Unit 3- Reconstruction

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Unit 3- Reconstruction

• Break it down and build it UP!!!!

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Reconstruction after the war

• Between 1865 and 1877, the federal government
  carried out a program to repair the damage to the
  South and restore the southern states to the
  Union. This program, known as Reconstruction,
  was hugely controversial at the time, and
  historians continue to debate its successes and
  failures to this day.
• War had destroyed two thirds of the Souths
  shipping industry and about 9000 miles of
  railroads. The value of southern farm property
  had plunged by about 70 percent.
• The North lost 364000, including 38000 African
  Americans, and the South lost 260000. The
  postwar South was made up of three major groups
  of people
• Black Southerners- some 4 million freed people
  were starting their new lives in a poor region
  with slow economic activity. Now, after a
  lifetime of forced labor, many were homeless,
  jobless, and hungry.
• Plantation owners- Planters lost slave labor
  worth about 3 billion. In addition the Captured
  and Abandoned Property Act of 1863 allowed the
  federal government to seize 100 million in
  southern plantations and cotton. With worthless
  Confederate money, some farmers couldnt afford
  to hire workers. Others had to sell their
  property to cover debts.
• Poor white southerners- Many white laborers
  could not find work because of the new job
  competition from freedmen. Poor white families
  began migrating to frontier lands such as
  Mississippi and Texas.

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Reconstruction after the war

• The fall of the Confederacy and the end of
  slavery raised difficult questions. How and when
  should southern states be allowed to resume their
  role in the Union. At stake were basic issues
  concerning the nations political system. Yet it
  was not even clear which branch of government had
  the authority to decide theses matters.
• As early as December of 1863, Lincoln had begun
  reconstruction plans. He had written the Ten
  Percent Plan for Reconstruction. It was very
  forgiving to the South.
• 1- It offered a pardon, an official forgiveness
  of a crime, to any Confederate who would take an
  oath of allegiance to the Union and accept
  federal policy on slavery
• 2- It denied pardons to all Confederate military
  and government officials and to southerners who
  had killed African American war prisoners.
• 3- It permitted each state to hold a convention
  to create a new state constitution only after 10
  percent of voters in the state had sworn
  allegiance to the Union.
• 4- States could then hold elections and resume
  full participation in the Union.
• Lincolns plan did not require the new
  constitutions to give voting rights to black
  Americans. Nor did it readmit southern states
  to the Union, since in Lincolns view, their
  secession had not been constitutional. Lincoln
  set a tone of forgiveness .

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Johnsons Reconstruction Plan

• With Lincolns death, Reconstruction was now in
  the hands of a one time slave owner from the
  South the former Vice President, Andrew Johnson.
  Johnson had a profound hatred of rich planters
  and found strong voter support among poor white
  southerners. Hoping to attract Democratic
  voters, the Republican Party chose Johnson as
  Lincolns running mate.
• When Johnson took office in April 1865, Congress
  was in recess until December. During those eight
  months, Johnson pursued his own plan for the
  South. His plan, known as Presidential
  Reconstruction, included the following
  provisions
• 1- It pardoned southerners who swore allegiance
  to the Union.
• 2-It permitted each state to hold a
  constitutional convention (without Lincolns 10
  percent allegiance requirement).
• 3-States were required to void secession, abolish
  slavery, and repudiate the Confederate debt.
• 4- States could then hold elections and rejoin
  the Union.
• Although officially it denied pardons to all
  Confederate leaders, Johnson pardoned 13000
  southerners.

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The taste of freedom

• Black leaders knew that emancipation- physical
  freedom- was only a start. True freedom would
  come only with economic independence, the ability
  to get ahead through hard work. Freed people
  urged the federal government to redistribute
  southern land. They argued that they were
  entitled to the land that slaves had cleared and
  farmed for generations. Proposals to give white
  owned land to feed men got little political
  support.
• In 1865, Union general William Sherman had set up
  a land distribution experiment in South Carolina.
  He divided confiscated coastal lands into 40
  acre plots and gave them to black families. Soon
  the South buzzed with rumors that the government
  was going to give all feed men forty acres and a
  mule. Shermans project was short lived,
  however. President Johnson eventually returned
  much of the land to its original owners, forcing
  the freed men out. In place of programs like
  Shermans, small scale, unofficial land
  redistribution took place.
• For example, in 1871 Amos Morel, a freed man who
  stayed o to work on the plantation where he had
  been enslaved in Georgia, used his wages to buy
  more than 400 acres of land. He sold pieces to
  other freed me and later bought land for his
  daughter.

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Worship, Learn, and the Bureau

• African Americans throughout the South formed
  their own chruches. They also started thousands
  of voluntary groups, including mutual aid
  societies, debating clubs, drama societies, and
  trade associations.
• Historians estimate that in 1860, nearly 90
  percent of black adults were illiterate, partly
  because many southern states had banned educating
  slaves. Help came from several directions.
  White teachers, often young women, went south to
  start schools. Some freed people taught
  themselves and one another. Between 1865-1870,
  black educators founded 30 African American
  colleges.
• To help black southerners adjust to freedom,
  Congress created the Freedmens Bureau in March
  1865, just prior to Lincolns death. It was the
  first major federal relief agency in United
  States history.
• In its short existence the bureau gave out
  clothing, medical supplies, and millions of meals
  to both black and white war refugees. More than
  250000 African American students received their
  first formal education in bureau schools.

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Homework

• Read Pages- 224-229 complete page 229 1-5
• Vocabulary page 424, 430, 436, 442, due Friday
  Oct 7th

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Section 2

• As the southern states met Johnsons
  Reconstruction demands and were restored to the
  Union, the white run governments enacted black
  codes. The black codes established virtual
  slavery with provisions such as
• - Curfews- blacks could not gather after sunset
• - Labor contracts- Freedmen had to sign
  agreements in January for a year of work. Those
  who quit lost all the wages they earned.
• - Land restrictions- Freed people could rent land
  or homes only in rural areas. This restriction
  forced them to live on plantations.
• Southern defiance of Reconstruction enraged
  Southern Republicans in Congress who blamed
  President Johnson for southern Democrats return
  to power. Determined to bypass Johnson and put
  an end to his Reconstruction plan, Congress used
  one of its greatest tools, the power to amend the
  Constitution.
• In early 1866, Congress passed a Civil Rights Act
  that outlawed the black codes. Johnson vetoed
  the measure. As an unelected former Democrat,
  Johnson had no real mandate to govern.
• A mandate is voter approval of a politicians
  policies that is implied when he or she wins an
  election.

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Cont

• Congress overrode the Presidents veto. Then it
  took further action. Concerned that courts might
  strike down the Civil Rights Act, Congress
  decided to build equal rights into the
  Constitution. In June 1866, Congress passed the
  Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified by the
  states in 1868.
• The southern states were very reluctant to grant
  civil rights to African Americans. White rioters
  went on rampages against African Americans.
  White police sometimes joined in the stabbings,
  shootings, and hangings that killed hundreds.
• Despite public outrage against the brutality,
  Johnson continued to oppose equal rights for
  African Americans. In the 1866 congressional
  elections, he gave speeches urging states not to
  ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. Angry
  northerner voters responded by sweeping Radical
  Republicans into Congress.

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Strict Laws, Power struggle, Impeachment

• Calling for reform, not revenge, Radicals in
  Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867.
  Historians note that this was indeed a radical
  act in American history. The provisions were
• 1- It put the South under military rule, dividing
  it into five districts, each governed by a
  northern general.
• 2- It ordered southern states to hold new
  elections for delegates to create new state
  constitutions.
• 3- It required states to allow all qualified male
  voters, including African Americans, to vote in
  the elections.
• 4- It temporarily barred those who had supported
  the Confederacy from voting.
• 5- It required southern states to guarantee equal
  rights to all citizens.
• 6- It required the states to ratify the
  Fourteenth Amendment.

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Strict Laws, Power struggle, Impeachment

• In 1868, Johnson tried to fire Secretary of War
  Edwin Stanton, a Lincoln appointee. Johnson
  wanted Stanton removed because, under the new
  Reconstruction Act, Stanton, a friend of the
  Radicals, would preside over military rule of the
  South.
• The firing of Stanton directly challenged the
  Tenure of Office Act just passed by Congress in
  1867. The act placed limits on the Presidents
  power to hire and fire government officials.
  Under the Constitution, the President must seek
  Senate approval for candidates to fill certain
  jobs, such as Cabinet posts.
• The Tenure of Office Act demanded that the Senate
  approve the firing of those officials as well,
  thereby limiting the Presidents power to create
  an administration to his own liking. The Command
  of the Army Act also took away the Presidents
  constitutional powers as commander in chief of
  the armed forces.
• The House found that Johnsons firing of Stanton
  was unconstitutional. On February 24, 1868,
  House members voted 126 to 47 to impeach him, to
  charge him with wrongdoing in office.

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Strict Laws, Power struggle, Impeachment

• The house drafted 11 articles of impeachment,
  including violation of the Tenure of Office Act
  and bringing into disgrace, ridicule, hatred,
  contempt, and reproach the Congress of the United
  States. Johnson became the first President in
  United States history to be impeached.
• Johnson was tried and escaped the removal by one
  vote, his won the battle but lost the war. After
  he finished out his term, he went back to
  Tennessee and regained his Senate seat, as a
  Democrat.
• In the 1868 election, Republicans chose a trusted
  candidate who was one of their own the
  victorious Civil War general, Ulysses S. Grant.

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The Fifteenth Amendment

• Across the South, meanwhile, freedmen were
  beginning to demand the rights of citizenship to
  vote, to hold public office, to serve on juries,
  and to testify in court.
• In February 1869, at the peak of Radical power,
  Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment to the
  Constitution. It stated that no citizen may be
  denied the right to vote by the United States or
  by any State on account of race, color or
  previous condition of servitude.
• African American voters began to register
  freedmen under the Reconstruction Act of 1867.
  Nearly 80 percent of the newly registered African
  American voters went to the polls, while most
  registered white voters did not participate. As
  a result, one quarter of the more than 1000
  delegates elected to the ten state conventions
  were black.
• In 1870, with federal troops stationed across the
  South and with the Fifteenth Amendment in place,
  southern black men proudly voted in the
  legislative elections for the first time. Most
  voted Republican, while many angry white voters
  again stayed home.

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Cont

• More than 600 African Americans were elected to
  state legislatures. However, African Americans
  remained the minority I nearly every state house
  in the South. Individual black leaders could
  rise to positions of power in state government
  through alliances with white Republicans.
• The extension of the vote to freedmen led to the
  election of the first African Americans to the
  House of Representatives. Despite resistance
  from other representatives, their number
  gradually rose to eight by 1875.
• During Radical Reconstruction the Republican
  Party was a mixture of people who had little in
  common but a desire to proper in the postwar
  south. This bloc of voters included freedmen and
  two other groups.
• Carpetbaggers- Northern Republicans who moved to
  the postwar south. Southerners gave them this
  insulting nickname, which referred to a type of
  cheap suitcase made from carpet scraps.
• Carpetbaggers were often depicted as greedy men
  seeking to grab power or make a fast buck.
• In the postwar South, to be white and a
  southerner and Republican was to be seen as a
  traitor. Southerners had an unflattering name
  for white southern republicans- Scalawag.
  Originally a Scottish word meaning scrawny
  cattle.
• Many southern whites, resenting the power of
  freedmen, carpetbaggers, and scalawags,
  criticized the Reconstruction governments as
  corrupt and incompetent.

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Review

• Why were northern Republicans in Congress enraged
  by the black codes and the reports of violence
  against African Americans?
• Why was President Johnson impeached?
• Who had power in the post Civil War south and why?

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Birth of the New South

• The Holtzclaws were part of an economic
  reorganization in the New South of the 1870s.
  It was triggered by the ratification of the
  Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, which ended slavery
  and shook the economic foundations of the South.
• Although the Civil War left southern plantations
  in taters, the destruction was not permanent.
  Many planters had managed to hang on to their
  land, and others regained theirs after paying off
  their debt. Planters complained however that
  they couldnt find people willing to work for
  them. Nobody liked picking cotton in the blazing
  sun.
• In simple terms, planters had land but no
  laborers, and freedmen had their own labor but no
  land.

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Sharecropping, tenant farming

• The most common new farming arrangement was known
  as sharecropping. A sharecropping family, such
  as the Holtzclaws, farmed some portion of a
  planters land. As payment, the family was
  promised a share of the crop at harvest time,
  generally one third or one half of the yield.
• Sharecroppers worked under close supervision and
  under the threat of harsh punishment. They could
  be fined for missing a single workday. After the
  harvest, some dishonest planters simply evicted
  the sharecroppers without pay. Others charged
  the families for housing and other expenses, so
  that the sharecroppers often wound up in debt at
  the end of the year.
• If a sharecropper saved enough money, he might
  try tenant farming. Like sharecroppers, tenant
  farmers did not own the land they farmed. Unlike
  sharecroppers, however, tenant farmers paid to
  rent the land, just as you might rent an
  apartment today.

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Changes in Economy

• Changes in the labor force- before the Civil War,
  90 of the Souths cotton was harvested by
  slaves. By 1875, white laborers, mostly tenant
  farmers, picked 40 of the crops.
• Emphasis on cash crops- Sharecropping and tenant
  farming encouraged planters to grow cash crops,
  such as cotton, tobacco, and sugar cane, rather
  than food crops. The Souths postwar cotton
  production soon surpassed prewar levels. As a
  result of the focus on cash crops, the South had
  to import much of its food.
• Cycle of debt- By the end of Reconstruction,
  rural poverty was deeply rooted in the South,
  among blacks and whites alike. Both groups
  remained in a cycle of debt, in which this years
  profits went to pay last years bills.
• Rise of merchants- Tenant farming created a new
  class of wealthy southerners the merchants.
  Throughout the South, stores sprang up around
  plantations to sell supplies on credit.
• A major focus of Reconstruction and one of its
  greatest successes, was the rebuilding and
  extension of southern railroads. By 1872,
  southern railroads were totally rebuilt and about
  3300 miles of new track laid, a 40 increase.

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From the south to the north

• Despite these changes, Reconstruction did not
  transform the South into an industrialized, urban
  region like the North. Most southern factories
  did not make finished goods such as furniture.
  They handled only the early, less profitable
  stages of manufacturing, such as producing lumber
  or pig iron. These items were shipped north to
  be made into finished products and then sold.
• Most of the Souths postwar industrial growth
  came from cotton mills. New factories began to
  spin and weave cotton into un-dyed fabric. The
  value of cotton mill production in South Carolina
  rose from 713000 to 3 million. However the big
  profits went to northern companies that dyed the
  fabric and sold the finished product.
• In a sense, the postwar South was one giant
  business opportunity. The regions
  infrastructure, the public property and services
  that a society uses, had to be almost completely
  rebuilt. That included roads, bridges, canals,
  railroads, and telegraph lines. In addition to
  the rebuilding effort, some states used
  Reconstruction funds to expand services to their
  citizens. For instance, following the Norths
  example, all southern states created public
  school systems by 1872.

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Fraud and Corruption

• During Reconstruction, enormous sums of money
  changed hands rapidly in the form of fraudulent
  loans and grants. Participants in such schemes
  included everyone. Scandal and corruption also
  reached to the White House.
• The Union Pacific gave the Credit Mobilier
  enormous sums of federal money. While some of
  this money paid for work, much of it went into
  the pockets of the Union Pacific officers and
  politicians who were bribed into ignoring the
  fraud.

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The end of Reconstruction

• In 1866, six former Confederate soldiers living
  in Pulaski, Tennessee, decided to form a secret
  society. Someone suggested they name their group
  Kuklos (The Greek word for circle), and they
  voted to modify that to Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
  Members wore robes and masks and pretended to be
  the ghosts of Confederate soldiers, returned from
  the dead in search of revenge against the enemies
  of the South.
• The Klan spread rapidly throughout the South,
  fueled by a blend of rage and fear over the
  Confederacys defeat and toward the newly won
  freedom of black southerners. Klansmen pledged
  to defend the social and political superiority
  of whites against what they called the
  aggressions of the inferior race. The
  membership consisted largely of ex Confederate
  officials and plantation owners who had been
  excluded from politics. The group also attracted
  merchants, lawyers, and other professionals.
  While the Klan was supposed to be a secret
  society, most members identities were well known
  in their communities.
• In 1867, at a convention in Nashville, Tennessee,
  the Klan chose its first overall leader, or
  grand wizard, Nathan Bedford Forrest.
• As Reconstruction proceeded, Klan violence
  intensified. In 1868 Klansmen murdered 1000
  people in Louisiana. Fully half of the adult
  white male population of New Orleans belonged to
  the KKK

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Cont

• In 1867, at a convention in Nashville, Tennessee,
  the Klan chose its first overall leader, or
  grand wizard, Nathan Bedford Forrest.
• As Reconstruction proceeded, Klan violence
  intensified. In 1868 Klansmen murdered 1000
  people in Louisiana. Fully half of the adult
  white male population of New Orleans belonged to
  the KKK
• The Klans terror tactics varied from place to
  place. Often, horsemen in long robes and hoods
  appeared suddenly at night, carrying guns and
  whips. They encircled the homes of their
  victims, and planted huge burning crosses in
  their yards. Anyone who didnt share the Klans
  goals and hatreds could be a victim blacks and
  whites alike.
• The violence kindled northern outrage. At
  Presidents Grants request, Congress passes a
  series of anti Klan laws in 1870 and 1871. The
  Enforcement Act of 1870 banned the use of terror,
  force, or bribery to prevent people from voting
  because of their race. Other laws banned the KKK
  entirely and strengthened military protection of
  voters and voting places.

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Dying Issues

• By the mid 1870s, white voters had grown weary of
  Republicans and their decade long concern with
  Reconstruction. There were four main factors
  contributing to the end of Reconstruction.
• 1- Corruption- Reconstruction legislatures, as
  well as Grants administration, came to symbolize
  corruption, greed, and poor government.
• 2- The economy- Reconstruction legislatures taxed
  and spent heavily, putting southern states deeper
  into debt. In addition, a nationwide economic
  downturn in 1873 diverted public attention from
  the movement for equal rights.
• 3- Violence- As federal troops withdrew from the
  South, some white Democrats were freer to use
  violence and intimidation to prevent freedmen
  from voting. This allowed white southerners to
  regain control of state government.
• 4- Democrats return to power- the era of
  Republican control of the South was coming to a
  close. In 1872, all but about 500 ex
  Confederates had been pardoned. They combined
  with other white southerners to form a new bloc
  of Democratic voters known as the solid South.
  Democrats of the solid South blocked many federal
  Reconstruction policies and reversed many reforms
  of the Reconstruction legislatures.

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Compromise of 1877

• Reconstruction politics took a final, sour turn
  in the presidential election of 1876. In that
  election, Republican Rutherford Hayes lost the
  popular vote to Democrat Samuel Tilden, who had
  the support of the Solid South. Hayes claimed
  victory based partly on win in Florida,
  Louisiana, and South Carolina. Those states were
  still under Republican and federal control.
• Democrats submitted another set of tallies
  showing Tilden as the winner in those states, and
  thus in the presidential race. Congress set up a
  special commission to resolve the election
  crisis. Not surprisingly, the commission, which
  included more Republicans than Democrats, named
  Hayes the victor. However, Democrats had enough
  strength in Congress to reject the commissions
  decision.
• Finally the two parties made a deal. In what
  became known as the Compromise of 1877, the
  Democrats agreed to give Hayes the victory in the
  presidential election he had not clearly won. In
  return the new President agreed o remove the
  remaining federal troops from southern states.
  He also agreed to support appropriations for
  rebuilding levees along the Mississippi River and
  to give huge subsidies to southern railroads.
  The compromise opened the way for Democrats to
  regain control of southern politics and marked
  the end of Reconstruction.