1865-1877
Federal program to
rebuild the South
Period of time following
the Civil War when the
South was rebuilt
1865-1877
Guns and Ruined Buildings Near the Tredegar Iron Works Richmond, VA, April 1865
Above: Charleston, South
Carolina
Right: Atlanta, Georgia
The Defeated South
Q: Based upon your observations of the map below, how were the North
and the South effected differently as a result of the Civil War?
A: Because the majority of battles took place in the South, many
Southern houses, farms, bridges, and railroads were destroyed.
 The Civil War was the most costly war in American History in
terms of total devastation.
 At least 618,000 Americans died in the Civil War, and some
experts say the toll reached 700,000.
 These casualties exceed the nation's loss in all its other wars,
from the Revolution through Vietnam.
300,000
250,000
200,000
North
South
150,000
100,000
50,000
0
Battle
Sickness
Railroads, bridges,
plantations, and crops had
been destroyed.
 “With malice towards none; with charity for all; with
firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right,
let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up
the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have
borne the battle, and for his widow and orphan… to do
all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting
peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
10% Plan
President Lincoln’s Plan
 10% Plan
*
Proclamation of Amnesty and
Reconstruction (December 8, 1863)
*
Replace majority rule with “loyal rule” in
the South.
*
He didn’t consult Congress regarding
Reconstruction.
*
*
Pardon to all but the highest ranking
military and civilian Confederate
officers.
When 10% of the voting population in
the 1860 election had taken an oath of
loyalty and established a government, it
would be recognized.
President Lincoln’s Plan
1864  “Lincoln Governments”
formed in LA, TN, AR
*
*
“loyal assemblies”
They were weak and
dependent on the
Northern army for
their survival.
Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
 Required 50% of the number
of 1860 voters to take an
“iron clad” oath of allegiance
(swearing they had never
voluntarily aided the
rebellion ).
Senator
Benjamin
Wade
(R-OH)
 Required a state
constitutional convention
before the election of state
officials.
 Enacted specific safeguards
of freedmen’s liberties.
Congressman
Henry
W. Davis
(R-MD)
Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
 “Iron-Clad” Oath.
 “State Suicide” Theory [MA Senator
Charles Sumner]
 “Conquered Provinces” Position
[PA Congressman Thaddeus Stevens]
President
Lincoln
Pocket
Veto
Wade-Davis
Bill
President Andrew Johnson
 Jacksonian Democrat.
 Anti-Aristocrat.
 White Supremacist.
 Agreed with Lincoln
that states had never
legally left the Union.
Damn the negroes! I am
fighting these traitorous
aristocrats, their masters!
President Johnson’s Plan (10%+)
 Offered amnesty upon simple oath to all except
Confederate civil and military officers and those with
property over $20,000 (they could apply directly to
Johnson)
 In new constitutions, they must accept minimum
conditions repudiating slavery, secession and state debts.
 Named provisional governors in Confederate states and
called them to oversee elections for constitutional
conventions.
1. Disenfranchised certain leading Confederates.
EFFECTS?
2. Pardoned planter aristocrats brought them back
to political power to control state organizations.
3. Republicans were outraged that planter elite
were back in power in the South!
Growing Northern Alarm!
 Many Southern state
constitutions fell short of
minimum requirements.
 Johnson granted 13,500 special
pardons.
 Revival of southern defiance.
BLACK CODES
Johnson the Martyr / Samson
If my blood is to be shed
because I vindicate the
Union and the preservation
of this government in its
original purity and character,
let it be shed; let an altar to
the Union be erected, and
then, if it is necessary, take
me and lay me upon it, and
the blood that now warms
and animates my existence
shall be poured out as a fit
libation to the Union.
(February 1866)
“Andrew
Johnson
Mends the
Union”
 Radical Republicans wanted to make the
southerners pay for the war they had caused
 Outspoken proponents for the hard line
against the South
 Thaddeus Stevens – leader in the House
 Charles Sumner – leader in the Senate
 Benjamin Davis
 Henry Davis
Radical Plan for Readmission
 Civil authorities in the territories were
subject to military supervision.
 Required new state constitutions,
including
black suffrage and ratification of the 13th
and 14th Amendments.
 In March, 1867, Congress passed an act
that authorized the military to enroll
eligible black voters and begin the
process of constitution making.
Congress Breaks with the President
 Congress bars Southern
Congressional delegates.
 Joint Committee on
Reconstruction created.
 February, 1866  President
vetoed the Freedmen’s
Bureau bill.
 March, 1866  Johnson
vetoed the 1866 Civil Rights Act.
 Congress passed both bills over
Johnson’s vetoes  1st in
U. S. history!!
The 1866 Bi-Election
 A referendum on Radical Reconstruction.
 Johnson made an ill-conceived propaganda
tour around the country to push his plan.
 Republicans
won a 3-1
majority in
both houses
and gained
control of
every northern
state.
Johnson’s “Swing around
the Circle”
Radical Plan for Readmission
 Civil authorities in the territories were
subject to military supervision.
 Required new state constitutions,
including
black suffrage and ratification of the 13th
and 14th Amendments.
 In March, 1867, Congress passed an act
that authorized the military to enroll
eligible black voters and begin the
process of constitution making.
The Republicans, unlike Johnson, wanted to be very
hard on the rebellious southern states. They organize
the south up into 5 military districts each controlled
by a former Civil War General.
Radical Republicans - members of the Republican party that believed
that Pres. Johnson was too lenient on the South.
13th Amendment
 Ratified in December, 1865.
 Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
except as punishment for crime whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted, shall
exist within the United States or any place
subject to their jurisdiction.
 Congress shall have power to enforce this
article by appropriate legislation.
th
14
Amendment
 Ratified in July, 1868.
*
Provide a constitutional guarantee of the rights
and security of freed people.
*
Insure against neo-Confederate political power.
*
Enshrine the national debt while repudiating
that of the Confederacy.
 Southern states would be punished for
denying the right to vote to black citizens!
15th Amendment
 Ratified in 1870.
 The right of citizens of the United States to vote
shall not be denied or abridged by the United
States or by any state on account of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude.
 The Congress shall have power to enforce this
article by appropriate legislation.
 Women’s rights groups were furious that they
were not granted the vote!
The Balance of Power in Congress
State
White Citizens
Freedmen
SC
291,000
411,000
MS
353,000
436,000
LA
357,000
350,000
GA
591,000
465,000
AL
596,000
437,000
VA
719,000
533,000
NC
631,000
331,000
Millions of
freed slaves
needed
housing,
clothing,
food, and
jobs.
Banks were closed.
Confederate money had no
value.
A Cycle of Poverty
· Some Radical Republicans wanted to give each freedman “40 acres and
a mule”. However, all the freedmen were given was their freedom.
Sharecropper - farmer who works part of the land and gives the
landowner part of the harvest
Southern sharecropper picking cotton.
Sharecropping
How did sharecropping work?
· Freedmen would farm land belonging to white owners, oftentimes their
old masters.
Plantation
Land worked by
sharecroppers.
· Freedmen would pay rent for the land they farmed by giving the
landowner a percentage of their crops.
· In addition, freedmen would purchase seed, tools, and other supplies
from the landowner.
* As a result, freedmen were in constant debt to the landowners and
were never able to earn a profit. If they tried to move, they could be
arrested. Therefore, freedmen became tied down to the land, in a state
similar to slavery.
Terrorist Groups
 Reconstruction brought
violent opposition throughout
the South.
 The KKK and similar
organizations wanted to restore
the old political order.
 Their methods included
threats, house burnings, and
killings against not only blacks
but whites as well.
 State governments were unable
to control violence.
Enforcement Acts
 Three Enforcement Acts were
passed, setting heavy penalties
for anyone attempting to
prevent a qualified person from
voting.
 They banned the use of
disguises and gave the army
and federal courts power to
capture and punish KKK
members.
 While the KKK was soon
brought under control, other
groups continued to operate.
1864
1868
“Tis But a Change of Banners”
 Kept the African Americans “down”
 Made sure that there was still a stable supply of labor
even though the slaves had been emancipated
 Was almost like slavery again
 Forced many of the newly freed slaves into
sharecropping
 African Americans were forbidden from:




Voting
Serving on juries
Owning guns
Running for political office
Jim Crow Laws - laws passed by
southerners to segregate public
places, such as schools,
restaurants, theaters, trains,
hospitals, water fountains, and
cemeteries.
The "Jim Crow" figure was a fixture of
the minstrel shows that toured the
South; a white man made up as a
black man sang and mimicked
stereotypical behavior in the name of
comedy.
Jump Jim Crow, Bob Ekstrand, 2:05
Get Off the Sidewalk Charles Gratton,
2:17
Sample Jim Crow Laws
Florida: The schools for white children and the schools for negro
children shall be conducted separately.
Virginia: Any public hall, theatre, opera house, motion picture show or
place of public entertainment which is attended by both white and
colored persons shall separate the white race and the colored race.
Maryland: All railroad companies are hereby required to provide
separate cars or coaches for the travel and transportation of the white and
colored passengers.
Louisiana: Any person...who shall rent any part of any such building to
a negro person or a negro family when such building is already in whole
or in part in occupancy by a white person or white family shall be guilty
of a misdemeanor.
Florida: All marriages between a white person and a negro, or between a
white person and a person of negro descent to the fourth generation
inclusive, are hereby forever prohibited.
The “Invisible Empire of the South”
Ku Klux Klan - secret group set up in the South after the Civil War.
Members terrorized primarily African-Americans, but they targeted
Catholics and Jews as well.
Separate but Equal?
Plessy v. Ferguson - The Supreme
Court ruled that segregation was
legal as long as facilities were
“separate but equal”.
This cause came on to be heard
on the transcript of the record
from the Supreme Court of the
State of Louisiana, and was
argued by counsel.
On consideration whereof, It is
now here ordered and adjudged
by this Court that the judgement
of the said Supreme Court, in
this cause, be and the same is
hereby, affirmed with costs.
Separate But Not Equal
Voting Restrictions:
· Poll taxes and literacy tests were used to prevent freedmen from voting.
Freedmen’s Bureau School
Freedmen’s Bureau
· The Freedmen’s Bureau provided food, clothing, jobs, medical care,
and education for millions of former slaves and poor whites.
A teacher and elementary school students posing on the steps of the Hill
School, ca. late 19th Century. The school was a part of the
Christiansburg Institute, which was first opened by the U. S. Freedmen's
Bureau in 1866. (Montgomery County, VA)
· Newly freed slaves, freedmen, had no land, jobs, or education.
Left and
right:
post-Civil
War Ohio
Atlanta, GA
 Carpetbaggers: northerners who moved to the
South after the war and entered politics.
 Brief History of Carpetbags and Carpetbaggers
 With the rapid expansion of railroads in the 1840’s and 1850’s . Ordinary people
were traveling in large numbers, and there was an need for cheap luggage ,so
thousands of carpetbags were manufactured. They were made by saddle makers
in many town and cities and were many sizes and shape. They were called
Carpetbags because the makers would buy old carpets and construct the bags
from the pieces of carpet that were not completely worn out. This how Carpet
bags could be manufactured cheaply , they sold in Dry Goods for $1 to $2. By the
1860’s carpetbags were carried by all most everyone, Men, Women, well to do ,
middle class and not so well to do. Carpetbags were the first suitcases made in
large numbers. When you traveled during the Civil War (1861-1865) and though
the 1870, you packed your Carpetbag . This became a way to identify an outsider
(traveler).
 During the civil war Reconstruction Period (1865-1870) many people for the
Northern States went South because it was so poor that there many
opportunities for a person with money even a little money. For example you
could own a farm by paying the past due taxes for as little as $25. These
Opportunities attacked all sorts people from honest hard working farmers, to
crooks, charlatans, con artist and of course crooked politicians. All these
outsiders (identified by their Carpetbag) were called Carpetbaggers and still are
in many places. It became the term to refer to a Yankee who moved to the south
and usually meant a “damn Yankee and not to be trusted, a scoundrel”. Probably
the worst Carpetbaggers were the politicians who used their positions in the
corrupt Reconstruction Government to enrich themselves through bribes, graft
and other despicable acts at the expense of native Southerners. Today the
dictionary defines a Carpetbagger as “ an outsider involved in politics”.
 Scalawags: southern white Republicans after the
Civil War.
 Origin of term scalawag: Pre-l865: inferior cattle
or ponies, vagabond or menial servant, mean
fellow, loafer, blackguard, scamp. Use in l87l:
"scaly sheep" in testimony by Alabama Democrat
before congressional committee.
 Treatment of scalawags: criticized, scorned,
hated, ostracized, attacked.
 Myths about scalawags:
 Poor, illiterate north Alabama small farmers.
 No antebellum political experience.
 Rabid Unionists at time of secession.
 Gained few political offices.
The truth about scalawags:
Held majority of Republican postwar state political offices.
Majority were college-educated lawyers.
Many were wealthy planters; all kinds of farmers represented.
Prewar judges, legislators, members of national political
conventions, and local office holders were all counted as
scalawags.
 Both ex-Confederates and former Unionists became
Republicans. They did so because:





 They recognized Republicans were the dominant political party when
they saw the growth of support for the party after Republican victory on
the national level in l868.
 Some were idealistic, wanting to improve economic life in the South or
to improve the lot of blacks.
Scalawags
 Scalawag was the name given to
southerners who supported the
shift in power to Congress and
the army.
 Many were farmers who had
never owned slaves.
 Some joined the Republicans to
prevent the planter class from
returning to power; others were
southerners ruined by the war;
still others wanted to end the
dependence on plantation
agriculture.
Carpetbaggers
 The scalawags allied with
carpetbaggers, northerners who
came south to take part in the
region’s political and economic
rebirth.
 Scorned as low-class persons
who could carry their
belongings in a carpetbag,
many were educated and came
from a variety of backgrounds.
 Many bought abandoned land
cheaply or formed partnerships
with planters.
· Southerners could
now vote again, and
federal troops were
removed from the
South.
Supreme
Court
decisions
Redeeming
the South
The election
of 1876
Three Supreme Court decisions seriously weakened
the goals and operations of Reconstruction. The
Slaughterhouse Cases, United States v.
Cruikshank, and United States v. Reese served to
limit the impact of the 14th and 15th Amendments.
Violence increased, and southern Democrats grew
stronger and bolder. Grant refused assistance since
the northern public was “tired out” by South’s
continuing problems. By 1876 Redeemers had
won back almost all of the states.
The presidential election was disputed with charges
of massive voting fraud. With the Compromise of
1877 Republicans agreed to withdraw federal
troops in the South, and in return, Rutherford B.
Hayes became president.
The 14th and 15th Amendments began permanent changes
across the United States. Former slaves were now citizens
with voting rights.
The New South was becoming industrial, but in many ways
it remained the same. White southerners deeply resented
that the federal government controlled their states.
For a century after Reconstruction ended, the South was
know as the Solid South, always voting Democratic. It was
not until the 1970s that the Republican Party was able to
gain ground in the South.