Standard 10

Reconstruction

Presidential Reconstruction • refers to the plans laid out by President Abraham Lincoln and

carried out by President Andrew Johnson.

• This plan echoed the words of Lincoln’s second Inaugural Address, which urged no revenge on former Confederate supporters.

• The purpose of Presidential Reconstruction was to readmit the southern states to the Union as quickly as possible.

• Republicans in Congress, however, were outraged by the fact that the new southern state governments were passing laws that deprived the newly freed slaves of their rights.

Johnson’s plan to readmit the

South was considered too gentle.

Amnesty: Presidential pardon

•Rebels sign an oath of allegiance

•10% of the population

•Even high ranking Confederate officials

Write new state Constitutions

•approve the 13th Amendment

•reject secession and state’s rights

•submit to U.S. Government authority

No mention of

•Education for freedmen

•Citizenship and voting rights

Presidential Reconstruction

pardon

Radical Republican Reconstruction

• This refers to the more laborious process of rejoining the union that Congress required of the former confederate states.

• Southern states had to reapply for admission to the Union, rewrite their state constitutions, and take steps to secure the rights of the newly freed slaves.

• This resulted in the creation of southern state governments that included African Americans.

• The key feature of the effort to protect the rights of the newly freed slaves was the passage of three constitutional amendments during and after the Civil War.

Plans compared

•Amnesty : Presidential pardon •oath of allegiance---50%

•high ranking Confederate officials •loose voting rights if you don’t sign oath

•Write new state Constitutions •Ratify: 13, 14 & 15 Amendments •reject secession and state’s rights

•submit to U.S. Government authority

•Help for Freedmen •Freedmen’s Bureau for education

•40 acres and a mule •Divide the South into 5 military districts

Reconstruction Act of 1867--76 (Harsh)

•President Johnson vetoed the Civil

Rights Act of 1866

•Gave money to Freedmen’s Bureau

for schools and granted citizenship to

the Freedmen

•Congress believed Johnson was working

against Reconstruction and overrode his veto.

•President Johnson was impeached

•Led to the 14th Amendment An inflexible President, 1866: Republican cartoon shows

Johnson knocking Blacks of the Freedmen’s Bureau by his veto.

Radical Plan for Readmission

Civil authorities in the territories were subject to military supervision.

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.

Reconstruction Acts of 1867

Military Reconstruction Act

* Restart Reconstruction in the 10 Southern states that refused to ratify the 14th Amendment.

* Divide the 10 “unreconstructed states” into 5 military districts.

1865, Congress created the Freedman’s Bureau to help former slaves get a new

start in life. This was the first major relief agency in United States history.

Bureau’s Accomplishments Built thousands of schools to educate Blacks.

Former slaves rushed to get an education for themselves and their children.

Education was difficult and dangerous to gain.

Southerners hated the idea that Freedmen would go to school.

Freedmen’s Bureau 5

Progress for African Americans • African Americans saw progress during

Reconstruction that included the establishment of African-American newspapers, electing African-Americans to public office, and attending new colleges and universities established for them.

• One of these institutions, Morehouse College, was founded in Atlanta in 1867 as the Augusta Institute. A former slave and two ministers founded it to educate African American men in the fields of ministry and education.

“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 Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate legislation, the

provisions of this article.

“All persons born in the U.S. are citizens of this country and the state

they reside in. No state shall make or enforce any law which deprives any person of life, liberty, or property,

without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction to

the equal protection of the laws.”

The Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate legislation, the

provisions of this article.

“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.

Blacks in Southern Politics

The 15th Amendment guaranteed federal voting.

Ku Klux Klan refers to a secret society or an inner

circle

Organized in 1867, in Polaski, Tennessee by

Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Represented the ghosts of dead Confederate

soldiers

Disrupted Reconstruction as much

as they could.

Opposed Republicans, Carpetbaggers, Scalawags

and Freedmen.

During Radical Reconstruction, the Republican Party was a mixture of people who had little in common

except a desire to prosper in the postwar South. This bloc of voters included freedmen and two other

groups: carpetbaggers and scalawags.

Northern Republicans who moved to the postwar South became known as carpetbaggers.

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.

White southern Republicans were seen as traitors and called scalawags.

Refers to one who is a “scoundrel”, reprobate or unprincipled person.

Some scalawags were former Whigs who had opposed secession.

Some were small farmers who resented the planter class. Many scalawags, but not all, were poor.

social reality

After Reconstruction, 1865 to 1876, there were several ways that Southern states

kept Blacks from voting and segregated, or separating people by the color of their

skin in public facilities.

Jim Crow laws, laws at the local and state level which segregated whites from blacks and kept African Americans as 2nd class

citizens and from voting.

poll taxes

literacy tests

grandfather clause

Jim Crow Laws: segregated Whites and Blacks in public

facilities became the law after Reconstruction:

•Used at the local, state levels and

eventually the national to

separate the races in

•kept Blacks, minorities and poor whites from

voting and as 2nd class citizen status

schools, parks, transportation,

restaurants, etc….

JC laws1

•Sharecropping is primarily

used in farming

•Landowner provided land,

tools, animals, house and

charge account at the local

store to purchase necessities

•Freedmen provided the labor.

•Sharecropping is based on the

“credit” system.

1. Poor whites and freedmen have no

jobs, no homes, and no money to buy

land. 2. Landowners need laborers and have no

money to pay laborers.

4. Landlord keeps track of the money that

sharecroppers owe him for housing, food

or local store.

5. At harvest time, the sharecropper is

paid.

•Pays off debts.

•If sharecropper owes more to the landlord or store

than his share of the crop is worth;

6. Sharecropper cannot leave the

farm as long as he is in debt to the

landlord.

3. Hire poor whites and freedmen as

laborers

•Sign contracts to work landlord’s land

in exchange for a part of the crop.

•Similar to Slave

Codes.

•Restricted the

freedom of movement.

•Limited their rights as

free people.

As southern states were restored to the Union under President Johnson’s plan, they began

to enact black codes, laws that restricted freedmen’s rights.

The black codes established virtual slavery with provisions such as these:

Curfews: Generally, black people could not gather after sunset.

Vagrancy laws: Freedmen convicted of vagrancy– that is, not working– could

be fined, whipped, or sold for a year’s labor.

Labor contracts: Freedmen had to sign agreements in January for a year of

work. Those who quit in the middle of a contract often lost all the wages they had

earned.

Land restrictions: Freed people could rent land or homes only in rural areas.

This restriction forced them to live on plantations.

Hayes the

Republican

Tilden the

Democrat

Election results of 1876

Compromise of 1877 • Hayes got the office of the President

• Democrats got:

- federal troops leave LA, SC

- funding for Southern railroad, waterways

- conservative Southerner in cabinet

• Compromise of 1877 meant the end of

Reconstruction

The election of 1876 and the Compromise of 1877 are referred to as the Corrupt Bargain II.

The Democrats and Republicans work out a deal to recognize Hayes as President

In return, President Hayes must end Reconstruction and pull the Union troops out of the South.

Once this happens, there is no protection for the Freedmen and the South will regain their states and go

back to the way it was.

Rutherford B. Hayes Samuel Tilden

The Reconstruction

Era