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
...
-Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address
March 4, 1865
Differing Views of Reconstruction
Ten Percent Plan
Proposed by: Lincoln
Lenient
Requirements: 10 % of Southerners
must take an oath of allegiance
Goal: bring the Union together quickly
Supporters: South, Northern
moderates
Outcome:
• Died before it could be put into place
Wade-Davis Bill
• Proposed by: Radicals in Congress
• Harsh
• Requirements: 51% of 1860 eligible voters
pledge allegiance
• Goal: punish South/ empower freedmen
• Supporters: Congress, Radicals, freed
slaves
• Outcome: Lincoln pocket vetos
Johnson’s Presidential
Reconstruction
Proposed by: Andrew Johnson
Lenient
Requirements: State conventions
must abolish slavery, swear
allegiance
Goal: Reunite N/S, punish wealthy
white Southerners
Supporters: South
Outcome: Some states held
conventions and sent reps to
Congress
Reconstruction Act of 1867
• Proposed by: Congress
• Harsh
• Requirements: Conventions to write new
state constitutions with black suffrage,
ratify 14th amendment, and bans
Confederates from voting/holding office
• Goal: punish South; empower freedmen
• Supporters: Congress, African Americans
• Outcome: military rule of South
• Freedman’s Bureau
• Goal was to feed/house freed slaves &
poor whites
•
He vetoed this
• Civil Rights Act of 1866
• vetoed this bill that was meant to protect
freed slaves from Black codes
In the Congressional midterm election in
1866, Congress gets 2/3 control of both
houses of Congress and can override
Johnson’s veto.
Congressional Reconstruction
Goal: punish Southern whites-protect/empower freed slaves
14th Amendment:
Provided equal protection under the
law for blacks, banned Confederates
from voting/holding office
Reconstruction Act of 1867:
Divided South into 5 military districts
under martial law
Tenure of Office Act:
They impeached Johnson for breaking
this law. He was found not guilty by 1
vote and kept his job
15th Amendment:
States that no one can be prevented
from voting based on “race, color, or
previous condition of servitude”
Johnson ImpeachedJohnson had repeatedly
angered Congressional
Republicans by vetoing
legislation.
Congress passed the Tenure
of Office Act which stated the
president could not fire
cabinet members without
consent from the Senate.
Johnson thought this
unconstitutional, and fired
Secretary of War Stanton.
The House brought 11
charges of impeachment.
Senate fell one vote short of
two-thirds majority needed for
conviction.
• Tenure of Office Act
– Grounds on which Johnson was impeached
– Fired gov’t official
– Escaped impeachment by 1 vote
Immediate Effects of
Reconstruction on African
Americans
Political
African Americans vote:
Republicans dominate Southern
governments as 90 % of qualified black
men voted
First African American elected officials:
Hiram Revels becomes first black senator
Social
Many families are reunited.
Many African-Americans founded their own
churches, and ministers became influential
community leaders
Educational institutions were established to
educate freed people of all ages
From 1865 to 1870 the African-American
population of the South’s ten largest cities
doubled as thousands fled the plantations
looking for jobs.
Economic
40 acres and a mule:
• General Sherman had made this promise
to freed slaves that had followed his army.
• Never happened on a large scale.
Sharecropping & Tenant Farming
Former plantation owners need field workers.
Former slaves need land.
Sharecropping:
• a landowner divides his land and gives each workerfreed slave or poor white- a few acres to work along with
tools and seed.
• At harvest, the worker gave a share of his crop ( about
half) to the planter.
• Hard to get out of poverty (result :economic enslavement).
Tenant farmers:
• actually had cash for rental of land, and kept their own
crop.
• More likely to get out of poverty
Reconstruction Comes to an End
Southern Resistance Increases
• Carpetbaggers:
Northerners that come South
•Scalawags:
Southerners who joined the
Republican party.
• Black Codes:
racist laws limiting freed slaves’
rights
“Is This A Republican
Form of Government?"
Harper's Weekly,
September 2, 1876
•
poll taxes / Literacy
tests/grandfather clauses:
Measures to keep blacks from
voting.
•
Rise of the KKK
•
Amnesty Actreturned the right to vote & hold
office to many former
Confederates
Attempts to Stop Resistance
•
Enforcement Acts:
- oversee elections
send troops against KKK
-
Public Opinion Changes
• Corruption up, people think $ is being
wasted
Examples
Whiskey Ring
Belknap Bribery
• Panic of 1873:
People more worried about the
economy than punishing the South
• Currency dispute:
poor want more $ printed
Supreme Court Interpretation
• U.S. v. Cruikshank
14th Amendment does not involve
people discriminating against people;
only the government discriminating
• U.S. v. Reese
undermined idea all black males
can vote: ruled the 15th Amendment
didn’t give right to vote, simply listed
grounds on which states could not
deny right to vote
Changes within the
Republican Party
• White Southern ‘scalawags’
not committed to protecting
African-Americans
• The party splits over
corruption
• Republicans v. Liberal
Republicans
Election of 1876
Republican- Hayes of Ohio
v.
Democrat – Tilden of NY
• Tilden won popular vote, needs 1
electoral vote more
• Florida’s 20 electoral votes uncertain
b/c of KKK violence
So…the electoral college can’t render
a verdict!
Compromise of 1877
• Hayes became president
• Democrats allow it b/c troops will
leave the South
• Result: “Redemption” – White
Southerners regain control of the
South
**White Supremacy and Home Rule
Restored**
Reconstruction: Success or
Failure?