RECONSTRUCTION
How do we fix the South?
• How would the South rebuild its shattered
society and economy after the damage inflicted
by four years of war?
• Was it the North’s duty to help them?
What to do with the Southern States?
• Should the former states of the Confederacy be
treated as states that had never really left the
Union or as conquered territory subject to
continued military occupation?
• Under what conditions would the Southern states
be fully accepted as coequal partners in the
restored Union?
What should be done with the
newly freed slaves?
• What will be the place in society of 4 million freed
blacks, and to what extent, if at all, was the
federal government responsible for helping them
to adjust to freedom?
Who makes these decision?
• Congress or President?
What actually happened?
• Reading and Film
– Outline the difference between the
Presidential and Congressional plans for
reconstruction (restoration?)
Was it a success?
Plessey v. Ferguson, 1896
Freedmen and the New South
• Helping freed slaves:
– Special Field Order No. 15
– Freedmen’s Bureau
– 14th amendment
– 15th amendment
– Civil Rights Act of 1875
– Enforcement Acts
• Hurting freed slaves:
– KKK
– Sharecropping
– Black Codes
– Withdrawal of Northern Troops
– Jim Crow…
Ending Reconstruction:
• 1872 – many confederates given right
to vote, Freedmen’s bureau collapses
• Supreme Court starts overriding
congressional acts – more power to
states
• Lots of scandals with Grant, bad
economy, Republicans shift attention to
other things and retreat….
The End:
• Compromise of 1877: Rutherford B.
Hayes (Rep.) has controversial win,
Rep. leaders strike deal with Dems –
Hayes can win if North withdraws form
South – Reconstruction is over!