The Ordeal of
Reconstruction
Chapter 22
Problems of Peace
•
Both North and South suffered many dead
•
Southern industry stopped as a result of
destruction and inflation
•
Agriculture slowed because of loss of
slaves, livestock
– Took 10 years to recover to pre War
levels
•
Infrastructure was destroyed
– Sherman ruined hundreds of miles of
railroad tracks
•
Confederate politicians and military
leaders were jailed until pardoned in 1868
by Johnson
•
South had to rebuild or North would have
to provide for South
•
Most southerners did not acknowledge
defeat
Charleston, SC
Atlanta, GA
Freedmen
•
Reactions to Emancipation
– Many slave-owners resisted letting slaves go free
– Some slaves stayed loyal to owners, others sought
vengeance
– Many sought family members, got married, moved to towns
– Juneteenth (June 19) Texas slaves not told of
Emancipation until June 19, 1865
– Exodusters
• Freed blacks who left South for Kansas
•
Black churches became focal point of new communities
– African Methodist Episcopal (AME), Baptist
Education became very important
– American Missionary Association helped to provide
teachers
•
•
Freedman’s Bureau
– Created March 3, 1865; led by Oliver Howard
– Provide food, clothing, medical care, education
• Most successful with education
• Supposed to give 40 acres, but did not
Lincoln’s 10% Reconstruction Plan
•
Lincoln argued states still existed
– Wanted southern governments restored
quickly
– Wanted to prevent Confederate officials
from joining government
•
Lincoln’s Reconstruction Plan (1863)
– If 10% of Southerners took oath to
Constitution and US, would be readmitted
– Let South rule itself
– South must abolish slavery
“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.” – Second
Inaugural Address
Radical Republicans
•
•
Radical Republicans wanted to punish south
– Want equality for freedmen and prevent re-enslavement of
blacks
– Angered by Lincoln’s Reconstruction Plan
– States needed to be re-created
• Congress can decide how South is governed
– Wanted south ruled like a conquered province
– Led by Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner
Thaddeus Stevens
Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
– 50% of southerners must declare loyalty
• To vote or hold office could not have served in
Confederate government or army
– New state constitutions must be made
– South under military rule until requirements met
• Lincoln did not sign bill (pocket veto)
– Showed division between President and Congress
Charles Sumner
First page of "A Bill to guaranty to certain states whose governments have been usurped or overthrown, a
republican form of government." (Wade-Davis bill as amended by Representative Thaddeus Stevens), 1864
National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives
Andrew Johnson
•
Former Democrat from Tennessee
– Self made man, champion of
poor whites versus planter
aristocrats
– Refused to secede with
Tennessee
– Made Lincoln’s Vice President
on 1864 Union Party ticket to
attract Democrat votes
– Not trusted by Republicans
– Became President when
Lincoln was assassinated in
April 1865
Andrew Johnson
•
Johnson planned to use Lincoln’s
plan for Reconstruction, not
Congress
•
Radical Republicans thought
Johnson would want harsh
treatment of southern planters
Presidential Reconstruction
•
Johnson tells south
– Took away right to vote from Southern politicians,
military leaders and wealthy landowners unless
received pardon
– Repudiate (refuse to pay) war debt
– Nullify ordinances of secession
– Adopt 13th Amendment freeing slaves
•
Southern attempts to recreate pre-War Southern
society moves moderate Republicans to Radicals
– SC does not recognize illegality of secession
– MS does not ratify 13th Amendment
– Johnson pardoned many Confederates
• Many elected into new southern governments
– Vice President of CSA (Alexander
Stephens), 6 CSA Cabinet members, 58
members of CSA Congress, 4 Generals, 5
Colonels
– Most were Democrats and Republicans did not
want to give up control
– South got more representatives in Congress
because now blacks counted in population
• 12 additional congressmen
Black Codes
•
•
Primary purpose to maintain stable and subservient
labor force
– Forced to work for low wages with restrictive,
coerced labor contracts
Laws to restrict freedom of blacks
– Could not vote
– Could not marry whites
– Could not serve on juries
– Some denied blacks right to own land
•
Vagrancy laws
– Tried to force blacks to stay on plantations
•
Sharecropping
– Blacks did not have land to work on
– Whites did not have money to pay for labor
– Sharecropping
• Tennant would work farm and pay rent with
part of crop
• Created cycle of poverty in South
Johnson vs. Congress
•
Johnson vetoes bill to extend Freedman’s Bureau in
February 1866
•
Civil Rights Bill (March 1866)
– Gave blacks citizens and attacked black codes
– Allowed federal government to protect civil rights of all
citizens
– Johnson vetoes because he thought it violated state’s
rights principle
•
Angered Moderate Republicans
– Moderates join with Radicals to pass
Freedman’s Bureau and Civil Rights bills over
Johnson’s veto in April 1866
•
Congress takes dominant role in government
– continually overrode Johnson’s veto
– Feared laws being undone in future, so made
movement to passing an Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment
• Section 1. All persons born or naturalized
in the United States, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
States and of the State wherein they reside. No
State shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of
the United States; nor shall any State deprive
any person of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law; nor deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws
Fourteenth Amendment
•
Defines citizenship in US
•
Must allow all adult males to vote or
representation in Congress would be reduced
•
Guaranteed Federal debt, but, No Confederate
war debt could be paid
•
Pardons of Confederate officials require 2/3
vote of Congress
•
Tennessee ratifies 14th Amendment all other
southern states refuse
Committee of Reconstruction
•
Election of 1866
– Johnson’s ‘Round the Circle campaign to win Congress failed,
Republicans get 2/3ds majority that would prevent any future vetoes
– Congress led by Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens
•
Joint Congressional Committee to make a plan for Reconstruction
•
Moderate Republicans joined Radical Republicans to oppose seating
Southern congressmen
– angered when Confederate leaders were re-elected to Congress
– Southern states were no longer states
– President didn’t have authority to determine membership in Congress or
readmission of states
Radicals wanted to keep federal control over south until economic and social
systems were changed
•
•
Moderates wanted faster reconstruction and wanted to protect individual
rights instead of federal government keeping direct control
•
Both insist on right to vote for freedmen
Reconstruction Act 1867 (Military Reconstruction)
•
•
•
Congress divided south into 5 military districts
– Demanded south abolish slavery, protect civil rights, ratify 14th
Amendment
– Denied right to vote or hold office to Confederates – all others can vote
regardless of color
– South feared freed slaves would take over
– Did not give land or education to blacks
– Intended to have blacks control votes for readmission
Military governments
– Challenged Constitutional principles
– Ex Parte Milligan (1866) said military courts can’t be used if civilian ones
are available
– Governed south until last troops left in 1877, ending Reconstruction
Fifteenth Amendment (1870)
– Forbids US or any state denying right to vote based on race, color or
previous condition of servitude
New Order in South
• 1867- Freedman Bureau register
blacks to vote in South
– 735,000 blacks, 635,000 whites
registered – picked Republicans for state
conventions
• many Southern republicans were poor
whites who resented sacrifices made
during “rich man’s war”
Black Reconstruction
•
•
•
•
Southern states were forced to enfranchise blacks before
some areas in North
Union League
– Pro-Union organization that develops into a political
organization
– Built black churches, organized to protect freedmen’s
safety
Over 600 blacks were elected to state legislatures
– Helped whites develop Southern state constitutions
Black political participation increased
– 14 Representatives and 2 Senators served
•
White supporters of Reconstruction
– Scalawags – whites who supported Union
– Carpet Baggers – Northerners who moved south to
help modernize Southern economy
– Both accused of corruption and profiteering
•
Raised taxes to pay for building of infrastructure, schools,
protected property rights for women
Political corruption common North and South
•
Hiram Revels {R}
Senator, Mississippi
Blanche Bruce {R}
Senator, Mississippi
Black Senators
1875 –
1881
Blanche Bruce {R}
Senator, Mississippi
1870 1871
Hiram Revels {R}
Senator, Mississippi
1967 1979
Edward Brooke {R}
Senator,
Massachusetts
1993 –
1999
Carol Moseley Braun {D}
Senator, Illinois
2004 –
2008
Barack Obama {D}
Senator, Illinois
2008 –
2010
Roland Burris{D}
Senator, Illinois
Ku Klux Klan
•
Radicals only controlled South if blacks were voting
•
•
Ku Klux Klan (KKK) “Invisible Empire of the South”
Formed by planters and Confederate soldiers
– Led by Nathan Bedford Forrest, former Confederate general
– Created as guerilla army to resist Northern control
– Tried to stop black voting with violence and terrorism
• Targeted people who voted or white people who helped
blacks
– Wanted to influence elections and recreation of Southern
society
•
Grant tried to ban KKK, but southern governments don’t enforce
it
Force Acts (1870), (1871) authorized use of US military to stop
KKK activities
•
•
South openly resisted allowing blacks to vote using literacy
tests and other means
Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
•
•
President Johnson vetoed many laws passed by
Congress
Congress responded by trying to take away power from
President
•
Tenure of Office Act (1867)
– Said President needed consent of Senate to fire
federal official
• Wanted to keep Edwin Stanton in office
because he was helping Radical Republicans
– Johnson fired Secretary of War Stanton without
permission in 1868 to challenge the law as
violation of separation of powers
•
House impeached Johnson for violating Tenure of
Office Act
•
Senate failed to convict by one vote in May 1868
– Some voted no because feared precedent it would
establish or didn’t want Vice President Ben Wade to
become President or didn’t want to violate checks
and balances
Seward’s Folly
•
US bought Alaska from Russia in 1867
– Russians couldn’t defend the land and believed all the
fur had already been taken from the land
– Wanted create buffer between British Canada and
Russia
•
Secretary of State William Seward purchased it for $7.2
million
•
Most thought it was a waste of money
– “Seward’s Folly”; “Seward’s Icebox”
•
Made because Russia supported the Union in the War
– Also hopeful gold, furs and fish would be available
Heritage of Reconstruction
•
Bitterness towards reconstruction left tension between north and
south; blacks and whites for generations
•
Republicans wanted to protect political gain as well as blacks
freedoms
– Resulted in development of Solid South for Democrats
– Republicans underestimated effort needed to establish freedom
for blacks and end white resistance