Tragic failure of Reconstruction
Criteria for success:
Reconcile Southerners to defeat
Reestablish state governments/representation
Punish the south?
Role of freedmen in society
(Radical spectrum inc. Stevens/Sumner)
Reintegrate South into national economy (textile-munitions-textile)
Disabled/widows/orphans (n/s split)
Political viability – if you lose power, you can’t implement any plan
No plan giving rights to Freedmen is viable due to economic interests.
Eric Foner: Reconstruction
Beardian - Review approaches to historiography
Affective Teaching:
Literacy Tests?
Group plan activity set up for failure?
Why be affective. Can Caucasians understand the tragedy of Reconstruction intellectually?
Pair plan summaries: Lincoln/Johnson/Congress
Lincoln’s death: political opportunity
Charity/No malice
Ten percent
Secession null since unconstitutional
Unclear on Freedmen
No A.H.H. Stevens
Johnson: Psychology/temperment
Poor white from Tenessee: Virulently racist
Enjoys pardoning upper class plantation owners who must grovel for his indulgence
Whistle-stop tour – Swing ‘Round the Circle
Impeachment
Marginilization (Clinton comparison)
Reign of the Major Generals
13/14/15 Amendments
State suicide theory - Hypocritical
Radicals use majority’s desire to punish the South to advance Freedmen’s rights
Various motivations of Radicals. Some believe in equality. For most, it is tactical because Blacks
will vote Republican.
Confederate debt?
Conflicting Goals of Electorate
Reinforce that we live in a Democracy
Without re-election, no plan can succeed
Most Evangelical radicals of North satisfied with end of slavery; do not desire equality
Goals of Middle Class/Capitalist Class of North
Get cotton flowing as necessity for strong economy
Lower taxes
Scale back power of government (no seizure of property)
Goals of factory workers (Healy’s class review: Proletariat)
Get cotton flowing as necessity for strong economy (read: jobs)
Do not want Blacks to compete for labor: will drive down wages
Wages of whiteness
Goals of Northwest farmers:
Get cotton flowing as necessity for strong economy (so North can afford to buy grain)
Do not want Blacks to grow food crops as supply/demand will drive down prices
Lower taxes
Scale back power of government (no seizure of property)
Goals of Union veterans/widows/orphans
Benefits for themselves (higher government expenditure)
Punishment of south (also part of other Northern groups to a greater or lesser extent)
Goals of plantation owners
Maintain social hegemony
Preserve wealth
Have Union pay Confederate war debt
Need a labor source to grow cotton (force blacks to work, slave or not)
Preserve religion of the South
Low taxes
Goals of poor whites:
Control blacks (fear from Turner’s rebellion) and protect white women and children from rapine violence
Revive economy; repair destruction of South (make Union pay)
Preserve white supremacy (wages of whiteness)
Preserve Southern religion
Preserve power of plantation class as traditional leaders
Have Union pay for Confederate veterans, widows, orphans
Goals of Confederate veterans/widows/orphans
Pensions for themselves
Seething rage over the destruction and loss of life – somewhat undirected
Freedmen’s goals:
LAND: If land: what will they grow?
Want to farm: food, not cotton
(failure of 40 acres and a mule)
Access to education
Freedom to create own religion
Reunite with/build family
Move for jobs?
Economic threat to factory workers, factory owners, Northwestern farmers. High taxes needed to support
occupation of South.
Erodes support for reconstruction. Further eroded by increased emphasis on material wealth during
the birth pangs of the gilded age.
Southern resistance – outlasts the occupation (Cultural resistance to invading force. Can one make an
analogy with Iraq?)
Forrest/KKK: cultural roots of cross-burning and lynching
Compare to Sons of Liberty
Jury nullification
Scalawags – traitors to the race?
Loss of radical power
Election of 1876
Compromise (Finishes work of Medill Tariff Act in linking Republicanism with big business.
Redeemer governments
Black Codes
Vagrancy
Evasions of 15th Amendment
Literacy Test - Poll Tax - Grandfather Clause
Plessy v. Ferguson: Separate but equal: Jim Crow is constitutional until Brown v. Board in 1954