Reconstruction (1865-1876)

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Reconstruction (1865-1876)
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Circumstances that the Government had to deal
with during Reconstruction

• There were 4 million newly freed slaves that
  needed education (90 were illiterate), work, and
  wanted to know what rights they would have in
  this new United States.
• Former Plantations owners were concerned with
  repairing and planting their farms, along with
  their biggest two concerns finding workers and
  dealing with the threat of violence from the
  former slaves.
• Poor white Southerners now had to deal with
  competition for work. They previously held jobs
  as slave overseers but now they would have to
  fight for a job.

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President Lincolns Plan

• 10 Plan
• Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction
  (December 8, 1863)
• Pardon to all regular Confederates soldiers and
  civilians
• No Pardons offered to the highest ranking
  military and civilian Confederate officers.
• 10 of the voting population would have to take
  an oath of loyalty to the United States
• The states would have to establish a government
  which nullifies slavery, and then the state could
  become a fully functioning state again.

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Parties fighting for representation during
Reconstruction

• Radical Republicans were led by Charles Sumner
  and Thaddeus Stevens and wanted serious
  reparations for African Americans along with
  punishment for the Confederates who they claimed
  started the war.
• Democrats of the South, especially, were
  requesting forgiveness and pardons so that they
  and the rest of the South could come back into
  the country peacefully and be able to get their
  lives back on track.

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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 ).
• Required a state constitutional convention before
  the election of state officials.
• Enacted specific safeguards of freedmens
  liberties.

SenatorBenjaminWade(R-OH)
CongressmanHenryW. Davis(R-MD)
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Wade-Davis Bill (1864)

• Iron-Clad Oath.
• Conquered Provinces PositionPA Congressman
  Thaddeus Stevens

PocketVeto
PresidentLincoln
Wade-DavisBill
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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.

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Presidential Reconstruction
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President Andrew Johnson

• Tennessee Democrat.
• White Supremacist.
• Agreed with Lincolnthat states had neverlegally
  left the Union, but was not going to punish the
  South.

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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 often
  applied directly to Johnson and he would grant
  them a pardon)
• Johnson did not require 10 of the states to take
  the Oath of Allegiance. They simply had to, in
  new constitutions, they must accept
  minimumconditions voiding slavery, secession and
  state debts.

1. Disenfranchised certain leading Confederates.
2. Pardoned planter aristocrats brought them back
to political power to control state
organizations.
EFFECTS?
3. Republicans were outraged that planter elite
were back in power in the South!
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Growing Northern Alarm!

• Johnson granted 13,000 special pardons in 1865
  alone (9 months total)

• Revival of southern defiance.

BLACK CODES
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Black Codes

• Purpose
• Guarantee stable labor supply now that blacks
  were emancipated.
• Restore pre-emancipation system of race
  relations.
• Restrictions
• Curfews- African Americans could not congregate
  at night.
• Vagrancy Laws- African Americans could be
  punished if they were found jobless by
  summmer-time for the year.
• Labor Contracts- Individuals had to sign labor
  contracts every single January.
• Limits on Women- Women were forced to sign labor
  contracts as well.
• Land Restrictions- African Americans could only
  live in rural farmland.

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14th Amendment

• Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to
  nullify the Black Codes, but Johnson vetoed it,
  so Congress attempted to strengthen their cause
  with an Amendment
• Ratified in July, 1868.
• Provide a constitutional guarantee of the rights
  and security of freed people.
• Insure against neo-Confederate political power.
• Enshrine the national debt while repudiating that
  of the Confederacy.
• Southern states would be punished for denying the
  right to vote to black citizens!
• Andrew Johnson campaigned against this 14th
  Amendments, trying to get states to not ratify it.

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Reconstruction Acts of 1867

• Military Reconstruction Act
• Placed the South under military rule with 5
  districts governed by Northern Generals
• Forced States to create new Constitutions and
  hold new elections.
• All Qualified Voters, including Blacks, could now
  vote.
• Confederates were temporarily ineligible to vote
• Southern States must offer equal rights to
  blacks.
• Once all have been done, states could finally
  rejoin the Union.

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Reconstruction Acts of 1867

• Command of the Army Act
• The President must issue all Reconstruction
  orders through the commander of the military.
• 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
  Radical Republicans (a.k.a. enemies of his
  policies).
• 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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Freedmens Bureau (1865)

• Called carpetbaggers by white southern
  Democrats.
• Assisted Freedmen with Education and job skills,
  actually taught 250,000 before the Bureau was
  ended
• The Bureau was destroyed by Congress as they felt
  it cost the nation too much for too little
  improvement

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Freedmens Bureau School
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Scalawags

• Southerners who turned Republican were considered
  traitors, or scalawags

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The Grant Administration (1868-1876)
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The 1868 Republican Ticket
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Grant Administration Scandals

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

• Credit Mobilier Scandal.
• Whiskey Ring.
• The Indian Ring.

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Black "Adjustment" in the South
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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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Black Senate House Delegates

• In the election of 1870, 600 African Americans
  were selected into Southern political seats.
• 16 African Americans gained seats in Congress in
  the election of 1870

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The Invisible Empire of the South
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The Failure of Federal Enforcement

• Enforcement Acts of 1870 1871 also known as
  the KKK Act.

• The Lost Cause.
• The rise of theBourbons.
• Redeemers (prewarDemocrats and Union Whigs).

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Sharecropping
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Tenancy the Crop Lien System
Furnishing Merchant Tenant Farmer Landowner
Loan tools and seed up to 60 interest to tenant farmer to plant spring crop. Farmer also secures food, clothing, andother necessities oncredit from merchant until the harvest. Merchant holds lien mortgage on part of tenants future crops as repayment of debt. Plants crop, harvests in autumn. Turns over up to ½ of crop to land owner as payment of rent. Tenant gives remainder of crop to merchant inpayment of debt. Rents land to tenant in exchange for ¼ to ½ of tenant farmers future crop.
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Land Ownership by African Americans in 1875

• Only 1 in 20 African American families owned
  property by 1875
• The families got stuck working upon farms by
  sharecropping and tenant farming, never being
  able to produce the amount that their contract
  specified.

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The Abandonment of Reconstruction
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1876 Presidential Tickets
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1876 Presidential Election
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The Political Crisis of 1877

• Corrupt BargainPart II?

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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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Election of 1876

• The election of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 was
  challenged by the Democrats since the voting in
  Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina was
  extremely close and could have involved
  fraudulent ballots cast. The U.S. Congress
  decided that Hayes would be given the Presidency
  over Democratic candidate Samuel Tilden but the
  Military must be pulled out of the Southern
  states, effectively ending Reconstruction.