Mo Review
• What was Reconstruction?
• How did some Northerners disagree over the nature of
Reconstruction?
• Was Presidential Reconstruction hard or easy on the South?
• Describe Presidential Reconstruction.
• What were some good things about Presidential Reconstruction?
• What were some bad things about Presidential Reconstruction?
• Why might some people in the North not like Presidential
Reconstruction?
Review
• Was Congressional Reconstruction easy or hard on the
South?
• Describe Congressional Reconstruction.
• Why might some people in the South not like
Congressional Reconstruction?
• What were the 13th , 14th and 15th amendments to the
Constitution?
• What were the Black Codes and why did they make the
Radical Republicans mad?
• Why was President Andrew Johnson impeached?
Today’s Objectives
• How white southerners respond to
Congressional (or radical) Reconstruction.
• How white southerners prevented blacks from
voting in the South.
• How and why the KKK was formed.
• How and why Reconstruction came to an end.
Southern Reaction to
Reconstruction
South during Reconstruction
• ¼ of whites can’t vote.
• Many African American elected to state
legislatures.
• Also 20 in House of Reps. & 2 in Senate.
• Never a majority.
Freedmen in Govt.
• Try to implement
ambitious program:
public schools, internal
improvements, poor
relief, etc.
• Massive increase in
spending.
• Lots of corruption (also in
North).
White Southerners’ Spin
• “Bayonet Rule”
• Incompetent Blacks
are running things.
• Corrupt
“Carpetbaggers” taking
advantage of the
situation.
Southern Terms during
Reconstruction
• Scalawags = Southerners who go along with
Reconstruction.
• Carpetbaggers = Northerners who came down
to the South to participate in Reconstruction or
take advantage of the South while it was down.
• Redeemers = Southerners who sought to make
the South how it had been.
Carpetbagger
The Birth of the KKK
• Ku Klux Klan = A white
Supremacist organization
organized to terrorize
Freedmen.
• Founded in 1866 in
Tennessee.
• Originally organized by
ex-confederate soldiers.
Sharecropping
• Economic system in the South that replaces slavery.
• Former plantation owners agree to let Freedmen farm on
their land in return for a portion of what they grow.
• Problem is, that to get started, Freedmen need to borrow
seeds, supplies, food, etc. (the Plantation owner usually
provided these things too).
• The Freedmen, therefore, started in debt and never
really got out.
How Redeemers Regain political
Control of the South.
• Southerners who oppose
Reconstruction are in the
Democratic Party—Why?
• KKK used violence to
keep many Freedmen
(and white Republicans)
from voting.
• Redeemers come up with
literacy tests, poll taxes,
and Grandfather Laws to
get around the 15thAmendment and prevent
Freedmen from voting.
• Use violence/poll-taxes/literacy tests,
eventually keeps many blacks and
carpetbaggers from voting.
• By 1872, almost all whites could vote
again.
• By 1874, all but 3 southern states had
been “redeemed.”
The End of Reconstruction
• By 1877, Democrats had regained control of all of the
Southern state Governments.
• People in the North have grown tired of Reconstruction.
• Corruption scandals hurt the Republican party.
• The Presidential election of 1876—between Rutherford
B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden--is disputed.
• Democrats agree to let Hayes (a Republican) win if he
agrees to remove the troops from the South.
South after Reconstruction
• Called the “New South”
• Most blacks can’t vote.
• Most blacks are poor sharecroppers.
• Almost all whites are Democrats (the “Solid South”).
• Segregation beings —separate facilities for blacks and
whites (Jim Crow Laws).
Review
• What was the cause of the sectional tension
between the North and the South that eventually
led to the Civil War?
• Who won the Civil War?
• Who was President of the North?
• Who was President of the South?
• Who were “scalawags”?
• Who were “Redeemers”?
• Who were “Carpetbaggers”?
• Who were the KKK?
• How did the Redeemers regain control of
southern state governments?
• What was the controversy surrounding the
presidential election of 1876?
• How did the election of 1876 officially end
reconstruction?
• Describe the South after Reconstruction
ended?
• Was Reconstruction a success or failure?
KKK