Chapter 16 Reconstruction
Problems facing Texas during Reconstruction:
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Money was needed for rebuilding, but little was available
Freed slaves needed money, food, and shelter
Anger and bitterness continued between the North and South
Reconstruction in Texas:
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1865 – Federal government moved 50,000 troops to Texas to see slaves were freed and that Texans
obeyed the laws of Reconstruction
1865 – Andrew Jackson Hamilton appointed as provisional governor
1866 – Voters approve new state constitution (Presidential Reconstruction)
1867 – Governor Throckmorton removed from office
1869 – New constitution completed (Congressional Reconstruction)
1869 – Edmund J. Davis elected governor (his term as governor angered Texans and cause them to limit
the powers of governor in the Constitution of 1876)
1870 – Reconstruction ended in Texas
Comparing Constitutions
Political Party
Voting Rights
State
Government
Public Schools
Texas State Constitution of 1869
 Radical Republicans
 Guarantees rights of all males to
vote regardless of race
 Excludes voting rights for women
 Expands powers of governor and
state legislature
 Protects public lands
 Increases funding for public
schools
Texas State Constitution of 1876
 Southern Democrats
 Excludes “idiots, lunatics,
paupers, and felons” from voting
 Excludes voting rights for women
 Reduces governor’s powers
 Sets term limits for state
legislators
 Reduces funding for public
schools
Political Effects of Reconstruction:
Presidential Reconstruction – President Andrew Johnson’s Plan Texas had to prohibit slavery and cancel the
ordinance of secession
Congressional Reconstruction – Radical Republicans
100 years of Democratic Party rule in Texas, 13th, 14th , & 15th Amendments,
Constitutions of 1866 & 1869
Economic Effects of Reconstruction:
Shortage of free labor
growth of tenant farming and sharecropping
Texas did not suffer as much destruction as other Southern states
Social Effects of Reconstruction:
June 19th or “Juneteenth” celebrated by freed slaves
Freedmen’s Bureau established (founded schools and hospitals for African Americans, distributed food and clothing to
the sick, aged and poor, and provided land for former slaves)
Jim Crow laws and KKK became features of Southern segregation