RECONSTRUCTION AND
THE NEW SOUTH
CHAPTER 17
RECONSTRUCTION
• The reorganization and rebuilding of the former
Confederate states after the Civil War
• 1865-1877
• Southern states also had to be readmitted into the
Union
• What do the Southern states need to do to be readmitted?
LINCOLN’S PLAN
• Ten Percent Plan (1863)
• When 10% of the voters of a state took an oath of loyalty to
the Union, the state could form a new government
• Must:
• Adopt a new constitution that banned slavery
• Lincoln also offered amnesty to all white Southerners
who were willing to swear loyalty to the Union,
except for Confederate leaders
• Amnesty: Granting of a pardon
THE RADICAL’S PLAN
• Thought Lincoln was too forgiving
• Wanted a more radical, or extreme, approach
• Wade-Davis Bill
• To rejoin the Union:
• Majority of white males must swear loyalty
• Only white males who swore they had not fought against the
Union could vote
• Constitution must ban slavery and no former Confederates
could hold public office
FREEDMEN’S BUREAU
• 1865
• Helped African Americans adjust to freedom
• Provided food, clothing, and medical services
• Helped freed people acquire land or find work for
fair wages
• Set up schools and gave aid to African American
universities
ANDREW JOHNSON
• After Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, Andrew
Johnson took over as President
• Johnson required high-ranking Confederates to
appeal to the President to be pardoned
• Wanted to humiliate Southern leaders
THE 13TH AMENDMENT
• 1865
• Abolished slavery in the United States
BLACK CODES
• 1866
• Southern states passed laws to control freed men and
women.
• Took away African American rights
• Plantation owners could exploit African American workers
• Jobless African Americans were arrested
• Banned from owning or renting farms
CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1866
• Granted full citizenship to African Americans
• Overturned black codes
• Contradicted the Dred Scott decision
THE 14TH AMENDMENT
• 1868
• Granted full citizenship to all people born in the United
States
• No state could take away a citizen’s life, liberty, or
property
• Confederate leaders could not hold office unless
pardoned by Congress
• Southern States must ratify the amendment to join the
Union
FIRST RECONSTRUCTION ACT OF 1867
• Called for the creation of new government for the
10 Southern states that had not ratified the 14th
amendment
• Divided the 10 Southern states into 5 military districts
each run by a military commander
• Guaranteed African Americans the right to vote and
banned Confederate leaders from holding office
THE 15TH AMENDMENT
• 1869
• Prohibited the state and federal government from
denying the right to vote to any male citizen
because of “race, color, or previous condition of
servitude”
SCALAWAGS AND CARPETBAGGERS
• Scalawags: Southern whites who supported radical
reconstruction in the South
• Carpetbaggers: Northern whites who moved to the
South after the war
• Called carpetbaggers because they arrived in the South
with their belongings in cheap suitcases
RESISTANCE TO RECONSTRUCTION
• Many Southern whites opposed efforts to expand African
American rights
• Refused to rent land to freed people
• Store owners refused them credit
• Employers wouldn’t hire them
• Ku Klux Klan
• Used fear and violence to deny rights to freed men and women
• Killed thousands of African Americans
• Burned homes, schools, churches
• Most white southerners refused to testify against those
who attacked African Americans
COMPROMISE OF 1877
• Election of 1876- Rutherford B. Hayes vs. Samuel
Tilden
• Election was disputed
• Compromise of 1877
• Hayes is declared the President
• In exchange, the South would receive more aid and all
federal troops are withdrawn
• Hayes’ policies of letting the South handle its own
issues ended Southern Reconstruction in 1877
VOTING RESTRICTIONS
• The end of Reconstruction meant the end of African
Americans’ dreams for justice
• Southern leaders found a way around the 15th
amendment
• Poll tax- fee for people to vote
• Literacy test- voters had to read and explain difficult parts of
the state constitution
• Most African Americans had little education
• Grandfather clauses-Allowed people who did not pass the
literacy test to vote if their fathers or grandfathers voted before
Reconstruction
JIM CROW LAWS
• By the 1890s, segregation was a common feature of
the South
• Jim Crow Laws required African Americans and
whites to be separated in almost every public place
• African American facilities were far worse than white
facilities
RECONSTRUCTION’S IMPACT
• Both success and failure
• + Helped rebuild Southern economy
• + African Americans gained greater equality
(voting, some education, citizenship)
• - Much of the South remained agricultural and poor
• - African American advances did not last
(segregation, discrimination, voting restrictions)
QUIZ
1. What is Southern Reconstruction?
2. What was Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan?
3. What did the Freedmen’s Bureau do?
4. What is the 13th Amendment?
5. What are the Black Codes?
6. What did the Civil Rights Act of 1866 do?
7. What is the 14th Amendment?
8. What did the First Reconstruction Act of 1867 do?
9. What is the 15th Amendment?
10. How did some Southerners resist Reconstruction?
Include multiple examples
• 11. How did the South restrict voting for blacks?
• 12. What are Jim Crow Laws?
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