American Reconstruction
How do you rebuild a broken
Nation?
How did the North and South differ
after the war?
• North: lost more men, farms and cities
not destroyed, economic problems were
short term, only needed to re-load the
factories/farming.
• South: Farms, bridges, railroads, major
cites of Richmond, Atlanta, Columbia
destroyed, financial system destroyed,
loss of capital, land prices plunged.
• What do you do with 4 million
“Freedmen”? Overnight former slaves
were now free.
Lincoln’s View for
Reconstruction
• Believe the sooner country united the faster
South could re-build
• Ten Percent Plan only 10% of population
needed to be loyal to form government
• Abolish slavery
• Could elect members of Congress
• Amnesty, government pardon of all who
swore allegiance to the USA.
• Did not apply to former leaders
Wade-Davis Alternate Plan
• Required a majority of white men to
declare loyalty.
• Denied right to vote to anyone who
volunteered in the Confederate military.
• Passed in Congress, Lincoln Vetoed
thinking it was too harsh.
Freedmen’s Bureau
• Government agency to assist former slaves.
Lincoln and Congress agreed
• Provided food & clothing
• Tried to find jobs.
• Provided medical care >1million people
• Also offered help to poor whites in the South
• Most important, set up schools. Teachers
volunteers from the north, mostly women.
• Became the basis for public schools in the
South. It also set up black colleges in the south.
A New President
• Lincoln is killed April 14th, 1865
• Vice President Andrew Johnson, new pres.
• Johnson’s plan was mild, majority loyalty,
ratify the 13th Amendment banning slavery,
and quick admittance into the Union and
forming Governments.
• It did not bar former Confederate leaders
from holding office many were elected to
serve in Congress, this angered many in
Congress.
Black Codes 1865-1866
• Most southern state passed strict
restrictions on the new Freedmen.
• Limited fundamental rights of
citizenship such as voting,
meeting, travel, jobs, gun
ownership, serve on juries.
• Many freedmen were attacked,
riots, black churches and school
burnt
• Many in the South refused to
acknowledge the federal
government authority.
Problem of Poverty
do not write
• Freedmen had no land and little
opportunities.
• Some wanted to break up large
plantations and distribute the land, did not
happen
• Plantation owners had land, but no one to
work it.
Radicals Republicans in Congress
• Radical Republicans believed South
was trying to keep slavery alive.
• Break the power of wealthy planters
• Ensure Freedmen received right to
vote.
• Charles Sumner of Ma.
• Thaddeus Stevens of Pa
Actions Taken
• Passed Civil Rights Act of 1866, passed
over a Presidential Veto, granted rights to
vote.
• Feared the Supreme Court would over ride
• Passed on to the states the 14th
Amendment granting citizenship rights to
all born or naturalized in the United States
• The hope was that if you could vote, you
could protect your rights through elections.
Reconstruction Act 1867
• President Johnson was seen as pro-south
• Many blacks killed in south during 1866
election
• Radicals in Congress pass their own plan.
Reconstruction
• All states required to ratify the
14th amed.
• Only Tennessee admitted.
• 5 military districts with military
commanders given power to
govern the South. Military rule
hated
• All states in south required to rewrite state constitutions.
• Must allow Freedmen/African
Americans the right to vote.
Johnson is Impeached
• President Johnson opposed Radicals in
Congress.
• He fired many military commanders in
support of reconstruction
• He was impeached and tried for removal
from office, kept his seat by only one vote
• Johnson had no political power after
Election 1868
• General Ulysses S. Grant is elected.
• Over 500,000 freedmen voted in the South, most
for the Republicans.
• Many in the North felt this could help in the
North, and that all blacks should have right to
vote.
• 15th Amendment is passed and ratified in 1870.
• Grants the right to vote all citizens (male)
regardless of race, color, condition as former
slave.
South Under Reconstruction
• Scalawags were white southerners who
supported Reconstruction, many were
business owners
• Northerners who came South for
opportunities or to take part in
Reconstruction were known as
Carpetbaggers.
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35&entry=761
• Many Freedmen became leaders and
elected officials.
White Southern Resistance
• Conservatives resented Northern
control
• Believed power should be in White
control
• Tried to force blacks back onto
plantations as share croppers.
• Secret Societies such as Ku Klux
Klan were formed to intimidate
blacks from exercising voting rights
and political rights.
Problems of Reconstruction
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The cost of rebuilding the south.
Raised taxes
Allowed women to own property
Built schools, roads, telegraph, railroads.
Corruption in government increased
southern resentment.
Cycle of Poverty
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Freedmen received “nothing but Freedom”
Owned no land and little opportunities
Many poor Southern whites as well
Large plantation owners had land, but no
workers.
• Sharecropping develops as a form of
agricultural labor
Sharecropping
• Rent land from owner who provides the
seed for planting, fertilizer, tools, loans.
• In return you provide the owner a “share”
of your crop at harvest.
• Kept poor people in the South in debt to
the owners.
• If crops failed, you had to borrow more.
• This kept many poor and a few wealthy in
the South.
Why did Reconstruction end?
• Many became tired and were looking
ahead
• Many lost faith in Republicans to lead.
• Amnesty Act of 1872 gave most white
southerners the right to vote, they voted
Democratic.
• Election of 1876.
A deal was struck.
• Rutherford B. Hayes Republican from
Ohio ran against Samuel Tilden Democrat
of New York
• Election ended in a tie with disputed votes
in 3 states.
• Deal was struck behind the scenes. All the
disputed votes would be granted to Hayes
if he agreed to end Reconstruction in the
South.
End results
• North turns a blind eye to the South
• South imposed voting restrictions on blacks.
• Poll Taxes-tax to pay to vote, many Freedmen
did not have $
• Literacy Test- had to pass a test of reading to
vote, most blacks could not
• Grandfather Clauses- if your father or
grandfather had the right to vote before 1867,
you could vote regardless of literacy. No blacks
had the right before 1867, so basically only
whites had the right to vote in the South.
Jim Crow Laws
• Southern states pass series of laws and
codes that basically make segregation the
law.
• Schools, restaurants, theaters, trains,
streetcars, playgrounds, hospitals,
cemeteries.
Rise of the New South
• Over time South started develop a new economy
• 1880 as much cotton as 1860
• Growth of the tobacco industry in North Carolina,
Duke family
• Textile mills to process the cotton
• Steel industry in Birmingham Alabama
• Oil industry Gulf Coast Louisiana Texas
• Timber, minerals, copper, marble
• Furniture industry
South at 1900
• Although the south slowly recovered from
the Civil War and had a more balanced
economy…
• The South entered the 20th Century behind
the Northern industrial/agricultural states
setting up future conflicts.