Reconstruction
From Slavery to Emancipation:

The Civil War was not
originally about freeing the
slaves

“If I could save the Union by
keeping slavery, I would. If I
could save the Union by
freeing slaves, I would. My
goal is to save the Union”

Fighting for freedom became
a primary goal
Learning Target

Using your Chapter 22 Reading Guide and
lecture notes, analyze multiple strengths
and weaknesses of the Reconstruction effort
by the North and South during the years
following the Civil War.
African Americans Are Free!!!,
sort of…

Lincoln issues the Emancipation
Proclamation

Frees slaves in the Southern
States, which he does not have the
power to do

Does not free the slaves in the
border states, even though he
would have the power to do so

Needs the Border States for
support
Slavery is Dead?
Extensive Legislation Passed
Without the South in Congress

1861 – Morrill Tariff Act

1862 – Homestead Act

1862 – Morrill Land Grant Act

1862 – Emancipation Proclamation

1863 – Pacific Railway Act

1863 – National Bank Act
Reconstruction
1865-1876
Key Questions
1. How do we
bring the South
back into the
Union?
2. How do we
rebuild the
South after its
destruction
during the war?
4. What branch
of government
should control
the process of
Reconstruction?
3. How do we
integrate and
protect newlyemancipated
black freedmen?
Wartime Reconstruction
Lincoln/Johnson vs Radical Republicans
10% Plan
10 % + Plan
Radical Republican Congress
Accomplishments of the Radical
Republicans in Congress
Freedmen’s Bureau (1865)




Radicals in Congress created in 1865 to
help ex-slaves (early welfare agency)
Gave food, clothing, medical care, &
education for blacks and white refugees
Educated 200,00 African Americans to
read.
Called “carpetbaggers” by white
southern Democrats.
New Rights for African Americans

13th,14th, and 15th
Amendments gave African
Americans new rights

African Americans
became citizens, slavery
was outlawed, the right to
vote, the right to public
accommodations (hotels
and trains)

Shortly after the war,
Grant became President.
He won by 300,000 votes,
of which 700,000 African
Americans voted for him
• Blacks eagerly set up their own
schools, churches, and businesses
• Two Senators, 20 Congressmen,
hundreds of State Legislators
th
13
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 (abolished slavery).
 Congress shall have power to enforce
this article by appropriate legislation.
14th Amendment
 Ratified in July, 1868.
*
Equal rights among all citizens of our
country
*
It is illegal to discriminate
15th Amendment
 African American males now have the
right to vote – sort of.
*
Provides the opportunity for states to make
their own voting regulations
*
Poll tax
*
Literacy tests
*
Grandfather Clauses
*
Must own property
Radical Reconstruction Acts of 1867

Tenure of Office Act

The President could not
remove
any officials [esp. Cabinet
members] without the Senate’s
consent, if the position
originally required Senate
approval.

Designed to protect radical
members of Lincoln’s
government.
Radicals Impeach President Johnson
11 week
trial
Johnson
agreed to
stop fighting
Radicals if he
could stay in
office.
Johnson
acquitted
35 to 19
(one
short of
required
2/3s
vote)
Group Question

# 3 How did the white South’s
uncompromising spirit and President
Johnson’s political bungling open the way
for the Congressional Republican program
of Military Reconstruction?
Radical Reconstruction Acts of 1867

Military Reconstruction Act
Restart Reconstruction in the 10 Southern states
that refused to ratify the 14th Amendment.
 Divide the 10 “unreconstructed states” into 5
military districts.

Reconstruction Comes to an End

1873 Economic Depression

1874 Democrats become majority party in House
of Representatives (southern pop grew due to exslaves counted in pop)

Republicans Control the Senate

1876 Samuel J. Tilden (Dem) and Rutherford B.
Hayes (Rep) both claim victory in presidential
election

Compromise of 1877 Hayes becomes president if
he removes remaining troops from the South to
Compromise of 1877
Group Question

# 4 What was the purpose of Congressional
Reconstruction, and what were it’s actual
effects on the South?

Purpose:
*
*
*
*
Black Codes
Guarantee stable subservient
cheap labor supply now that
blacks were emancipated.
Restore pre-emancipation
system of race relations.
Blacks couldn’t serve on a
jury, rent or lease land, and
couldn’t be idle.
Forced many blacks to
become sharecroppers
No money, no land
rent is paid by working someone else’s
land and paying with crops
At harvest time,
sharecroppers cannot cover their debt
sharecropper
cannot leave the farm until debt is paid
JIM CROW LAWS
• Jim Crow was the name of a song and
dance performer
• A white man who put on black face and
then acted “black” It was a very popular
show for decades
• Jim Crow laws were laws that
discriminated against AA’s
• Segregation in housing, schooling, and
public facilities (transportation, hospitals,
trains, etc.)
Segregation – separating
on the basis of race

Impact of 1896 landmark
Supreme Court Case Plessy v
Ferguson

African Americans had
separate schools,
transportation, restaurants,
and parks, many of which
were poorly funded and
inferior to those of whites.
Belzoni, Mississippi Delta, Mississippi
Roadblocks to Integration

Intense racism
continued

New rules went largely
unenforced by State
and Federal
Governments

Emergence and
acceptance of the Ku
Klux Klan (KKK)
African Americans in the early 1900s: “I am tired of being
poor. I am tired of being lynched. I am tired of the South.
I am going to move North!
This movement of African Americans became known as the “Great Migration.”
Many African Americans headed towards New York and in time started a cultural
movement called the Harlem Renaissance.
Group Question
•# 5 Why did Reconstruction apparently fail
so badly? Was the failure primarily one of
immediate political circumstances, or was it
more deeply rooted in the history of American
sectional and race relations?