The
Reconstruction
Era
1863-1877
Lincoln’s Legacy
• In the last month of the war, President
Lincoln had established a special bureau to
assist former slaves and poor whites in the
South
• The Freedmen’s Bureau gave food and
clothing to former slaves and needy whites
•
•
•
•
Helped set up 40 hospitals
Established 4,000 primary schools
Set up 61 industrial institutes
Provided 74 teacher training establishments (for both
black and white teachers hoping to help educate former
slaves)
Southern Whites Limit the Freedoms
of Ex-Slaves
• 13th Amendment is passed,
abolishing slavery
• However, white-controlled state
governments pass laws called Black
Codes
• Allowed worker exploitation
• Allowed whipping
• Limited speech, travel, denied voting
rights,
• Included imprisonment and barred them
from court testimony against whites
Southern Whites Limit the Freedoms
of Ex-Slaves
• In the first two years after the
Civil War, 5000 AfricanAmericans are murdered by
whites- often by lynching
• Secret organizations, such as the
Ku Klux Klan, are founded by
whites to intimidate Blacks
Common forms
of ViolenceLynching and
Whipping
CONGRESSIONAL
RECONSTRUCTION
• Northern Republicans are convinced that
Johnson’s Plan is not working
– Black Codes, the KKK, and Confederate
officials still in office at state and federal
levels cited as evidence
• Andrew Johnson had only been President
for a year when his program reached a
dead end.
• Radical Republicans are the most critical
of his administration.
Andrew Johnson vs. Congress
• Congress refused to recognize the
state governments that Johnson had
encouraged the creation of in his plan
• When the Radicals gained a 2/3
majority in Congress, they were able
to override Johnson’s vetoes.
• Power passed from the Executive
Branch into the hands of the Radical
Republicans.
Thaddeus
Stevens from
Pennsylvania
was the most
vocal criticleads the
Radical
Republicans
The Reconstruction Act of 1867
Known as Radical Reconstruction or
Congressional Reconstruction, this
act was designed to
punish the South for the Civil War,
increase the rights of AfricanAmericans,
disfranchise ex-confederates, and
delay the readmission of states until
republican governments established
CONGRESSIONAL
RECONSTRUCTION PLAN
• More severe than the Presidential Plan
• Require the majority of voters in a
secessionist state to take an oath of
loyalty and a second “Iron-clad” oath
stating that they did not support the
Confederacy
• Individual governments had to outlaw
slavery
• Former confederate officials were
banned from voting for state legislators
CONGRESSIONAL
RECONSTRUCTION PLAN
• Passed the 14th Amendment
• All qualified voters, blacks
included, were to elect a
governor and a state legislature
• Other Reconstruction Acts
follow to strengthen
enforcement of the first act.
JOHNSON VETOES THE ACT
• Unfair to the South
• Congress over-rides the veto
• Invalidate the state governments
re-admitted under the Lincoln and
Johnson Plans. Only Tennessee will
escape because they ratified the
14th Amendment before the Act
was passed.
TEN STATES UNDER MARTIAL
LAW
• States that had not ratified the
14th Amendment were divided
into five military districts
• Military oversees elections
concerning new state
constitutions and governments
• Once conditions met,
Reconstruction will be complete
IMPEACHMENT CRISIS
• Johnson uses executive power
to impede Congressional
Reconstruction.
– Replaced sympathetic radical
military officials with
conservatives
– Defied the Tenure of Office Act
and fires Secretary of War
Stanton, a radical sympathizer
Edwin
Stanton,
Secretary
of War
Tenure of Office Act of 1867
• The Tenure of Office Act, passed
over the veto of President Andrew
Johnson on March 2, 1867,
provided that all federal officials
whose appointment required
Senate confirmation could not be
removed without the consent of the
Senate.
IMPEACHMENT CRISIS
• House of Representatives voted to
impeach Johnson
• Senate trial was held: Johnson’s
lawyers argue that Tenure of Office
Act is unconstitutional and he is not
guilty of a crime indictable in court
• Johnson remains in office. The vote
fell one vote short of the two-thirds
needed to remove him from office
RECONSTRUCTION
GOVERNMENTS
• Most states are re-admitted by
1870.
• Republicans will control the
South until 1877
– President U.S. Grant will uphold
tough reconstruction policies
– Carpetbaggers and Scalawags
– Southern Blacks
President
Ulysses S.
Grant: 18th
President of
the United
States
RECONSTRUCTION ENDS
• Use of violence kept blacks away
from the polls
• Northerners lost interest in
Reconstruction
• Compromise of 1877- Rutherford
B. Hayes is awarded the
Presidency in exchange for a
promise to remove federal troops
from the south. Some troops
remain but do not serve a political
function
Rutherford
B. Hayes19th
President of
the United
States
Reconstruction Amendments
• 13th Amendment- Abolished
slavery
• 14th Amendment- Blacks are
citizens of the United States
– Intended to strengthen 1866 Civil
Rights Act
• 15th Amendment- Prohibited denial
of suffrage because of race, color,
or previous condition of servitude
ACHIEVEMENTS & FAILURES OF
RECONSTRUCTION
Achievements
Failures
• States restored to the
Union and rebuilding
begun.
• Public schools established
• 14th and 15th Amendments
passed
• Failed to solve the
problems of blacks
– Too poor to afford
land, many former
slaves are exploited
under the
sharecropping system
– Southern economic
expansion is slowed by
westward expansion
– “Jim Crow” laws
passed to limit the
rights of blacks
“Jim Crow”
• Southern state governments passed
laws forcing segregation and
creating barriers to voting rights,
such as poll taxes and grand-father
clauses.
• The Supreme Court will uphold
“Jim Crow” in 1895 by its ruling in
Plessy vs. Ferguson
Notable People who spoke out
against “Jim Crow” laws
• Ida B. Wells: an anti-lynching
crusader, appealed to the federal
government to stop lynching
• Booker T. Washington: equality via
vocational education- accepted social
segregation
• W.E.B. DuBois: education is
meaningless without equality- strive
for higher education (college)
• Founded the NAACP
IDA B. WELLS
BOOKER T.
WASHINGTON AND
TUSKEGEE
INSTITUTE
W.E.B. DuBois
Because Reconstruction was
implemented by Republicans,
white southerners voted for
Democratic candidates. This
created a Bloc known as the
“Solid South.”
Separate but Equal (1896)
• Plessy v. Ferguson
• Case fought because of Jim Crow laws
(specifically regarding railroad cars, in this
case)
• Court ruled that separate but equal was
constitutional
• Only one justice disagreed: John Marshall
Harlan, a Southerner. He said Constitution
“is colorblind, neither knows nor tolerates
classes among citizens. In respect of civil
rights, all citizens are equal before the law.”