Civil War Reconstruction
Chapter 17
1865-1876
The “Lost Cause”
Term for Confederate sympathizers who cast
the Southern fight during the war in
“states' rights” terms
Carpetbagger: A Northerner who travels
South after the war to take economic
advantage of Southern poverty through
politics
Scalawag: A Southerner who works with
carpetbaggers, or helps them
Presidential Reconstruction
 Lincoln/Johnson
policy was to reconstitute
confederate states with free elections and
get their representation back into Congress
as soon as possible
 By December 1865, every state but Texas
had had elections and applied for
readmission of its congressmen.
 Radical Republicans refused the states'
requests for readmission
Radical Republicans
 Thaddeus
Stevens:
 Ben Wade: Ohio Senator, came within one
vote of becoming President (under Johnson
impeachment)
 John Bingham: Ohio Congressman, author
of 14th amendment
 Charles Sumner: Mass. Senator
Radical Republican agenda
 End
to slavery
 Equal rights for black people
 Ironclad oath (1862): Permanent ban on
southerners from serving in office unless
they swore an oath saying they had never
assisted the confederacy. (Lincoln vetoed)
 Wade-Davis bill (1863): Require a majority
of voters in southern states to take a
loyalty oath before the state could be
readmitted (Lincoln vetoed)
Radical Republican agenda
 Wanted
South
–
–
–
continued military government in
To enforce loyalty to union
To protect civil liberties for AfricanAmericans
To win votes of African-Americans
Ex Parte Milligan (1866)
•
•
Milligan arrested in Indiana 1862 by
military officials for trying to POW
rebellion
Tried by military commission, sentenced
to death
Civil War Reconstruction
1865: 13th Amendment Ratified
• Banned slavery
• Ku Klux Klan also formed Dec. 1865
1866: Civil Rights Act of 1866
• Countered “Black Codes”
• Legislated U.S. citizenship to all freed slaves
• Ku Klux Klan becomes racist, lynches more
than 5,000 blacks before it dissolves in the
mid-1870s.
Civil Rights Movement in
Reconstruction

1868: 14th Amendment Declared Ratified
 Guaranteed state citizenship to blacks
 Guaranteed “due process of law” and “equal protection of the
laws” to blacks

1870: 15th Amendment Ratified, Force Act
Signed
 Guaranteed the vote to blacks
 Force Act suppressed lynchings by the Ku Klux Klan

1871: Ku Klux Klan Act Signed
 Suppressed Klan by labeling it a “terrorist” organization
Civil Rights Movement After
Reconstruction



1876: Reconstruction ends, black rights
suppressed
Compromise of 1877 (“redemption” to the
South): Allowed Hayes' election to
Presidency, ended military occupation of
South
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
 “Separate but equal” approved by Supreme Court
 Plessy bought a first-class ticket on a Louisiana train,
but was kicked to the “colored” coach after they found
out he was black (though just 1/8th black)
Reconstruction in the Southern
States
•
Republican-dominated state
governments installed in most states
–
–
–
•
Huge railroad bonds (debt held by state
or corporation) passed
States take on debt
Taxes triple in some areas
South Carolina: Last Republican
government in the South 1875
–
Lower state house is majority black
Johnson v. Congress
•
Johnson was not given the opportunity
to appoint replacements to the U.S.
Supreme Court: Congress simply
reduced the number of justices as
judges retired.
Johnson v. Congress
•
•
•
•
Johnson's reconstruction governments in
South all propose “Black Codes”
Radical Republican Congress reacts by
passing Civil Rights Act of 1866
Johnson vetoes the bill, arguing the Civil
Rights Act is unconstitutional because
the power to regulate state civil liberties
is nowhere enumerated in the U.S.
Constitution
Congress overrides Johnson's veto
Johnson's veto message on Civil
Rights Act of 1866
“Where can we find a Federal prohibition against the power of any
State to discriminate, as do most of them, between aliens and
citizens, between artificial persons, called corporations, and
natural persons, in the right to hold real estate? If it be granted
that Congress can repeal all State laws discriminating between
whites and blacks in the subjects covered by this bill, why, it may
be asked, may not Congress repeal in the same way all State laws
discriminating between the two races on the subjects of suffrage
and office? … For the Constitution guarantees nothing with
certainty if it does not insure to the several States the right of
making and executing laws in regard to all matters arising within
their jurisdiction, subject only to the restriction that in cases of
conflict with the Constitution and constitutional laws of the
United States the latter should be held to be the supreme law of
the land.…”
Why does Johnson suddenly
become an advocate of states'
rights?
Because he's a southern racist. He writes to
Missouri Gov. Thomas C. Fletcher that:
"This is a country for white men, and
by God, as long as I am President, it
shall be a government for white
men."
Johnson's impeachment
•
Congress passes “Tenure of Office Act” that bans dismissal
of top officials without Senate approval
•
Article II, Section 2: “He shall have Power, [to] appoint
Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of
the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United
States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise
provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but
the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such
inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President
alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of
Departments. The President shall have Power to fill up all
Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the
Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the
End of their next Session.”
Johnson's Impeachment
•
•
Johnson “suspends” War Secretary Edwin
Stanton, Lincoln's appointment, and requests
appointment of new War Secretary
Congress impeaches: House passes
impeachment resolution (majority vote
needed), Senate fails at conviction (two-thirds
vote needed) by one vote. (Edmund G. Ross
was one of 7 Republicans to vote against
impeachment.
Jim Crow laws
•
Segregation and voting laws
–
–
–
Poll tax: In order to vote, you pay a tax
Literacy test for voting: In many states,
only enforced for black people
“Separate but equal”: Accommodations
nominally equal, but really designed to
allow white supremacy
Slaughterhouse Cases
First test of 14th Amendment in Court
•
300,000 animals butchered on banks of
Mississippi River annually
•
Louisiana enacts law to stop animal entrails
from being thrown into Mississippi river (a
drinking water source)
•
Louisiana gives franchise to private butcher's
association, which discriminates in favor of
preferred butchers.
Slaughterhouse Cases cont'd
Other butchers sue (discrimination not
exclusively racial)
14th Amendment had been “ratified,” then
“expunged” by several Southern states
Court rules that states cannot discriminate
among slaughterhouses under “equal
opportunity” clause of 14th amendment,
which they rule is part of Constitution
Plessy and Yick Wo
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): AfricanAmericans deemed “separate but equal”
okay, even if not really equal.
Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886): ChineseAmerican protected by 14th amendment
against “separate but equal” okay, even if
not really equal.
Yick Wo v. Hopkins
Chinese immigrant Yick Wo discriminated
against by law banning new laundry
businesses in San Francisco
Court rules:
“The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is
not confined to the protection of citizens. It says:
'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.'"
Thomas Nast
•
Racist, anti-Catholic, anti-Chinese
(though he was himself a German
immigrant)
Horace Greeley
•
•
Publisher, New York Tribune
Republican opponent to Grant for
Presidential nomination