“Reconstruction: The Second Civil War”
Part I
Vocabulary:
“Freedman”= former slave
“Freedman’s Bureau”=Established by Abraham Lincoln to help
former slaves in the South during Reconstruction.
“Emancipation”=Freeing of slaves by the government
“Manumitted”=Freeing of a slave/s by an individual
“Democrat” with a capital ‘D’ = Party; “democrat” with a lower
case ‘d’ = form of government.
“Republican” with a capital ‘R’ = Party; republican with a lower
case ‘r’ = form of government.
Note: Eric Foner is an extremely famous historian whose
specialty is Reconstruction.
1) April 11, 1865, two days after the defeat of the South in the Civil War,
what did Abraham Lincoln warn the public of instead of giving the
public a victory celebration?
“That the war had spiraled far beyond the worst imaginings of anyone;
over 600,000 (recently argued has to be upwardly revised to 750,000
(possibly 800,000)) had died in the four years; the largest slave system
in the world was in shambles and no one knows what is going to replace
it.”
“The question was how to put a nation so badly torn apart back together
again with a deep and abiding division over race.”
“After four bloody years of civil war Americans North and South would
continue to continue to fight over the meaning of freedom, the meaning
of citizenship, and the survival of the nation itself.”
“Before the Civil War the South would have been one of the five
richest societies in the world.”
Describe Kate Stone’s life during the Civil War:
“It was a shock to many plantation owners that their slaves were not
happy to work for them and were even angry with them.”
Kate fears armed slaves: “what are they going to do to me given what
we’ve done to them.”
2) To where did the Stones flee?
3) What did General William Tecumseh Sherman do?
4) As Sherman celebrated in a rich cotton plantation owner’s home
dining on delicacies, who gathered in the thousands?
“Lincoln’s ‘Emancipation Proclamation’ had freed slaves across the
South but Washington still had no clear plan for what to do once African
Americans were free.”
5) What did Secretary of War Stanton travel to Savannah for? How did
they answer?
“The freedom as I understand it, promised by the Emancipation
Proclamation is taking from under the yoke of bondage and placing us
where we could reap the fruit of our own labor.” Garrison Frasier
“The best way to take care of ourselves is to have land, and we can soon
take care of ourselves and have something to spare. We want to be
placed on land until we can buy it and make it our own.” G.F.
Sherman: Give them their rights. Protect their rights and let them alone
to be citizens
6) What was “Special Field Order #15?”
News of “40 acres and a mule” spread.
7) What happened at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia on April 9th,
1865?
“Conquered. Submission. Subjugation…are words that burn into my
heart. The degradation seems more than we can bare “
I think [narrator] those words had particular significance in a white
southern society that was fixated on honor. Honor and glory and
independence were at the core of the white South’s understanding of
itself, and in particular the understanding of what male southerners had
to be men, what it meant to have “manhood.” Because who is
conquered and subjugated: that’s a slave.
The white South can only imagine that they have invoked God’s wrath in
some way. What they could not understand was the idea of black
people being their equal. Maybe slavery was meant to end but surely
black people were not equal to white people.
8) What does “bottom rail’s on top this time massa?” mean?
9) What happened when Lincoln insinuated that some freedmen might
get the right to vote?
10) Once Lincoln was dead what dilemma did the nation face?
11) What was “American” wrapped up in?
The great questions of reconstruction:
1) Who will rule in the South?
2) Who will rule in the federal government?
3) What will the dimensions of black freedom be?
No one was sure what to expect from the new president Andrew
Johnson. He had fiercely opposed secession, the only southern senator
to refuse to give up his seat in Congress. He blamed the big planters for
the war. He championed the poorer whites. He owned a few slaves but
he resented the plantation aristocracy.
12) Johnson shared the desire to punish some southerners but he
shared their desire to do what?
13) How did Frederick Douglas feel about Johnson?
14) What happened in the sea islands of St. Catherine’s”?
15) Who was Marshall Twicham and what did he do?
***16) What was “Presidential Reconstruction?”
“Johnson sets only the most minimal requirements. All they really have
to do is admit ‘we lost the Civil War. The Civil War is over. Slavery and
secession are dead. Other than that there are no requirements.” Eric
Foner
Planter aristocracy had to write his personally and beg for clemency.
This basically eliminates the planter class from leadership of southern
politics. If you’re not pardoned you can’t vote, you can hold office, and
you can’t get your property back if it’s been seized by the federal
government.
Andrew Johnson had risen from poverty; Poor white southerners had
far outnumbered slave-owners. Now he was anxious to protect them
from what he saw as a new threat, black competition.
17) What was Andrew Johnson’s vision of the post-war South?
18) How did Thaddeus Stevens feel about slavery?
19) Who were “The Radical Republicans?”
As the country waited for the inauguration scores of confederates
descended upon Washington with petitions for pardons.
“White man alone [told Johnson to one senator] must manage the
South”
20) Back on St. Catherine’s Island freedmen occupied some 20 slave
dwellings and grew crops. What did they want beyond this? Why was
this so meaningful to them?
Whites on the mainland watched with bitterness not just because the
land had been seized from one of their own but because of their
ambition and independence.
21) What happened in June of 1865?
22) What happened when Kate Stone returned? What did they mourn
most?
23) What did white men want to make clear?
They look around and cannot comprehend what has happened and what
to do. They decide they must make it clear who is in control.
Andrew Johnson looks around and sympathizes with them. He believes
freedmen should return to their former places of work and above all
accept their subordination to white power and authority.
24) What happened by fall of 1865? Why?
25) What did Johnson order in terms of Confederate lands confiscated
during the war, including under Sherman’s Special Field Order?
“You ask us to forgive the man who owned us of our island. The man
who tied me to a tree and gave me 39 lashes, who stripped and flogged
my mother and my sister, and will not let me stay in his empty hut
except that I will do his planting and be satisfied with his price. That
man I cannot well forgive” A farmer from St. Catherine’s Island
26) What happened in January of 1866?
In Louisiana black farmers had leased over 10,000 acres from the
Freedmen’s Bureau believing they would soon own them outright.
Twitchel and other Freedman’s Bureau men delivered a message that no
40 acres and a mule was coming from this government.
“Freedom from slavery is not freedom from work.” Marshal Twitcham
Presidential Reconstruction was not going to give them land.
Southerners and Northerners alike followed this. The road ahead was
not going to be easy.
There was great fear in the North and South that freedmen would not go
back to the cotton fields. It was still the largest export in the United
States; northerners were not willing to let African Americans stop
growing cotton.
27) What was the freedman’s dream?
28) Why did white southerners dislike negotiating with freedmen?
“There is now nothing between me and the nigger but the dollar, the
almighty dollar, and I shall make out of him the most I can with the least
expense.” South Carolina planter
Freedmen who argued for better working conditions and wages were
regularly met with threats and violence. Vigilantes lynched whole
families and used the bullwhip on men and women as they had during
slavery days. They wanted to create a system as close to slavery days as
possible.
In 1865 more than 2,000 black men, women, and children were
reported in Louisiana alone.
Systematic culling of black male leaders was systematic.
The southern legal system became an instrument of legal intimidation.
Louisiana, Texas, South Caroline, Mississippi and Florida passed laws
that prohibited any work for African Americans except as field hands.
The laws were called “black codes;” the aim was slavery without the
chains. Some states made it illegal for freedmen to buy weapons or buy
or lease land. Black children could be seized and forced to work in
fields. If a black man had no job he could be jailed and auctioned to a
planter for his labor.
This was so severe Northern Republicans are faced with a dilemma:
They don’t want a fight with the president but to give in meant
accepting defeat in the Civil War.
28) What dilemma did southern women face after the war?
29) What happened in December, 1865? How did many northerners
feel about this?
The 39th Congress, the first since the end of the Civil War convened.
More than 60 former confederates prepared to take their seats,
including four generals, four colonels, and six Confederate cabinet
officers. Even Alexander H. Stephens, the former vice president of the
Confederacy took his place. For many northerners it seemed like the
war had been fought in vain. On the opening day the clerk of the House
declined to announce the southern confederate delegates and sent them
packing. The war over Reconstruction had begun. They were literally
fighting over the meaning of the war they had just fought.
“In many ways Congress was a poisoned atmosphere in the debates
over the Reconstruction policy. There were raw war memories being
played out. There were visceral hatreds being played out on the floor of
Congress between Republicans and Democrats. These debates are
between men who have experienced this war, who have fought this war.
They are fighting literally about the meaning of that conflict they had
just fought. Northern Democrats sided with Johnson and railed against
Republicans across the aisle. Washington must get out of the way they
insisted, and let southerners run their own affairs.” Eric Foner
“The Democrats had always identified themselves as the party of the
white man. It very explicitly said, “We are here to protect the rights of
white men North and South, and how do we do that? We hold the Union
together. For that reason Democrats saw themselves as trying to put
the North and South together as quickly as possible during the Civil
War, and as soon as it’s over trying to knit North and South together at
the expense of black men. Edward L. Ayers (Historian)
30) How did Thaddeus Stevens respond?
“Do not I pray you admit those have slaughtered a half-million of our
countrymen until their clothes are dried, and until they are reclad. I do
not wish to sit side by side with men whose garments smell of the blood
of my kindred.”
It was Stevens’ way of saying we’re going to keep the South out of the
Union as long as we can, and we’re not going to allow anybody back in
here who was responsible for making the war.
31) What did the Congressional Committee on Reconstruction
conclude?
32) What did Congress do in March of 1866?
“Moderate Republicans are forced into the radical camp because they
had to oppose Andrew Johnson. Johnson’s plan of Reconstruction was
so lenient in utter contempt of black liberty that it was simply
unacceptable.
****33) Republicans feared that this was not enough. What did they do?
What became the origin of the concept of civil rights in American
society?
34) What happened on July 30, 1866 in New Orleans?
White mob chased radical Republicans out of their convention; three
white radicals killed and 34 black men murdered.
35) What happened that fall in the elections to Congress?
****36) What happened in March?
Again overrode veto. Former Confederate States divided into five
military districts, each commanded by a general with power to enforce
law and administer justice. New southern governments would be
created and have to ratify the 14th Amendment; their new state
constitutions would have to be approved by Congress and black men
would have the right to vote.
It was the first large-scale experiment in interracial democracy
anywhere.
*Take special note to the ending…
***Andrew Johnson was impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors
but survived conviction by one vote.
When radical Reconstruction passed there were still 38,000 federal
troops stationed in the South. In Louisiana more than half were black.
“From the point of view of the white southerner the Civil War was a
tragic mistake. They had defended only what they had understood to be
their constitutional rights. It was not that they had disrupted the Union,
engaged in an act of treason. They felt that the North was a viscous
aggressor committed to a perversion, which was black equality. This
sense of a grievance, and sense of injustice only grew, that this was
something that was not to be accepted.” Clarence E. Walker (Historian)