconstruction Acts of 1867

• Military Reconstruction Act
• Divide the 10 unreconstructed states into 5
  military districts.
• Military would oversee new elections and writing
  of new Constitutions.

32
Radical Plan for Readmission

• Civil authorities in the territories were subject
  to military supervision.
• Ignored Ex parte Milligan (1866) Supreme Ct.
  said civilians could not be tried in military
  court.
• Required new state constitutions, including black
  suffrage and ratification of the 13th and 14th
  Amendments.
• In March, 1867, Congress passed an act that
  authorized the military to enroll eligible black
  voters and begin the process of constitution
  making.

33
Johnsons Reaction

• Johnson vetoed all parts of Radical
  Reconstruction
• Radicals overrode his vetoes
• South had no choice but to approve these acts or
  military would occupy them.

34
Radical Reconstruction of 1867

• Tenure of Office Act
• The President could not remove any officials
  esp. Cabinet members without the Senates
  consent, if the position originally required
  Senate approval.
• Designed to protect radicalmembers of Lincolns
  government.
• A question of the constitutionality of this law.

Edwin Stanton
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President Johnsons Impeachment

• Johnson removed Stanton in February, 1868.
• Johnson replaced generals in the field who were
  more sympathetic to Radical Reconstruction.
• The House impeached him on February 24
  before even
  
  drawing up the
  charges by a
  vote of 126 47!

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The Senate Trial

• 11 week trial.
• Johnson acquitted 35 to 19 (one short of
  required 2/3s vote).

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What Did the People Want?

• Obvious that Radicals wanted to punish South and
  Johnson, while protecting their power.
• Many states began electing moderates in the 1870s
  and Radicals will eventually lose power

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Despite Radical Reconstruction

• Southern land still concentrated in hands of rich
• Concentration on cotton production
• Freedmen still had problems finding farm land and
  jobs

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Homestead Act of 1866

• Example of failure of Reconstruction
• Made public lands available to blacks and loyal
  whites in five southern states
• Land was of poor quality
• No transportation, tools or seed provided
• Fewer than 4000 blacks applied

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Sharecropping
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The Invisible Empire of the South
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The 1868 Republican Ticket
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The 1868 Democratic Ticket
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Waving the Bloody Shirt!
Republican Southern Strategy
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1868 Presidential Election
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Impact of Black Voters

• Grant won many southern states due to the
  approximately 500,000 black voters
• First black Congressmen, Senators and local
  governmental officials elected in 1868.

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Black Senate House Delegates
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15th Amendment

• Ratified in 1870.
• 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.
• The Congress shall have power to enforce this
  article by appropriate legislation.
• Womens rights groups were furious that they were
  not granted the vote!

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Despite These Advances, Enforcement a Problem

• By 1869, most of federal soldiers were gone
• South leadership still made up of elite classes
• Some Carpetbaggers moving South and voting
  Republican
• Most of white South loathed the Republicans (seen
  as outsiders)
• Democrats began to gain control in some southern
  states
• Republicans will continue to control states in
  the Black Belt where black population was more
  equal to whites
• Also the area hardest hit by Black Codes, Jim
  Crow and Redemption after Reconstruction

50
Increased Violence in the South

• With military leaving the South, black
  intimidation increased
• KKK and other white supremacist groups continue
  to grow in power
• President Grant and Congress pass Force Acts in
  1870 and 1871

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Force Acts of 1870 and 1871

• Gave President strong powers to use federal
  supervisors to make sure citizens were not
  prevented from voting
• Ku Klux Klan Act made hate groups illegal
• Rarely enforced
• Democrats and local officials did not enforce
• Republicans more concerned with Northern issues
• Grant also believed continued protection of
  blacks would hurt him in 1872 election
• White juries rarely found whites guilty of
  violence against blacks
• Supreme Court would later rule these
  unconstitutional

52
Reconstruction and the North

• North tiring of the Southern problem
• Move on
• Continue to build industry
• Complete railroad system
• Solve issues between factory owners and unions
  (500,000 unionize between 1866-1873)
• Northern Congressmen begin diverting money from
  Reconstruction to Northern issues

53
Grant Administration Scandals

• Grant presided over an era of unprecedented
  growth and corruption.

• Credit Mobilier Scandal.
• Whiskey Ring.

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Election of 1872

• Rumors of scandal hurt popularity of Republican
  party
• Grant and other Republicans begin to move to the
  center of political spectrum to capture votes
• Radical ideas and increasingly unpopular within
  the party--bad for Reconstruction plans.

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1872 Presidential Election
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The Panic of 1873

• Caused by overconstruction of railroads, failure
  of banks and businesses, removal of paper money
  from circulation, etc.
• Poor economy and Grants policies hurt the
  Republican party.
• Democrats gain control of the House in 1874

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Reconstructions Support Wanes

• Corruption in Grant Admin.
• Panic of 1873 6-yeardepression.
• Concern over westwardexpansion and Indian wars
• Monetary issues
• Civil War and Post-Civil War fatigue--time to put
  the differences aside
• Northern indifference and Southern dislike of
  Reconstruction.

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1876 Presidential Tickets
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Election Controversy

• 20 Electoral votes disputed
• 3 of 4 states were in the South
• House of Reps. Creates Electoral Commission
• 8 Republicans, 7 Democrats
• Hayes declared winner of all votes
• Democrats did not challenge in return for Hayes
  pledge to end Reconstruction

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1876 Presidential Election
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Alas, the Woes of Childhood
Sammy TildenBoo-Hoo! Ruthy Hayess got my
Presidency, and he wont give it to me!
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A Political Crisis The Compromise of 1877
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Result of Compromise of 1877

• Redemption
• Jim Crow Laws
• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
• Literacy tests, poll taxes, other voter
  registration laws
• Return of white supremacy