presidential reconstruction congressional reconstruction the conflicted south collapse of...
TRANSCRIPT
Presidential Reconstruction
Congressional Reconstruction
The Conflicted South
Collapse of Reconstruction
Reconstruction 1863-1877
Lincoln’s second inaugural address deep compassion for the enemy guided his thinking about peace
Lincoln’s plan for reconstruction (1863) was designed to shorten the war and end slavery
“To Bind Up the Nation’s Wounds”
demanded that half of the voters in a rebel state take an oath of allegiance to the US before reconstruction could begin;
prohibited ex-Confederates from participating in drafting new state constitutions,
and guaranteed the equality of freedmen before the law
Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction
included full pardons for rebels willing to renounce secession and accept the abolition of slavery; it angered abolitionists
Wade-Davis Bill
Lincoln endorsed suffrage for Southern Blacks for the first time four days before his assassination
Lincoln refused to sign Wade-Davis
Wartime reconstruction failed to produce agreement about whether the president or Congress had the authority to devise and direct policy
Who Has the Authority?
2.1 mil Number of Northerners mobilized to fight for the
Union army 880,000 Number of Southerners
mobilized for the Confederacy 2 out of 3 Number of Civil War deaths
that occurred from disease rather than battle
360,000 Federal soldiers killed 260,000 Confederate soldiers killed
Civil War statistics
Biggest problem facing the South was transition from slave labor to free labor
What to do with federally occupied land? Jan 1865, Gen Sherman set aside part of the
coastal land south of Charleston for black settlement
He wished to be rid of the thousands straggling after his army
Land and Labor
400,000 acres of land — a strip of coastline stretching from Charleston, South Carolina, to the St. John’s River in Florida, including Georgia’s Sea Islands and the mainland thirty miles in from the coast
Sherman’s Land
Lincoln’s successor was a southern sympathizer and overturned the Sherman’s Order. He returned the land to the planters who had originally owned it
— to the very people who had declared war on the United States of America.
President Johnson overturns Sherman’s Order
Johnson’s Program of Reconciliation
◦ He was the only senator from a Confederate state to remain loyal to the Union
◦ Held the planter class responsible for secession◦ Republicans did not like him as he had been a
slave owner and a defender of slavery, only a begrudgingly acceptance of emancipation
Presidential Reconstruction
the states’ citizens to renounce the right of secession
disown Confederate war debts ratify the Thirteenth Amendment
Johnson instructed military and government officials to return to pardoned ex-Confederates all confiscated and abandoned land, even if it was in the hands of freedmen.
Johnson’s Plan
Major Reconstruction Legislation Thirteenth Amendment Freedmen’s Bureau Acts Civil Rights Act of 1866 Fourteenth Amendment Military Reconstruction Acts Fifteenth Amendment Civil Rights Act of 1875
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
The amendment to abolish slavery became part of the U.S. Constitution at the end of 1865
Thirteenth Amendment
The U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, popularly known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, was established in 1865 by Congress
Under pressure from Southern whites, Congress closed the Bureau in 1872
Congress Authorizes help
It distributed food and clothing to destitute Southerners and eased the transition of blacks from slaves to free persons
Congress authorized the agency to divide abandoned and confiscated land into 40-acre parcels, to rent them to freedmen, and eventually sell them
By June 1865 the bureau had situated nearly 10,000 black families on a half million acres abandoned by fleeing planters
Freedmen’s Bureau
Freedmen wanted economic independence, restoration of family life, literacy, freedom of worship
Whites believed that without the discipline of slavery, blacks would be lazy, wild and irresponsible
African American Quest for Autonomy
Southerners miscalculated and assumed Republicans would accept everything Andrew Johnson accepted
The black codes became a symbol of the South’s intention to restore all of slavery but its name;
Moderate Republicans did not champion black equality, but they did wish slavery and treason to be dead. They remained distrustful of ex-Confederates
Expansion of Federal Authority and Black Rights
Southern obstinacy forged unity among Republicans
Republicans drafted two bills to strengthen protection for the newly emancipated
Johnson vetoed the first bill, an extension of the Freedmen’s Bureau, and Congress failed to override the veto by a narrow margin.
Republicans Unite
Johnson’s veto galvanized support for the Civil Rights Act 1866, which nullified Black Codes.
Johnson vetoed the bill again; Congress overrode Johnson’s veto
Congress also submitted another bill to extend the life of the Freedmen’s Bureau and successfully overrode the president’s veto.
Civil Rights Act 1866
All native born and naturalized persons deemed citizens; equal protection of the laws
dealt with voting rights, giving Congress the authority to reduce the congressional representation of any state that withheld suffrage from some of its adult male population.
Republicans stood to benefit by gaining black votes or by lessening representation where black suffrage was rejected
The suffrage provisions ignored women
Fourteenth Amendment
introduced the word “male” into the Constitution; it provided for punishment for any state denying suffrage on the basis of race but not sex
Johnson advised southern states to reject the Fourteenth Amendment
He made it the main issue of the congressional election of 1866—the opponents of the Fourteenth Amendment gathered into a new conservative party, the National Union Party
Fourteenth Amendment (cont’)
June 1866 Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment; two years later it gained the necessary ratification of three-fourths of the states
Congressional Reconstruction
Every southern state except Tennessee voted down Fourteenth Amendment
March 1867 Congress overturned the Johnson-approved southern state governments and initiated military rule of the South
The Military Reconstruction Act divided the ten unreconstructed Confederate states into five military districts and place a Union general in charge of each district to oversee political reform, which including drawing up new state constitutions and guaranteeing black suffrage.
Radical Reconstruction and Military Rule
Post-war reconstruction failed to produce agreement about whether the president or Congress had the authority to devise and direct policy
Who Has the Authority?
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.
Fifteenth Amendment
Summer 1865 delegates gathered across the South to draw up new state constitutions
They did not want Northerners to shape Reconstruction
State governments adopted a series of laws known as the Black Codes, which kept blacks subordinate to whites by subjecting black to every sort of discrimination and attempting to limit them to farm work or domestic service
White Southern Resistance
Johnson refused to intervene and personally pardoned 14,000 wealthy or high ranking ex-Confederates and he accepted new southern state governments even when they failed to satisfy his minimal demands for re-admittance to the Union
Elections in the fall of 1865, Southerners chose former Confederates to represent them in Congress
Whites in several southern cities when on rampages against blacks, shocking north and making it suspect southerners still could not be trusted
Congressional 1866 election overwhelming Republican victory
Violence in the South
When voters of each state had approved a new state constitution and the state legislature had ratified the Fourteenth amendment, the state could submit its work to Congress
The Military Reconstruction Act of 1867 disappointed those who advocated the confiscation and redistribution of southern plantations to ex-slaves.
Johnson vetoed the Military Reconstruction Act; Congress overrode his veto on the same day, dramatizing the shift in power from the executive branch to the legislative branch of government
Power Shift
The North grew tired of the financial and political demands of Reconstruction
The Supreme Court narrowed Congress’s powers in preference of state governments and undermined federal protection of blacks
Disintegration of Republican state governments in the South
Terrorism in the South by the Redeemers and the KKK, and success of white supremacy
Why did Reconstruction fail?