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chaptertwenty
RECONSTRUCTION
How did Reconstruction change the South
and South Carolina?
OVERVIEW
Both Lincoln and Andrew
Johnson urged moderate plans for
reconstructing the Southern states
after the Civil War. But the radicals in
Congress wished to create a new society in the South. By 1877, Republicans
were tired of the effort. They made a
deal with whites in the South to elect
a Republican president and end
Reconstruction.
The war ruined South Carolina.
Under presidential reconstruction the
former white leaders tried to recreate
the old order. But Congress set up a
new state government under the
Constitution of 1868. It was supported by blacks, carpetbaggers, and
scalawags. Blacks built churches and
schools in the state. Whites reacted
violently to the new order, and radical
officials were often corrupt. After the
election of 1876, the whites under
Wade Hampton took control of the
state government with the help of the
national Republican leaders.
SELECTED
VOCABULARY
Thirteenth Amendment
Reconstruction
Radical Republicans
Black Code
Freedman’s Bureau
Fourteenth Amendment
Reconstruction Acts
Impeach
Freedman
Scalawags
Carpetbaggers
Ku Klux Klan
Red Shirts
Compromise of 1877
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TIMELINE
I. THE UNFINISHED TASK
What issues did the Civil War settle and what
issues were left unsettled?
The Civil War cost 620,000 American lives and
destroyed much of the South. But it settled some things
forever. The American people had decided the question
of secession by fighting. It would not be tolerated. The
question of states rights was decided. The states had
some rights, but the national government was sovereign. The question of slavery was decided. It was ended
by the war and the Thirteenth Amendment.
Now there were more questions. What was the status of former slaves? How were the states in the South
to be treated? The answers to these questions would
take more than ten years of political struggle and violence. The period in which this struggle took place is
called the era of Reconstruction.
II. LINCOLN’S PLAN
What was Lincoln’s 10 percent plan?
From the time he took office, Lincoln believed that
the rebellion was brought on by individuals and that the
Southern states had not left the Union. In December
1863, he issued his plan for reconstruction. When at
least 10 percent of the voters in 1860 in any state took
the oath of allegiance to the United States, they could
UNITED STATES
SOUTH CAROLINA
1863
Lincoln’s
Reconstruction Plan
1865
Lincoln assassinated
Johnson’s
Reconstruction Plan
Ku Klux Klan formed
1866
Reconstruction Acts
Fourteenth
Amendment
1868
Impeachment and
Trial of Johnson
1865
Freedman’s Bureau
1865 state constitution
Black Code
1867
Second Military
District formed
SC Republican Party formed
1868
1868 state constitution
1870
Ku Klux Klan violence
1876
Disputed presidential
election
1876
Disputed state election
1877
End of Reconstruction
1877
Hayes withdrew troops
A magazine of the time
carried this drawing,
which showed white
planter families in South
Carolina taking the oath
of allegiance to the
United States.
MCS Oliphant Collection
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form a new state government without slavery. High Confederate officials and officers would have to ask for pardons one by one. Under his plan governments were
set up in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
A small group of radical Republicans wanted Southern society totally reorganized. In the Wade-Davis Bill they urged that fifty percent of the voters had to take
the oath. Only those who were loyal to the Union could vote, and high
Confederate officials and officers could not hold office. Lincoln vetoed the bill,
but the issue was not settled when he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on
April 14, 1865.
III. ANDREW JOHNSON’S PLAN
What was Johnson’s Reconstruction plan?
Lincoln was followed in office by Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, a Southern
Democrat who was loyal to the Union. Born of poor parents, he hated the white
elite. He thought they had dragged the yeomen into a war. Johnson allied himself
with the moderates in Congress and drew up his own plan for reconstruction in
May 1865. To Lincoln’s list of those who would have to apply for pardons he
added persons worth over $20,000. He named provisional governors of the
Southern states. They could call conventions to revoke the ordinances of secession, write new state constitutions, and approve the Thirteenth Amendment.
Then the states could reenter the Union.
The Southern states upset even the moderate Republicans when they chose
former Confederates for Congress and drew up Black Codes that made freedmen
second-class citizens.
After President Johnson was
impeached by the House, he was
tried by the Senate.
Library of Congress
What other president was
impeached and tried?
240 | Chapter 20
IV. CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION
How was Congressional Reconstruction different from Johnson’s plan?
Congress would not seat the new representatives from the South. Then
Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, a leader of the radicals, called for Congress to
draw up a new Reconstruction plan. The
radicals extended the life of the
Freedman’s Bureau that was set up during the war. It provided African Americans
with food, shelter, work, and education.
In response to the Black Codes, they
passed a civil rights act, which guaranteed
“full and equal benefit of the laws” to
freedmen. Then they urged the adoption
of the Fourteenth Amendment that
would give former slaves equal rights in
the Constitution itself.
Johnson denounced the radicals and
vetoed their proposals. Congress passed them over his veto. The radicals gained
more strength in the 1866 election and passed a series of Reconstruction Acts.
They wiped out the state governments that were already set up. They put the former Confederate states under army rule and forced them to adopt new constitutions that gave blacks the right to vote. The new state governments also had to
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approve the Fourteenth Amendment before they would be readmitted to the
Union.
V. IMPEACHMENT AND TRIAL OF JOHNSON
What was the result of Johnson’s trial before the Senate?
To reduce the president’s power, Congress passed the Tenure of Office
Act. It required that the Senate give its approval when the president removed
any official whose nomination the Senate had approved in the first place.
Johnson tested the act by removing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a radical leader. In 1868 the House voted to impeach Johnson, that is, to charge
him with breaking the law. In the Senate trial, Johnson was found not guilty
by one vote. Thereafter, he did not try to stop the radicals.
VI. RADICAL GOVERNMENTS IN THE SOUTH
How many African Americans served in Congress during
Reconstruction?
By 1870 all the Southern states were back in the Union. Black citizens joined
the Republican Party and voted regularly. A number of freedmen held office and
served well. Fourteen blacks were elected to Congress, and Mississippi had two
African American senators. But most offices were held by white Republicans.
Some were Southerners who accepted radical rule. They were called “scalawags.”
Others were Northerners who came South as soldiers, missionaries, or
Freedman’s Bureau officials. They were called “carpetbaggers.”
The radical governments passed a series of new laws. They set up public
schools, opened more offices to election, and provided welfare and social services. But many of the radical officials were corrupt. They took bribes and pocketed
public funds.
VII. WHITE SOUTHERN REACTION
How did some former Confederates attempt to end radical rule?
Most former Confederates stayed out of politics. Some attacked the radical
governments by illegal means. They formed
secret groups that threatened, whipped, and
murdered black citizens. The most famous
group was the Ku Klux Klan, which was founded in Tennessee in 1865 as a social club. But the
members of the Klan became terrorists. Dressed
in white robes, they rode through the night,
committing violent acts aimed at ending radical
rule. Congress responded by passing the Force
Acts of 1870 and 1871.
Thomas Nast was a famous
American cartoonist after the
Civil War. He drew this cartoon
of a carpetbagger going South.
MCS Oliphant Collection
What was Nast’s view of
carpetbaggers?
The Ku Klux Klan began as a
social club and soon became
an organization spreading terror among African Americans.
MCS Oliphant Collection
Where did the Klan begin?
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VIII. THE GILDED AGE
What was the Gilded Age?
Mark Twain called the period after the Civil War the “Gilded Age.” It was a time
when Americans were more interested in business and gaining wealth than in
moral crusades. There was corruption in government at every level. General
Grant followed Johnson in the White House. He was elected because he was a victorious general, not a political leader. His lack of interest in government opened
the door to corruption and scandal. Grant himself was honest, but many of his
friends were not. Members of Congress and government officials took bribes for
special favors.
The Republicans began to lose interest in Reconstruction. They were more interested in hard money, high tariffs, and other measures favoring big business. In the
South former Confederates took control of the state governments. By 1876 only
three states had radical governments — Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina.
Mississippi elected two African
American senators during
Reconstruction. This portrait of
Blanche K. Bruce hangs in the
U.S. Capitol.
U.S. Senate
IX. THE ELECTION OF 1876
What were the results of the Election of 1876?
In 1876 the country was weary of scandal. Both parties named candidates for
president who were honest and safe. The Democrats nominated Samuel Tilden,
who had helped clean-up corruption in New York City. The Republicans chose
Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. When the votes were counted, the election hinged
on the states of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. In those states the election was in doubt. Congress set up a commission to decide the outcome. Its
report, however, had to be accepted by the Senate. The Senate was controlled by
the Republicans, and the House was controlled by the Democrats.
On February 26, 1877, a meeting was held in a Washington hotel, the Wormley
House, between national Republican leaders and Southern Democrats. The
Republicans urged the election of the Republican candidate for
president and the state Democratic candidates. They said that if
Hayes were elected, he would withdraw the federal troops from
Louisiana and South Carolina. Then the state governments
would fall into Democratic hands. There were other agreements
as well, but the Compromise of 1877 decided the election.
Hayes became president, and Reconstruction was over.
In 1861 a great fire in Charleston destroyed the home
of Eliza Lucas Pinckney. It stood on East Bay and
Pinckney streets. It was never rebuilt.
Library of Congress
What other famous building in Charleston burned
during the war?
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X. DESPAIR AND HOPE IN SOUTH CAROLINA
What were conditions like in South Carolina at the end of the war?
When the Civil War ended in 1865, South Carolina
was devastated. Sherman’s army had left a path of ruin
forty miles wide from the Savannah River to Cheraw.
One-third of Columbia had been burned, and
Charleston had suffered fires and bombardment. The
wharves of the port were rotting, and grass was growing in the streets. Much of the wealth of the state was
consumed by the war. The Charleston Courier wrote
that the value of property had declined from $400 million in 1860 to $50 million in 1865.
The state lost almost 18,666 men in the war and 31
to 35 percent of its white male population. The
Confederate loss, as a whole, was 10 percent; the
Union loss was 5 percent. A reporter who traveled
through the state wrote: “One marks how few young
men there are, and how generally the young women
are dressed in black.”
But African Americans were filled with hope. The 400,000 former slaves were
now free. The “year of jubilee” for which they had prayed had come. Many freedmen left their former owners. In Laurens District a farmer asked Patience
Johnson to stay and work for pay. “No, Miss,” she replied, “I must go; if I stay here
I’ll never know I am free.”
General Quincy Gilmore, the Union commander at Port Royal, took charge of
the state. That area had been under Union control since 1861. He ordered the
arrest of Governor Magrath. Then he divided South Carolina into nine sub-districts. In each one he placed troops to keep the peace.
General Rufus Saxton was chief of the Freedman’s Bureau in the state. His
office was also in Beaufort. He set up six bureau offices to look after the welfare
of the freedmen. The bureau and the army gave food to hungry citizens, both
African American and white. In the eleven months after the war, over one million
food rations were given out. Many freedmen had occupied land in the Beaufort
area during the war. Later it had to be returned to white owners. This misunderstanding caused more bad feelings between blacks and whites. Bureau officials
helped write labor contracts for African American farm workers on plantations.
Whites held public meetings all over the state. They sent petitions asking
President Andrew Johnson to set up civil government as quickly as possible.
The outcome of the presidential
election of 1876 was in doubt. A
special commission met to determine the outcome. The Senate
then gathered to approve the
commission’s report.
U.S. Senate
Who was elected president
in 1876?
XI. PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION
What were the results of Presidential Reconstruction in
South Carolina?
On May 20, Johnson issued a general pardon to former Confederates who took
the oath of allegiance and upheld emancipation. Confederate officers and elected
officials began to apply for individual pardons. The president named Benjamin F.
Perry of Greenville provisional governor of the state. On June 30, the president
agreed that Perry could call a state constitutional convention. Only those who
could vote in 1860 and had taken the oath could vote for delegates. This provi-
President Johnson appointed
Benjamin F. Perry of Greenville
provisional Governor of
South Carolina.
William G. Browne/Greenville Museum of Art
Was Perry in favor of secession before the Civil War?
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The Mills Building of the
State Hospital in Columbia
was designed by Robert
Mills in 1824.
MCS Oliphant Collection
What change took place
in the care of the mentally
ill during Reconstruction?
Page 244
sion excluded blacks and many whites.
The convention met in Columbia in the First Baptist Church on September 13.
By and large, members of the old white elite, such as Francis Pickens and James
L. Orr, were delegates. They began to draft the Constitution of 1865. The high
property qualification for holding office was abolished. So was the Compromise
of 1808. The Low Country lost representation. The old parishes were merged into
districts. Each district was allowed one senator, except for Charleston, which kept
two. The House was apportioned on the basis of white population and taxes paid.
The governor and presidential electors were chosen by the people for the first
time in the history of the state. At long last South Carolina adopted some of the
elements of Jacksonian democracy. But black voting was not even discussed.
James L. Orr was elected governor under the new constitution. When the legislature met, it chose Perry and former governor John L. Manning to the United
States Senate. South Carolina College was converted into a university with practical courses.
A state penitentiary was opened in Columbia,
and black patients could enter the state hospital for the mentally ill for the first time.
A number of controversial laws were passed.
A Black Code was adopted to regulate the
behavior of African American citizens. A Negro
was defined as a person having one-eighth
Negro blood, and marriages between blacks
and whites were no longer legal. African
Americans could neither vote nor hold office.
They could not own weapons, except to hunt.
They could not make or sell liquor. The legislature rejected the Fourteenth Amendment with
only one vote in favor. Benjamin Perry said:
“This is a white man’s government.”
There was an outcry against the treatment of freedmen. In Charleston a
Colored People’s Convention asked Congress to grant African Americans the
right to vote and to end the Black Code. General Daniel Sickles, who had replaced
Gilmore as military commander, declared the Black Code null and void.
Congress did not seat the members elected by South Carolina and the other
Southern states. The first effort at Reconstruction failed.
XII. CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION BEGINS
How did Congressional Reconstruction make an impact on
South Carolina?
The aim of the radicals was social and political change. Congress first put the
state under military rule. South Carolina was made a part of the Second Military
District, which was composed of the two Carolinas. The headquarters of the district was in Charleston. General Sickles, who was already in the state, took command in March 1867. He was later replaced by Edward R. S. Canby.
Governor Orr wished to work with the military leaders if he could. The troops
in the state were part of the regular army and were friendly to local white leaders.
There were points of tension, though. Canby ordered judges to seat African
Americams on juries. Orr protested, but black jurors were chosen. Christopher
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Haynesworth, a Columbia barber, was the first to serve. In Barnwell white Judge
A. P. Aldrich, who had opposed the Thirteenth Amendment in the state convention, would not comply. He was removed from office.
XIII. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ORGANIZES
What groups made up the South Carolina Republican Party?
The state Republican Party was formed in Charleston in March 1867. It was set
up by officials of the Freedman’s Bureau, freedmen, former free blacks, carpetbaggers, and scalawags. Its platform endorsed Congressional Reconstruction and
urged public schools for all, government aid for railroads, and help for farmers
who owned no land. The party asked African Americans to form Republican
clubs all over the state, especially in the rural areas.
The Union League was also formed. It was a civic group for African Americans
with ties to the Republican Party. It had secret meetings and used parliamentary
procedure. The league was a school for citizenship. It gave its members practice
in debate and urged them to vote and to join local militia units.
Robert Smalls of Beaufort, the
hero of the Planter was elected
to the state legislature and the
United States Congress.
South Caroliniana Library
XIV. RADICAL LEADERSHIP
What four groups made up the radical leadership in the state?
There were four groups that made up the radical leadership in South Carolina:
(1) carpetbaggers, (2) scalawags, (3) former free blacks, and (4) freedmen, or former slaves. The highest offices in the state were held by whites. But of the 487 persons elected to state and local office from 1867 to 1876, more than half were black.
Carpetbaggers were people from outside the state who came to South Carolina
during or just after the war. They were given the name by native whites who said they
owned nothing but what they carried in their carpetbags, or suitcases. Robert K.
Scott, for example, was an officer in the Union army from Ohio. He was assistant
commissioner of the Freedman’s Bureau and served as governor from 1868 to
1872. Robert Brown Elliott, an African American, was born in Massachusetts.
He went to school in England and Boston and served in a black army unit in
South Carolina. During Reconstruction he edited a newspaper in Charleston
and served in the legislature and in Congress from 1871 to 1874.
Scalawags may have been named for tiny Scottish ponies. They were
native whites who joined the radicals. After his term as governor, James L.
Orr joined the Republican Party in 1868 and was a state circuit judge. In
1872, President Grant named him minister to Russia. Franklin J. Moses, Sr.,
was a native of Charleston who studied law with Unionist James L. Petigru.
Elected a judge in 1866, he joined the Republicans in 1868. He became chief justice of the state Supreme Court. He was the first Jew elected to high judicial office.
He was respected by all until his death in 1877.
Former free blacks were a small, but powerful group. They were property owners, mostly from Charleston, whose families had sometimes owned slaves. Joseph
H. Rainey of Georgetown was the state’s first black Congressman in 1870. Francis
L. Cardozo, a native of Charleston, went to the University of Glasgow. He studied
to become a minister in London. He was pastor of a church in New Haven,
Connecticut, before he came back to Charleston after the war to be the principal
of Avery Institute. He was president of the Union League, secretary of state, and
Why did he become famous
during the Civil War?
Robert Brown Elliott was a
native of Massachusetts. He
served in the state legislature
and the United States Congress.
South Caroliniana Library
Why was he known as
a carpetbagger?
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state treasurer. Harry E. Hayne was a free black tailor in Charleston. He first
served in the Confederate army and then in the Union army. He was elected a
state senator and secretary of state.
Freedmen, by far the largest group, often resented the power of former free
blacks in politics. William Beverly Nash was born a slave in Virginia. He was
brought to Columbia and employed at Hunt’s Hotel. After the Civil War he bought
a brickyard and a great deal of other property. Elected to the state Senate from
Richland County (1868-78), he was a major spokesman
for African American interests. Robert Smalls, the hero of
the Planter, lived in Beaufort after the Civil War and
served in both the state House of Representatives and
the Senate. He was elected to Congress in 1875 and,
except for two years, served until 1887.
XV. THE CONSTITUTION OF 1868
Why was the Constitution of 1868 more
democratic than earlier state constitutions?
This group picture shows
the Republican members
of the state legislature.
S.C. Department of Archives and History
Why does the picture
represent a social
revolution in South
Carolina politics?
The 1868 convention met in Charleston on January
14. The delegates included seventy blacks and fifty-four
whites. They wrote the most democratic constitution
yet in the state’s history. It provided for universal manhood suffrage for the first time. The districts were
changed to counties, and each county had one senator,
except Charleston which kept two. Representation in
the lower house was based on population alone, not
wealth. Public education for all was provided, and
schools were open to all races. Women were given full
control of their property, and divorce became legal in
the state for the first time.
Both the Republican and Democratic parties held conventions to name candidates for office. In the counties, the Democrats held conventions in the Up
Country, where more whites lived. Few Democrats were elected. The Republicans
controlled South Carolina.
XVI. AFRICAN AMERICAN CHURCHES AND EDUCATION
How did churches and education change during Reconstruction?
In politics African Americans wanted equality with whites. In religion they
preferred separation. Freedmen began to withdraw from the white-dominated
churches to which they had belonged. Northern missionaries formed many of
them into African American congregations. Black Baptists formed churches all
over the state. Northern Methodists and Presbyterians set up African American
churches of their denominations. Bishop Daniel A. Payne, a native of
Charleston, reestablished the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which had
been closed after the Denmark Vesey insurrection. Congregations of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church, Zion, were formed along the northern
border of the state. The Colored, now Christian, Methodist Episcopal Church
elected Richard H. Vanderhorst (van-DROST) of Georgetown as one of its first
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bishops. Along with the Republican Party, these
churches became the center of African American
life in South Carolina. The ministers were central
figures in black communities.
The new African American churches opened
schools and colleges. The AME church founded the
Payne Institute in Cokesbury. It later moved to
Columbia and became Allen University. Northern
Baptists set up Benedict Institute, now Benedict
College, in Columbia. Northern Methodists opened
Claflin University in Orangeburg. These schools
offered elementary and high school work, as well as college courses.
The new public school system was headed by Justus K. Jillson of
Massachusetts, the first state superintendent of instruction. The schools got little
money from the legislature, but Jillson set up standards for textbooks and for
training schools for teachers with what money he had. The legislature added a
Normal School to the University of South Carolina to train teachers. It quickly
became an all-black school. The state also gave funds to Claflin in Orangeburg,
and it operated as a joint church-public university until 1896.
XVII. WHITE VIOLENCE: KU KLUX KLAN
Why did Klan violence break out in the state?
Soon after the Civil War,
Northern Baptists opened
Benedict Institute in Columbia
to educate freed African
Americans. Today the modern
campus of Benedict College is
located on the same site.
MCS Oliphant Collection
What other schools for freed
African Americans were
opened by churches during
Reconstruction?
In 1870 there was an outbreak of violence by the Ku Klux Klan against radical rule. It was especially aimed at the new rights of black citizens. The Klan was
most active in Spartanburg, Union, and York counties. White-robed Klansmen
insulted, whipped, and at times murdered their victims. In two raids in Union ten
blacks accused of killing a Confederate veteran were shot in the county jail. In the
Limestone section of Spartanburg County, now Cherokee County, 118 persons
were attacked. Four of those were shot, and sixty-seven whipped.
Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, and President Grant ordered
arrests in nine counties in the state. A committee of Congress gathered evidence of
crimes. The U. S. attorney general told the committee that the violence was “greatly aggravated by the misconduct of the Republican party.” Eighty-two people were
jailed, but Grant pardoned all of those who were sentenced to more than a year.
XVIII. CORRUPTION AND REFORM IN GOVERNMENT
What was the response of Democratic leaders to violence in the state?
Like the nation as a whole, the state had its share of fraud and corruption in
politics. Businesses chartered by the legislature gave bribes to political leaders. In
1870, Governor Robert Scott, Attorney General Daniel Chamberlain, and State
Treasurer Niles Parker formed the Carolina Printing Company. It did printing for
the state. The next year the clerks of the Senate and the House formed the
Republican Printing Company for the same purpose. In two years the state printing bill rose from $45,000 to $450,000. In 1872 “Honest John” Patterson went to
the United States Senate with votes that cost from $50 to $2,500 each. Governor
Franklin J. Moses, Jr., was indicted for stealing. He stationed troops around his
house to avoid arrest. A friend told Patterson that it was time to reform. He said
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that there were “five years of good stealing left in South Carolina.”
Democratic leaders held a series of Taxpayers’ Conventions to protest the
fraud. Many Republicans were also disgusted with the scandals. They created a
reform group in the party to change things. In 1874, Governor Daniel H.
Chamberlain joined the reformers. He used every power of his office to stop the
wrongdoing. But he had strong opponents in the legislature. The Democratic
leaders decided that the time had come to put an end to radical rule.
XIX. HAMPTON AND THE ELECTION OF 1876
How was Hampton’s election connected to the 1876 Presidential election?
Daniel H. Chamberlain was
governor from 1874 to 1876. He
was a member of
the reform group
of the South Carolina
Republican party.
South Caroliniana Library
Why was he called a
carpetbagger?
248 | Chapter 20
At first, a group of Democrats led by Francis W. Dawson, editor of the
Charleston News and Courier, urged that they work with the reform Republicans.
But the majority, led by Martin W. Gary, a former Confederate general from
Edgefield, voted for a “straight-out” Democratic ticket. The convention nominated the Civil War hero Wade Hampton III for governor.
Gary devised a campaign of terror. The Democrats formed 290
rifle clubs to support Hampton. They wore red shirts and rode
through the towns and countryside. Their cry was “Hurrah for
Hampton.” There were armed clashes between the black militia and
the white rifle clubs. There were riots at Ellenton, at Cainhoy, and
on King Street in Charleston. At the same time, Hampton urged
African Americans to support him. In Darlington he promised:
“They shall be equals, under the law, of any man in South Carolina.”
On election day there was fraud everywhere. In Beaufort and
Charleston black Republicans threatened black Democrats. Parties
of Red Shirts in counties such as Edgefield, Abbeville, and Laurens
voted eighteen to twenty times. Both sides claimed victory. Since
the legislature had to certify the votes for governor, the controversy
centered on the state House of Representatives where both sides
claimed a majority. The Senate already had a Republican majority.
Federal troops guarded the State House. They would not admit
the Democratic members. The Republicans organized the lower
house and elected E. W. M. Mackey speaker. The Democrats withdrew to Carolina Hall. They formed a rival House of
Representatives and elected William H. Wallace of Union as speaker. On November 30, the members of the Wallace House slipped past the guards
into the State House. For four days the Mackey House and the Wallace House
met side by side in the same chamber. When the Republicans called for violence,
the Democrats left.
On December 7, Chamberlain was inaugurated governor. That night Hampton
made a speech at Carolina Hall: “The people have elected me governor, and, by
the Eternal God, I will be governor or we shall have a military governor.”
Hampton was sworn in by his followers. For four months the state had two governors and two opposing Houses. Each claimed to be the legal government.
Finally, the decision was made, not in Columbia, but in Washington at the
Wormley House. On April 10, 1877, after his election, President Hayes withdrew
the federal troops from Columbia, and Wade Hampton took over the governor’s
office in the State House. Reconstruction came to an end.
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Federal troops guarded the State House
during Congressional Reconstruction.
MCS Oliphant Collection
Who were they trying to protect?
An artist from the Illustrated London News drew this
sketch of the House of Representatives on
November 29, 1876.
MCS Oliphant Collection
Who is serving as speaker of the House or
Representatives—William Wallace or E. W. M.
Mackey?
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EYEWITNESS TO HISTORY:
A School for Black Children in Greenville, 1866
In October 1866 Major John William De Forest became
chief of the Freedman’s Bureau in Greenville. In this
account he describes the first school for African American
children in the town:
The most hopeful sign in the Negro was his anxiety to have
his children educated. The two or three hundred boys and
girls whom I used to see around the Bureau schoolhouse--attired with a decency which had strained to the utmost
the slender parental purse, ill spared from the hard
labor necessary to support their families, gleeful and
noisy over their luncheons of cold roasted sweet potato---were proofs that
the race has a chance in the future. Many a sorely pinched [poor] woman,
a widow or deserted by her husband, would not let her boy go out to service [that is, to work], “bekase I wants him to have some schoolin’”…
I took much pride in the Greenville colored school, for I had aided
to establish it. Its real founder…was Charles Hopkins, a full-blooded
black from the low country, for many years a voluntary exhorter [lay
speaker] among his people and eventually an ordained preacher of the
Methodist Church. His education, gathered in the chance opportunities of
a bondage of fifty years, was sufficient to enable him to
instruct in the lower English branches…He was able to
Questions for Reflection:
raise a subscription of two hundred and sixty dollars
among the impoverished citizens of Greenville…
1. What value did education have
Hopkins purchased a store house belonging to the
for African Americans in
defunct state arsenal works [on Green Avenue] and took
Greenville?
a three years’ lease of a lot of ground [on Laurens
Street]…A mass meeting of freedmen tore the building to
pieces, moved it nearly two miles, and set it up on the
2. How did the black community
new site. Then came much labor of carpenters, masons,
help get a schoolhouse for chiland plasterers, and much expense for new
dren in the village?
materials…Hopkins was substantially bankrupt, and,
moreover, he was drawing no salary.
?
3. How did Charles Hopkins learn
to read and write?
250 | Chapter 20
John William De Forest, A Union Officer in the
Reconstruction (New Haven, CT, 1948),
pp. 116-19.
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Recalling wha
t you read
I. The Unfinished Task
1. What three questions were answered forever by the Civil War?
2. What questions still needed answers?
3. By what name was this era known?
II. Lincoln’s Plan
1.
2.
List the guidelines to Lincoln’s plan for reconstruction.
How did radical Republicans in Congress disagree with Lincoln’s plan?
III. Andrew Johnson’s Plan
1. How did President Johnson add to Lincoln’s plan for reconstruction?
2. What two things did the Southern states do that angered both radical and
moderate Republicans in Congress?
IV. Congressional Reconstruction
FOR
THOUGHT
1. During the era of
Reconstruction,
how did the lives of
African American
and whites
change?
2. What was Wade
Hampton’s strategy
for winning the governorship in 1876?
1. What was the aim of the Freedman’s Bureau?
2. Why did Congress pass a Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth
Amendment?
3. How did President Johnson and Congress continue to clash?
4. What were the provisions of the Reconstruction Acts?
V. Impeachment and Trial of Johnson
1. What was the Tenure of Office Act? Why did Congress pass this law?
2. How did Congress charge Johnson with breaking a law?
3. What was the outcome of the trial?
VI. Radical Governments in the South
1.
2.
3.
4.
In what ways did African Americans become politically active?
What two groups of whites were elected to office?
List three accomplishments of the radical governments.
What did many radical government officials do that was illegal?
VII. White Southern Reaction
1. How and why did the Ku Klux Klan begin?
VIII. The Gilded Age
1. Who became president after Andrew Johnson?
2. Why were the 1870s a time of political corruption?
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Recalling wha
t you read
IX. The Election of 1876
1.
2.
3.
Who were the presidential candidates in 1876?
Why was there a question about the outcome of the election?
What was the Wormley House bargain?
X. Despair and Hope in South Carolina
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What condition was South Carolina in following the Civil War?
How did the number of men from South Carolina killed in the Civil War
compare with the Confederate and Union averages?
How many slaves were freed in South Carolina?
Who took charge of the state?
How did the Freedman’s Bureau help?
XI. Presidential Reconstruction
1. Who did President Johnson name as provisional governor of South
Carolina?
2. What term describes the delegates who were elected to the state constitutional convention?
3. List five ways the state legislature dealt unequally with blacks in South
Carolina.
XII. Congressional Reconstruction Begins
1. How was the military government set up in South Carolina?
2. What distinction did Christopher Haynesworth have?
XIII. The Republican Party Organizes
1. What four groups of people made up the state Republican Party?
2. How was the Union League helpful to blacks?
XIV. Radical Leadership
1. Describe and give an example of each of the four groups of people who
made up the radical leadership in South Carolina.
2. What percentage of blacks was elected to state and local office from 1867
to 1876?
XV. The Constitution of 1868
1. List five ways in which the new constitution was the most democratic in
South Carolina’s history up to that time.
2. What party now controlled South Carolina?
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t you read
XVI. Black Churches and Education
1.
2.
What churches were formed by blacks or for blacks during
Reconstruction?
Name three colleges founded by the black churches.
XVII. White Violence: Ku Klux Klan
1.
2.
In what South Carolina counties was the Ku Klux Klan most active?
How did Congress and President Grant react to the Ku Klux Klan’s violence?
XVIII. Corruption and Reform in Government
1. Give three examples of corrupt political activities of South Carolina leaders.
2. Did the Democrats or Republicans try to put an end to the scandals?
XIX. Hampton and the Election of 1876
1. Who were Red Shirts? What did they do?
2. What two men both claimed to be governor?
3. How was the state election finally decided?
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