Unit Seven Reconstruction 1865-1877

How did Reconstruction impact the social, political, and economic institutions of the United States?

How did the Civil War and Reconstruction challenge the supremacy of the national government?

Reconstruction is……..

• Reconstructing of something: the act or process of reconstructing something, or being reconstructed

• Something restored: something that has been reorganized, reformed, or restored

• Video Clip

Lincoln’s Second Inaugural AddressMarch 4, 1865

• Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

• With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

• What is Lincoln’s message to the nation ?

Reconstruction Plans

• At the end of the war the South was all but destroyed• The economy in a state of collapse• Land values plummeted• Confederate money worthless• 2/3rds of the transportation system ruined• Miles of twisted railroad track• Bridges gone• Freedom of slaves sent the agricultural system into

chaos

• South paid a high price for secession, war, and defeat

• Battlefield casualties• Material and psychological wounds• Best agricultural land lay in waste- Northern

Virginia, Shenandoah Valley, large sections of Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina

• Towns and cities including Richmond, Atlanta, and Columbia, S.C. were in ruins

• By 1865 cotton and African American slaves were no longer measures of wealth and prestige

• Retreating Confederate troops destroyed most of the cotton to prevent it’s capture by federal troops

• Any cotton left was confiscated by Union agents as contraband of war

• Former slaves, many had fled to Union lines late in the war were determined to chart their own course in the reconstructed South as free men and women

• It would take a generation for the Southern economy to recover

• 1860, the South held 25% of the nation’s wealth- 1870 only 12%

• Many white Southerners resented their conquered status, and white notions of race, class, and honor died hard

• White North Carolinian- lost everything dear to him in the war- his sons, home, and slaves- recalled in 1865 that in spite of all of his tragedy he retained one thing: “They left me one inestimable privilege-to hate ‘em. I git up at half past four in the morning, and sit up until twelve at night, to hate ‘em”

• Emancipation was the most difficult for the white South- especially the planter elite

• Conquered and degraded and in their views robbed of their slave property

• Whites responded by regarding African Americans more than ever as inferior to themselves

• Antebellum South- white skin had defined a social bond that transcended economic class

• Gave even the lowest poor white a badge of superiority over even the most skilled slave or prosperous free African American

• Emancipation made whites redefine their world

• The idea of political power and social equality for African Americans made racial order the consuming passion of most white Southerners during Reconstruction

• Racism can be seen as one of the major forces driving Reconstruction and eventually undermining it

• Until a new labor system in place, the South could not maintain agricultural output

• President Lincoln and Congress had to address reconstruction

• The decision on how and under what terms the Confederate states could rejoin the Union

Lincoln’s Plan

• The reconstruction problem emerged shortly after the Civil War began

• Union forces occupied Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana in 1862

• Lincoln appointed military governors for the regions and began to develop a plan to restore government in those states

• Lincoln wanted a moderate policy-reconcile with the South instead of punishment for treason

• December 1863, Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction

• 1. general amnesty to all Southerners who took an oath of loyalty to the US

• 2. accept the Unions proclamation concerning slavery

• 3. when 10% of the state’s voters in the 1860 election had taken the oath they could organize a state government

Radical Republicans

• Lincoln’s plan met opposition by the radical Republicans in Congress

• Led by Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pa. and Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts

• The radical Republicans did not want to reconcile with the South

• They wanted to revolutionize Southern institutions, habits, and manners

Goals of the Radical Republicans

• 1. prevent the leaders of the Confederacy from regaining political power

• 2. to make the Republican Party a powerful institution in the South

• 3. the federal government would ensure political equality for African Americans

• When the Southern states were readmitted to the Union they would gain 15 seats in the House of Representatives

• Former slaves before the war counted 5 to 3 in population under the 3/5ths Compromise, now they would count 1 to 1

• The ending of slavery would give the South more seats in the House-this would threaten Republican control unless African Americans could vote

• Suffrage for African Americans would help the Republican Party win elections

• The actions were not solely based on gaining political power

• Many radical Republicans had been abolitionists before the war and played a key role in Lincoln making emancipation a goal of the war

• They believed in political equality for African Americans

The Wade-Davis Bill

• In between Lincoln and the Radical Republicans was a group of moderates

• The Moderates thought Lincoln too lenient and the Radicals too extreme in giving support to African Americans

• The summer of 1864, the Moderates and Radicals create a reconstruction plan

• 1. require a majority of white adult men to take an oath of allegiance to the Union

• 2. each state government would have to abolish slavery

• 3. reject all debts the states had acquired as a member of the Confederacy

• 4. not allow any former Confederate government officials or military officers to vote or hold public office

• Congress passed the Wade-Davis Bill• Lincoln stooped it with a pocket veto• Lincoln felt a harsh peace would be

counterproductive

The Freedmen’s Bureau

• Lincoln; harsh reconstruction plan would alienate Southern whites, already hundreds of thousands homeless, unemployed, and hungry

• Union had to deal with a large number of African Americans migrating North as the war progressed

• As Sherman marched through Georgia and South Carolina, thousands of freedmen followed his troops looking for food and shelter

• Sherman reserved all abandoned plantation land within 30 miles of the coast from Charleston to Jacksonville, Florida for use by the freedmen

• Union troops settled 40,000 freedmen on a half a million acres

• Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands

• The Freedmen’s Bureau used army surplus supplies to feed and clothe refugees in the South

• Prevented mass starvation in the South• Found work for freedmen on plantations,

negotiated labor contracts with planters• Many Northerners supported the work of the

Freedmen’s Bureau, felt former slaves should be given 40 acres and a mule

• The Federal government should seize Confederate land and give to emancipated slaves

• Taking plantation land and giving it to the freedmen appeared to be a violation of the nation’s commitment to individual property rights

• Congress refused to take property

• The Freedmen’s Bureau failed to give African Americans land to make a new start

• The Freedmen’s Bureau did make a lasting impact, education

• The Bureau worked closely with charities in the North to educate former slaves

• Provided housing for schools, paid teachers, helped establish colleges to train African American teachers

Andrew Johnson

• Lincoln was assassinated, Vice President Andrew Johnson became president

• Johnson changes Reconstruction• Johnson, a former Democrat from Tennessee,

elected to the US Senate• When Tennessee seceded, Johnson remained

loyal to the Union, hero in the North

• 1862, Lincoln named Johnson the Military Governor of Tennessee

• Lincoln approved Johnson’s nomination as the VP in the election of 1864

• Hoped to bring some Democrats to vote Republican

• Johnson felt a more moderate Reconstruction plan was needed

Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan

• Summer of 1865 Congress was in recess• May, 1865 Johnson issued a new Proclamation of

Amnesty• Pardon all Southern citizens who took an oath of

loyalty to the Union• Return their property• Did exclude former military officers and officials of the

Confederacy, along with plantation owners with property worth more than $20,000, felt they started the war

• Those excluded could apply to Johnson individually for a pardon

• The day of the Amnesty Proclamation, Johnson issued a proclamation for NC, as a model for how Johnson wanted to restore the South

• 1. former Confederate states had to call a constitutional convention, revoke the ordinance of secession

• 2. had to ratify the 13th amendment• 3. had to reject all Confederate debts• Most states meet Johnson’s requirements• Organized new governments and elected members to

Congress• Congress convened it’s next session Dec. 1865• Congress was upset that Southern voters had elected many

former Confederate officers and political leaders, including Alexander Stephens, the former VP of the Confederacy

• Moderate and Radical Republicans found this unacceptable and voted to reject new Southern members of Congress

Black Codes

• New Southern state legislatures passed Black Codes

• Laws to limit African American rights in the South• An attempt to keep African Americans in a state

of slavery• Required African Americans to enter into annual

labor contracts, leaving before contract expired led to forfeiture of wages already earned and subject to arrest by white citizens

• Vagrancy, broadly defined, punishable by fines and involuntary plantation labor

• Some states tried to stop African Americans from owing land

• Laws specifically denied African Americans equality with white people in civil rights

• Excluded African Americans from juries• Prohibited interracial marriages

• African American children had to accept apprenticeships- could be whipped or beaten

• Set specific work hours for African Americans• Required African Americans to get a license

for non-agricultural work• The Black Codes angered many in the North

The Moderate-Radical Coalition

• The election of former Confederates and the Black Codes prompted many moderates to join with the Radicals in opposition to Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan

• Late 1865 House and Senate Republicans created the Joint Committee on Reconstruction

• This committee was to make Congressional policy for rebuilding the Union

The Civil Rights Act of 1866

• 1. citizenship to anyone born in the US except Native Americans

• 2. allowed African Americans to own property• 3. African Americans to be treated equally in

court• 4. gave the federal government the right to

sue people who violated the rights of African Americans

14th Amendment

• Congress feared the Civil Rights Act of 1866 would be overturned in court

• Republicans proposed the 14th amendment• 1. citizenship to all born or naturalized in the US• 2. no state may deny any person life, liberty, or

property without due process of law• 3. no state may deny equal protection of the law

• Equal Protection of the Law; the right of all persons to have the same access to the law and courts, and to be treated equally by the law and courts, both in procedures and in the substance of the law.

• Due Process; legal fairness, legal safeguards, protection against deprivations, proteccion guarantees, protection of deprivation of accepted legal principles

Southern Violence

• Violence in the South prompted Moderate Republicans to support the 14th amendment

• May, 1866, Memphis, Tennessee• White mobs killed 46 African Americans• Burned 100s of black homes, churches, and

schools• Congress ratified the 14th amendment June,

1866 sent it to the states for ratification

The Election of 1866

• Johnson wanted to make the 14th amendment an issue in the 1866 Congressional elections

• Wanted Northern voters to elect a new majority in Congress that would support his reconstruction plan

• Election started, violence in the South• July, 1866 white mobs attacked delegates to a

convention in New Orleans supporting rights for African Americans

• Johnson attacked the Radicals• The Radicals attacked the Democrats for

causing the war and treason• Republicans won big- a 3 to 1 majority in

Congress

Military Reconstruction ActVideo Clip

• March 1867, Congressional Republicans passed the Military Reconstruction Act

• This replaced Johnson’s reconstruction plan• 1. divided the South except Tennessee which

had ratified the 14th amendment into five military districts

• 2. a Union general was in charge of each district

• 3. Confederate states were required to hold another state convention to write a constitution acceptable to Congress

• 4. had to give suffrage to all adult male citizens regardless of race

• 5. after the state ratified the new constitution it had to ratify the 14th amendment

• 6. military officers supervised voter registration

• The Southern states held elections, organized constitutional conventions

• By the end of 1868 NC, SC, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas had met the Congressional requirements and were readmitted to the Union

Tenure of Office ActCommand of Army Act

• Early 1867 the Radical and Moderate Republicans took control of Reconstruction by passing the Reconstruction Act over Johnson’s veto

• Supplementary legislation passed over Johnson’s veto invalidated the governments in the South established by Johnson; gave the military the power to administer voter registration, and oath of loyalty to U.S.

• Congress passed laws to limit the power of President Johnson

• Tenure of Office Act- any officeholder appointed by the President with Senate advice and consent could not be removed until the Senate approved a successor

• Congressional leaders could protect Republicans like Secretary of War Edwin Stanton

• The Republicans had the votes to override any veto of legislation by Johnson

• They did not trust Johnson to enforce their laws• They did trust Sec. of War Edwin Stanton and General U.S.

Grant to support their policies• To prevent Johnson from firing Stanton Congress passed the

Tenure of Office Act• Command of Army Act- required all orders from the

president to go through the headquarters of the general of the Army- U.S. Grant’s headquarters

• President Johnson challenged the Tenure of Office Act

• August, 1867 Congress in adjournment- Johnson suspended Stanton and replaced him with Grant

• Johnson could now remove field generals he judged to be too radical and replace them with men who were sympathetic to his own views

The Impeachment of Johnson

• The House of Representatives voted to impeach Johnson

• He was charged with high crimes and misdemeanors

• The main charge was violation of the Tenure of Office Act

• He also had removed four commanders in Southern military districts who supported the Republicans

• The House also charged Johnson with undermining the Congressional Reconstruction Plan

• The Senate trial needed a 2/3rds majority vote to convict and remove from office

• Two months later the verdict was 35-19 that he was guilty, one vote short to get a conviction

• 7 Republican Senators voted with the Democrats to refuse to convict-thought it would set a dangerous precedent to impeach a president because he would not agree with Congress

The Election of 1868

• The Republicans nominated war hero U. S. Grant

• During the campaign, violence in the South illustrated to many Northerners that the South could not be trusted to reorganize their governments without military supervision

• The military presence in the South allowed large numbers of African Americans to vote

• Grant won six states and most of the Northern states

• The Republicans maintained their majority in the House and the Senate

15th Amendment

• The Republican Congress passed the 15th amendment

• The right to vote can not be denied on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude

• Ratified March 1870• Radical Reconstruction had an immense

impact on the South

• The immediate change was hundreds of thousands of African Americans entered the political process

• Southern society changed• Angry white Southerners began to fight back

against the federal government policies

Woman Suffrage and Reconstruction

• The fight over political status of African Americans was also an important turning point for women

• 14th and 15th Amendments granted citizenship and the vote to freedmen- inspired and frustrated women’s rights activists

• Many women had actively supported the Union during the war by working in the National Women’s Loyalty League and the U.S. Sanitary Commission

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony- leaders with long involvement in both the antislavery and feminists movements objected to the use of the word “male” in the 14th Amendment

• “If the word ‘male’ be inserted, it will take us a century at least to get it out”- E.C. Stanton

• Insisted the causes of the African American’s right to vote and the right of women to vote were linked

• Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone created the American Equal Rights Association in 1866

• The group launched a series of lobbying and petition campaigns to remove racial and sexual restrictions on voting from state constitutions

• Across the nation the old abolitionist organizations and the Republican Party emphasized the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments and withdrew money and support from the cause of woman suffrage

• Disagreement over the 14th and 15th Amendments divided suffragists for decades

The Meaning of Freedom

• For the four million slaves in the South freedom came in various ways to different parts of the South

• Some areas slavery ended before Lee’s surrender at Appomattox

• In areas far from federal lines slavery did not end until the spring of 1865

• Meaning of freedom would be contested for years to come

• Deep desire for independence from white control formed the underlying hope of newly freed slaves

• Most southern whites sought to restrict the boundaries of that independence

• As individuals and members of communities changed by emancipation- former slaves struggled to create economic, political, and cultural independence

• African Americans built on the twin pillars of slave culture the family and the church to consolidate and expand African American institutions and laid the foundation for the modern African American community

• Emancipation expanded choices available to African Americans• Emancipation allowed former slaves to build confidence in

their ability to effect change without deferring to white people• Freedom also meant greater uncertainty and risk• The majority of African Americans were willing to take their

chances

Mobility

• First impulse for many emancipated slaves was to test their freedom

• Simplest way was to leave home• Summer and fall of 1865, large numbers of freed

people moved• One former slave squatting in an abandoned tent

outside Selma, Alabama to a northern journalist “ I’s want to be free man, cum when I please, and nobody say nuffin to me, nor order me roun.”

• When asked to stay on with the South Carolina family she had served for years as a cook- slave women replied firmly, “No, Miss, I must go. If I stay here I’ll never know I am free.”

• Many who left returned later to work in the area or even on the plantations they had left

• Many wanted separation from former owners but not family ties and friendships

• Some freedmen left for nearby towns and cities looking for jobs

• Some former slaves left predominately white counties where they felt endangered and isolated- searched for new lives in relative comfort of predominately black communities

• Most Southern states experienced a population shift toward black belt plantation counties and towns after the war

• Many African Americans were attracted by schools, churches, fraternal societies, as well as the army- preferred the city

• 1865-1870 African American population in the South’s ten largest cities doubled while white population increased at only 10%

• Planters had trouble accepting African American independence

• During slavery they expected obedience, submission, and loyalty from African Americans

• Planters could not understand why former slaves wanted to leave in spite of urgent pleas to continue to work at the old place

• Deference and humility whites expected from African Americans could no longer be taken for granted

• Many freedmen went out of their way to reject the old subservience

• One way was moving freely, other ways were refusing to tip hat to white people, ignore former masters and mistresses in the streets, refusing to step aside on sidewalks

African American Family• Emancipation allowed African Americans to strengthen

families• Freedom = opportunity to reunite with long-lost family

members• To track down relatives, freed people went to faraway

places, put ads in newspapers, received aid from Freedmen’s Bureau agents

• Thousands of family reunions after the war• Thousands of African American couples had lived together

under slavery went to military and civilian authorities demanding to be legally married

• By 1870 two parent households was the norm for the majority of African Americans

• Emancipation brought changes to gender roles within the African American family

• Service in Union Army, African American males played a more direct role in the fight for freedom than women

• Politically- black men could serve on juries, vote, and hold public office- black women could not

• Freedmen’s Bureau agents named the husband the head of the household and established a lower wage scale for women laborers

• African American editors, preachers, and politicians regularly quoted the biblical injunctions that wives submit to their husbands

• African American men asserted male authority they had been denied under slavery

• Insisted wives work at home instead of the fields

• African American women generally wanted to devote more time than they had under slavery to caring for their children- performed domestic chores like cooking, sewing, gardening, and laundering

• African American women did continue to work outside the home- seasonal field labor for wages, worked family’s rented plot of land

• Most rural black families barely survived- labor of all family members was essential to survival

• Key difference from slave times was that African American families themselves, not white masters, decided when and where women and children worked

African American Church and School

• Post emancipation years, creation of separate African American churches had the longest lasting impact

• Antebellum South, Protestant churches put slaves and free blacks in second class membership

• Required to sit in the back of the church during services, no role in church governance, excluded from Sunday Schools

• In cities, churches with all black congregations by law had to have a white minister

• Rural areas, slaves preferred their own preachers to the sermons of white ministers who quoted scripture to justify slavery and white supremacy

• Around the South African Americans pooled resources to buy land and build own churches

• Before churches were completed services might take place in a railroad boxcar, outdoor arbor

• 1866 Charleston, S.C. the African American community had 11 churches- 5 Methodist, 2 Presbyterian, 2 Episcopalian, 1 Baptist, and 1 Congregational

• Rural areas different denominations shared the same church building

• Churches were the center of religious life, schools, picnics, festivals, political meetings

• Church = first social institution fully controlled by African Americans

• Ministers were respected for speaking and organizational skills- first influential leaders

• By 1877 great majority of black Southerners had left white dominated Churches

• Rapid spread of schools reflected African American’s desire for self-improvement

• Many free people managed to attend school, few slaves had access to education, prohibited by law

• 1860 90% of South’s adult African American population was illiterate

• Freedmen’s Bureau agents were amazed at the number of rural makeshift classrooms or “wayside’ schools

• Negroes on trains, wagons, or by a cabin door with book in hand trying to improve themselves

• African American community got help from outside organizations

• By 1869 the Freedmen ‘s Bureau was supervising almost 3,000 schools, served 150,000 students across the South

• Over half of the 3,300 teachers were African American- many who had been free before the Civil War

• Dedicated white women volunteers sponsored by the American Missionary Association (AMA) made up the rest of the teaching ranks

• The Freedmen’s Bureau and the AMA helped found African American teachers colleges, Tougaloo, Hampton, Fisk to train black teachers

• Black self-help proved crucial to the education effort• 1865-1866 across the South African Americans raised money to build

schoolhouses, by supplies, pay teachers

Freedmen, land, and labor

• Leaving plantation life was more difficult than just walking off

• Freedmen did find jobs in railroad building, mining, ranching, or construction work

• White planters wanted to keep freedmen as permanent agricultural labor

• Restriction of employment of former slaves was an important goal of the black codes

• Most freedmen hoped to become self-sufficient farmers

• Many former slaves believed they were entitled to the land they had worked as slaves

• General Oliver O. Howard chief commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau observed many thought the government would divide the land the conquered owners and furnish them with all that might be necessary to start life as an independent farmer

• The perception was not just wishful fantasy• Frequent references by Congress and the press to question

of land distribution made the idea of “forty acres and a mule” not just a dream but a matter of public debate

• African Americans wanted economic independence and land ownership promised the most independence

• Colored Convention in Montgomery, Alabama in May, 1867 delegates argued that property now owned by the planters had be nearly all earned by the sweat of our brows, not theirs

• It had been forfeited to the government by the treason of the owners and is liable to be confiscated whenever the Republican Party demands it

• By 1860 the federal government had pulled back from different wartime experiments involving the breaking up of large plantations and leasing small plots to individual families

• President Johnson directed General Howard of the Freedmen’s Bureau to evict tens of thousands of freed people settled on confiscated and abandoned land in southeastern Virginia, southern Louisiana, and the Georgia and South Carolina coastline

• The evictions created a deep sense of betrayal

African American Politics

• Early African American political activity was one of inclusion instead of separation

• Greatest African American political activity occurred in areas occupied by Union forces during the war

• 1865 and 1866 African Americans across the South organized mass meetings, parades, and petitions that demanded civil equality and the right to vote

• In cities churches and fraternal organizations helped by supporting early efforts at political organization

• hundreds of African American delegates selected by local meetings or churches attended statewide political conventions in 1865 and 1866

• Previously free African Americans, ministers, artisans, and vets of the Union army dominated the proceedings, set a pattern that held through Reconstruction

• Convention debates reflected the tensions within African American communities

• Friction between poor former slaves and better-off free black people, or between lighter and darker skinned African Americans

• Most state conventions concentrated on passing resolutions that united African Americans

• Central issues were suffrage and equality before the law

• Passage of the First Reconstruction Act in 1867 encouraged more political activity among African Americans

• Military began registering the South’s electorate- 735,000 black and 635,000 white voters in the ten unreconstructed states

• Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina had black electoral majorities

• Less than half of the white registered voters participated in the elections for state constitutional conventions in 1867 and 1868

• In the same elections four-fifths of the registered black voters cast ballots in the elections

• New political activism of African Americans was through local Union League chapters in the South

• The Union League started in the North during the war• Mostly a white patriotic club- now the political voice of

former slaves• Union League chapters brought together local African

Americans, soldiers, and Freedmen’s Bureau agents to demand the vote and end legal discrimination against African Americans

• Union League brought out African American voters- instructed freedmen on the rights and duties of citizenship- promoted Republican candidates

• New enfranchised freedmen voted Republican and formed the core of the Republican Party in the South

• Most African Americans saw politics and economic issues as the same- especially the land question

• Grass-roots political organizations intervened in local disputes with planters over the terms of labor contracts

• African American political groups followed the congressional debates over Reconstruction policy and pushed for land confiscation and distribution

• Politics was the only area where black and white Southerners might engage one another on an equal basis

Southern Politics and Society

• Summer 1868- South had returned to the Union• Majority of Republicans thought Reconstruction was

finished• They had put faith in a political solution to the

problems facing the South• This meant creating a two-party political system in the

South where no Republican Party had existed• If a two-party system was installed the Republicans and

Democrats would compete for votes, offices, and influence just like in the Northern states

• Most Republican congressmen were moderates- saw Reconstruction in limited terms

• Moderates rejected the radical call for confiscation and redistribution of land- as well as permanent military rule of the South

• Reconstruction Acts of 1867 and 1868 laid out the requirements for readmission, procedures for forming and electing new governments in the South

• Over the next 10 years the political structure created in southern states was too restricted and fragile to sustain itself

• Most southern whites saw active participation of African Americans in politics as dangerous

• Federal troops were required to protect Republican governments and their supporters from violent opposition

• Congressional action to monitor southern elections and protect black voters became routine

• Early success of the Republican Party in the South proved to be an unstable coalition of conflicting elements- unable to maintain effective power for very long

Republican Reform in the South

• Republican state governments instituted reforms

• Repealed Black Codes• Made once appointed offices open to election• Established hospitals, institutions for orphans,

the hearing and visually impaired, and the mentally ill

• Rebuilt roads, railways, and bridges

• established public school systems• Governments were forced to borrow money

and increase property taxes to put reforms in place

• Many who could not pay taxes lost their property

• Some Republicans wanted to help the South- others were corrupt

• One Republican governor admitted to taking $40,000 in bribes

• Graft was common in the South and the North• Corruption and graft were issues the

Democrats could use in the 1870s

Southern Republicans• Post-war South; three groups made up the new southern Republican

Party• 1. African American voters made up a large majority of southern

Republicans in the Reconstruction Era• African Americans only outnumbered whites in three southern states-

Republicans needed white support to win elections and hold power• 2. white Northerners called carpetbaggers by native white Southerners• Most carpetbaggers combined a desire for personal gain with a

commitment to reform the unprogressive South with the Northern material resources and introduction of Yankee institutions– Free labor and free public schools

• Most carpetbaggers were vets of the Union Army who stayed in the South after the war

• Others were Freedmen’s Bureau agents and Northern businessmen who invested capital in cotton plantations and other business ventures

• Carpetbaggers tended to be educated and from the middle class• Carpetbaggers made up a small percentage of the population- did

play a disproportionate role in southern politics- won a large share of Reconstruction offices, especially in Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana, and in areas with large African American constituencies

• 3. Scalawags- native white Southerners- came from diverse backgrounds and motives

• Some scalawags were pre-war Whigs who saw viewed the Republican Party as their best chance to regain political influence

• Others saw the Republican Party as an agent of modernization and economic expansion

• “Yankees and Yankee notions are just what we want in this country. We want their capital to build factories and workshops. We want their intelligence, their energy and enterprise.” Thomas Settle of North Carolina

• Loyalists (supported the Union) during the war and traditional enemies of the planter elite (small farmers) looked to the Republican Party for help in settling old scores and relief from debt and wartime destruction

• Few white Southerners identified with the political and economic goals of African Americans

• moderate whites were more concerned with maintaining white control of the Republican Party in the South, encouraging economic investment in the region, outnumbered and defeated “confiscation radicals” who focused on getting land for African Americans

Reconstructing the States/Mixed Results

• Old Confederate leaders barred from political participation• Carpetbaggers and enfranchised African Americans representing

plantation districts- Republicans dominated the 10 Southern constitutional conventions of 1867-1869

• Most of the new constitutions expanded democracy and the public role of the state

• Guaranteed the political and civil rights of African Americans• Abolished property requirements for office holding and jury service• Abolished imprisonment for debt• Created state funded school systems- administered by state

commissioners

• Established orphanages, penitentiaries, and homes for the mentally ill

• These changes were radical for many Southerners• 1868- three years after the war, Republicans were in power

in most of the southern states• By 1869 new constitutions had been ratified in all of the

old Confederate states• “These constitutions and governments will last just as long

as the bayonets which ushered them into being, shall keep them in existence.”- South Carolina Democratic newspaper

• Southern Republican governments continually faced a crisis of legitimacy- this limited the ability to legislate change

• Required to balance reform with the need to gain acceptance, especially from white Southerners

• Achievements were mixed• Race relations- move to equal rights and against discrimination• Republican legislatures followed up the federal Civil Rights Act

of 1866 with various antidiscrimination clauses in the new constitutions and laws with harsh penalties for civil rights abuse

• Most African Americans supported black churches, fraternal societies, and schools- insisted the state be “colorblind”

• Black codes were abolished • Offices once determined by appointment now open to

election• African Americans could be employed in police forces and

fire departments, serve on juries, school boards, and city councils, and hold public office at all levels of government

• Segregation became the norm in public schools• African American leaders accepted segregation- afraid

insistence on integration would jeopardize funding for new school systems

• Agreed with Frederick Douglass, separate schools were “infinitely superior” to no schools at all

• African Americans generally opposed language in the constitutions requiring racial segregation in public schools, most were less interested in the ideal of integrated education than ensuring educational opportunity for children and employment for African American teachers

• African Americans did demand that railroad cars, steamships, theaters, and public spaces not be segregated

• This demand revealed and heightened division within the Republican Party

• Moderate white Republicans feared these laws would further alienate white supporters

• By early 1870s black influence and assertiveness grew- laws guaranteeing equal access to transportation and public accommodations were passed in many states

• These civil rights laws proved difficult to enforce in local communities

• Republican governments failed to get land for African Americans

• Few former slaves had the cash to buy land on the open market and they looked to the state for help

• Republicans attempted to weaken the plantation system and promote black ownership by raising taxes on land

• Even when the land was seized by the state for non-payment of taxes, the property was never used to create black homesteads

• Republicans leaders envisioned northern-style capitalist investment- factories, large towns, diversified agriculture in the South- much of it developed with state aid

• Republican state lawmaking was concentrated on railroad construction

• Government backing gave railroad companies credibility and helped them raise capital

• States received liens on railroads as security against default on payments to bondholders

• 1868-72, southern railroad system was rebuilt and over 3,000 new miles of track added- increase of about 40%

• Even with new laws it was impossible to attract significant amounts of northern and European investment capital

• The focus on railroads took resources from education and other programs

• As it did in the North it also opened doors to widespread corruption and bribery of government officials in the South

• Railroad failures eroded public confidence in the ability of the Republican’s to govern

• “gospel of prosperity” failed to modernize the economy or solidify the Republican Party in the South

Southern Resistance / KKK

• African Americans worked to strengthen their communities

• White resentment grew- despised “Black Republican” governments that had been forced on the South by the North

• Some Southerners formed secret societies to strike out at the Republicans

• The most well known of these groups was the Ku Klux Klan

• The KKK started in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1866 by former Confederate soldiers-spread across the South

• The goal of the KKK was to drive out Union troops and carpetbaggers

• The KKK enabled the Democratic Party to regain control in the South

• Hooded-white robed Klan rode at night

• Broke up Republican meetings• Drove Freedmen’s Bureau officials from the

communities• Burned African American homes, schools, and churches• Threatened, whipped, and murdered African American

and white Republicans to stop them from voting• African Americans and Republicans formed militia

groups to fight back• Violence escalated by both sides

The Three Klan Enforcement Acts

• Klan activities angered President Grant and Congressional Republicans

• 1870 & 1871 Congress passed three enforcement acts to fight the violence in the South

• The first act made it a federal crime to interfere with a citizen’s right to vote

• The second act placed federal elections under the supervision of federal marshals

• The third – The KKK Act, outlawed Klan activities

• Over 3,000 Klan members arrested by local, state, and federal agents

Grant’s Political Experience

• Grant had very little political experience• He saw the role of the president was to

enforce laws• Let Congress make policy- this pleased the

Republicans• Grant’s lack of experience led to a split in the

Republican Party and the loss of public support for Reconstruction

Republican Policy

• During Grant’s first term the Republican Congress enforced Reconstruction

• To promote commerce: high tariffs, tight banking regulations, repay debts with gold instead of paper money, increased spending on railroads, and a national postal system

• Congress kept in place “sin taxes” started during the war to repay bonds issued during the war

“Sin Taxes”

• Sin taxes were taxes on alcohol and tobacco• The Democrats attacked the sin taxes; claimed

they hurt the poor and benefited the rich• The rich held the bonds, the poor pay most of

the sin taxes• Liberal Republicans agreed with the

Democrats

Republican Party Split

• Liberal Republicans believed people were gaining control of the Republican Party just to make money and sell influence

• Liberal Republicans attempted to block Grant’s nomination to a second term- failed

• Liberal Republicans nominated newspaper publisher Horace Greely

• To gain Southern support the Liberal Republicans promised to pardon almost all of the Confederate troops and remove Union troops from the South

• The Democrats felt a united front was needed to defeat Grant

• The Democratic Party also nominated Greely• The Republican Party split but Grant was re-

elected in the 1872 Election

Horace Greely

• Greely was the founder, publisher, and editor of the New York Tribune

• He was one of the most influential Americans of the 1800s

• The New York Tribune influenced national debate• At first supported Grant, became disillusioned

after Grant moved closer to the Republican political boss Roscoe Conkling

• His ideas formed the Liberal Republican Party

The Belknap Scandal

• Grant’s second term was a series of scandals• Sec. of War William Belknap was accused of

taking bribes from merchants operating on army posts in the West

• Belknap was impeached• Belknap resigned before the Senate could

conduct his trial

Whisky Ring

• The Whiskey Ring, a group of government officials and St. Louis distillers

• The Whiskey Ring cheated the government out of millions of dollars by filing false tax returns

• Orville E. Babcock, Grant’s private secretary was in the group, but the charges were never proven

The Panic of 1873

• During Grant’s second term the nation fell into economic crisis

• Bad railroad investments forced the banking firm of Jay Cooke and Company to declare bankruptcy

• Panic spread through the nation’s financial community

• Smaller banks closed

• The stock market dropped• Thousands of businesses closed• Tens of thousands unemployed

The Election of 1874

• Scandals and the economic crisis hurt the Republican Party politically

• In the 1874 mid-term elections the Democrats won control of the House and gained seats in the Senate

• The Democrats began to investigate the scandals, embarrassed Grant and the Republicans

The Democrats and Reconstruction

• The power of the Democratic Party in Congress made it difficult for the Republicans to enforce Reconstruction

• The Northern citizens were growing tired of the long fight to create a new Southern society

• The citizens were more worried about the economic problems than politics in the South

The Democrats Redeem the South

• 1870s the Democratic Party worked to regain control of state and local governments

• Southern militia groups kept African Americans and white Republicans from the polls

• Some Democrats used election fraud; stuffed ballot boxes, bribed vote counters, and stole ballot boxes from Republican precincts

• They called on all whites to redeem or save the South from “Black Republican” rule

• The Southern Democrats used white racism to focus the elections on the struggle between whites and African Americans

• The Democrats began to win back support from the small farmer who had supported the Republican Party

The Solid South

• By 1876 the Democrats controlled all of the Southern state legislatures except Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida

• Those three states had a large Union military presence to ensure African American voters were protected and the Republicans remained in power

Jim Crow Laws

• Democratic controlled state legislatures begin to pass laws to segregate the races by law

• Collectively these were known as Jim Crow Laws- named after a black-faced travelling minstrel

• The laws separated whites and African Americans in almost every aspect of everyday life

Protecting Civil Rights• Several Supreme Court cases involved the 14th and 15th Amendments• The Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873 the Supreme Court rendered it’s

first ruling on the 14th Amendment- a Louisiana charter gave a New Orleans meat-packing company a monopoly over the city’s butchering business in order to protect public health, a rival group of butchers sued, claimed the law violated the 14th Amendment- states may not deprive a citizen of life, liberty, or property without due process of law- Supreme Court ruled the 14th Amendment only protected former slaves not butchers- only protected national citizenship rights, not regulatory powers of states

• Ruling in effect denied the original intent of the 14th Amendment- to protect against state infringement of national citizenship rights outlined in the Bill of Rights

• Three other decisions curtailed federal protection of black civil rights• United States v. Reese 1876 and United States v. Cruikshank 1876-

Supreme Court restricted congressional power to enforce the Ku Klux Klan Act- further prosecution would depend on the states not the federal government- Court ruled that the 14th Amendment extended federal power to protect civil rights only in cases involving discrimination by the states; discrimination by individuals or groups were not covered- Court also ruled the 15th Amendment did not guarantee a citizen’s right to vote- only barred specific grounds for denying suffrage- race, color, previous condition of servitude

• Southern states moved to disfranchise African Americans for supposedly non-racial reasons- once states under Democratic control laws were passed to limit African American voting; property requirements, poll taxes, and literacy tests

• In the 1883 Civil Rights Case- Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional- held that the 14th Amendment halted discrimination by states but not individuals

• Majority opinion, black people must no longer be the special favorite of the law

• These Supreme Court decisions marked an end of federal attempts to protect African American rights

Reconstruction and the North

• Northern economy continued the boom of the war years

• By 1873 northern industrial production had grown 75% over the 1865 level

• Number of non-agricultural workers in the North surpassed the number of farmers

• 1860-1880, number of wage earners in manufacturing and construction more than doubled- 2 million to 4 million

• Only Great Britain had a larger manufacturing economy than the U.S.

• 1860-1880 over 3 million immigrants- most settled in the North and the West

• Railroad business symbolized and advanced the new industrial order

• Railroad corporations became America’s first big business• Railroad construction required huge amounts of capital investment• Growth of railroads = more economic power of banks and

investment houses located on Wall Street• Bankers held seats on boards of directors of railroad companies

• Access to capital gave bankers control of the railways• Early 1870s Pennsylvania Railroad was the nation’s largest single

company, over 20,000 employees• New aggressive entrepreneurs moved to stop cutthroat

competition by taking over smaller companies and forming “pools” to set rates and divide the market

• Small group of railroad executives, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Collis P. Huntington, and James J. Hill created unheard of fortunes

• Vanderbilt at his death in 1877 left his son $100 million• Decent annual wage for worker who worked six day week was

$350

• Railroad promoters, lawyers, and lobbyists became figures in Washington and at state capitals- had great influence over lawmakers

• Railroads benefited from government subsidies• 1862-1872 Congress awarded over 100 million

acres of public lands to railroad companies and provided over $64 million in loans and tax incentives

• Many of the most prominent politicians accepted bribes from the railroads

• Senator William M. Stewart of Nevada, member of the Committee on Pacific Railroads took a gift of 50,000 acres of land from the Central Pacific for his services

• Worst scandal of the Grant administration grew out of corruption involving railroad promotion

• In order to divert funds for building the Union Pacific Railroad- the inner circle of Union Pacific stockholders created a dummy company Credit Mobilier construction company

• In return for political favors a group of important Republicans received stock in the company

• Scandal broke in 1872, politically ruined Vice President Schuyler Colfax and led to the censure of two congressmen

• Other industries boomed during Reconstruction- especially those involved in the extraction of minerals and processing of natural resources

• Railroad growth led to production of coal, iron, stone, and lumber- these industries also received government aid

• National Mineral Act, 1866- mining companies got millions of acres of free public land

• Oil refining had huge expansions in 1860s and 1870s- competition in this industry led to concentration, late 1870s John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company controlled almost 90% of the nation’s oil-refining capacity

The Election of 1876

• Grant was not nominated for a third term• Rutherford B. Hayes was the Republican

nominee• Hayes was a moral man, untouched by scandal

or corruption• Hayes wanted to end Reconstruction• Samuel Tilden was the Democratic nominee

• Tilden was a rich corporate lawyer from New York City

• Tilden had tried to end corruption in New York City politics

• Tilden 184 Electoral votes to 165 Electoral votes for Hayes

• 20 Electoral votes were disputed-19 from Florida and Louisiana

• Election fraud committed by both parties• There was no way to determine a winner• Congress appointed a commission made up of 15

men made up equally of members of the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court

• The commission was comprised of 8 Republicans and 7 Democrats

• The commission voted along party lines 8-7 to give the votes to Hayes

• The recommendations of the commission were not legally binding if both houses of Congress rejected the commission’s decision

• Debate took place, Southern Democrats joined with Republicans in the Democrat controlled House to accept the commission’s decision

• This gave the election to Hayes

The Compromise of 1877

• Hayes could not have won the 1876 election without the support of Southern Democrats

• Many people thought a deal had been struck• The outcome of the election is known as the

Compromise of 1877

The End of Reconstruction

• April 1877 President Hayes removed all Union troops out of the South

• Without a Union troop presence the two remaining Republican governments (SC and Louisiana) collapse

• Reconstruction ended in 1877

The New South

• Leaders in the South realized they could not return to the pre-Civil War era of an agricultural economy dominated by the planter elite

• Called for a New South based on a strong industrial economy

• An alliance between white Southerners and Northern financiers brought economic change to the South

• Northern capital built railroads• Iron and steel industry around Birmingham,

Alabama• Tobacco processing in NC- Duke family• Cotton mills in small towns• With industrial growth the South still remained

agrarian• 1900- 6% of the Southern labor force worked in

manufacturing

• For many African Americans the end of Reconstruction meant a return to the Old South

• African Americans held little political power• Forced to labor under unfair and difficult

conditions

Tenant Farming

• African Americans lost the chance to own land in the South with the end of Reconstruction

• Some returned to the plantations• Others worked for wages• Another group became tenant farmers• Paid rent for the land they farmed• Most tenant farmers became sharecroppers• Could not pay rent in cash, but with a share of the

crop

Sharecropping

• Sharecroppers usually gave ½ to 1/3rd of their crop to cover the rent, the cost of seed, fertilizer, tools, and animals

• Most needed more seed and fertilizer than the landlord provided

• Merchants gave sharecroppers supplies on credit with interest rates as high as 40%

• To ensure the debt was paid, laws allowed the merchant to put on a crop lien

• A crop lien allowed the merchant to take a part of the crop as payment for the debt

• Crop liens and high interest rates led many sharecroppers into debt peonage

• Trapped the sharecropper on the land • They could not make enough money to pay off the

debt and leave- sharecroppers could not declare bankruptcy

• Failure to repay the debt let to imprisonment or forced labor

New Slavery

• The Civil War ended slavery• The failure of Reconstruction left many African

Americans trapped in an economic situation where they lost their newfound freedom

• Poverty, loss of rights, and no economic opportunity