From Slavery to Freedom
th
9 ed.
Chapter 11
Promises and Pitfalls of
Reconstruction
Enfranchisement of
African Americans
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Presidential Reconstruction
 Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan
 Conflict between President and Congress over
who was to set conditions of South’s readmission
 Lincoln’s plan allowed states to be readmitted if one-
tenth of eligible voters swore loyalty to the U.S. and
accepted abolition of slavery; gave general amnesty to
certain high-ranking civil and military officers
 Criticized by some members of Congress as too lenient
 Also disagreed over status of freedpeople
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Presidential Reconstruction
 Andrew Johnson’s Policies
 Conflict between two branches continued after
Andrew Johnson became president
 Johnson wanted to leave black suffrage up to the
states and began to dictate Reconstruction policy
 Extended general amnesty; seen as a champion
of the South
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 Black Codes
 Southern states began to pass laws that curbed
black freedom and bore resemblance to the Slave
Codes © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Presidential Reconstruction
 In 1865, the South elected many Confederate
leaders to represent them in Congress
 Republicans under Thaddeus Stevens argued that
Congress should take over Reconstruction
 Joint Committee on Reconstruction
 Congress Takes Charge
 Conditions for freedpeople terrible; southern
whites waging a kind of guerilla warfare on
blacks
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Selling a freedman to pay his fine at
Monticello, Florida
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Presidential Reconstruction
 1866, Congress passed Civil Rights Act over
Johnson’s veto
 Gave federal statutory protection against the Black
Codes
 Different northern interests began to promote the
enfranchisement of black men
 Fight between Congress and President continued
 Johnson eventually repudiated at polls because
of his conduct
 “Swing around the circle”
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Presidential Reconstruction
 The Black Conventions
 Blacks politically mobilized against presidential
Reconstruction
 Statewide conventions in South convened in 1865-6
 Demanded “Equal Rights before the Law”
 Black Mobilization
 Churches and fraternal societies provided
infrastructure for political activism in southern
cities
 Mobilization more advanced in places where
federal troops remained the longest
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Radical Reconstruction
 Radical Reconstruction
 Reconstruction Act of 1867
 Ex-Confederate states divided into five military
districts under martial law
 Each state required to hold a constitutional convention
based on universal male suffrage
 All states required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment
before admittance

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Some condemned gendered language; fought for universal
suffrage
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Radical Reconstruction
 New National Officials
 Fifteenth Amendment extended suffrage to black
men creating a black electorate in the former
Confederacy
 Two African Americans sent to the U.S. Senate
 Hiram Revels
 Blanche K. Bruce
 Twenty blacks served in the U.S. House between
1877 and 1901
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The first black senators and representatives, in the FortyFirst and Forty-Second Congress of the United States
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Radical Reconstruction
 Blacks as State Legislators
 Blacks served with varying success as state
legislators
 Wielded greatest influence in South Carolina
 The Union League
 Became spearhead for Southern Republicanism
during Reconstruction
 Depended on black men for bulk of Republican
strength
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Radical Reconstruction
 Black Women and the Black Community
 Black women active in “getting out the vote” and
vocal in political discussion
 Civil Rights Act of 1875 clarified rights of
African Americans to freely use public
accommodations
 Declared unconstitutional in 1883
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Robert Brown Elliott speaking before Congress
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The Social Consequences of the War
 The Freedmen’s Bureau
 Responsible for relief and rehabilitation
programs for the newly emancipated
 Provided food and medical services, established
schools, supervised contracts, managed land
 First large-scale federal welfare program
 The Pivotal Role of Education
 Most saw education as key
 Bureau worked with private northern institutions
and established black educators
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The Social Consequences of the War
 Educators, Black and White
 Teachers came from North; many were
missionaries; number of black teachers steadily
increased
 By 1870, task of education completely
transferred to local communities and religious
organizations
 Black Churches
 Offered spiritual and material relief
 First social institutions fully controlled by blacks
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Economic Adjustment
 The Desire for Land
 Ex-slaves resisted signing labor contracts,
fearing a new form of enslavement
 Saw landownership as a source of economic
independence; landownership considered more
favorable than wage labor
 Southern Homestead Act of 1866
 Blacks still prevented from landownership by white
hostility
 By 1870s, many abandoned landownership dreams to
move to urban centers
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Economic Adjustment
 Women in the Labor Market
 Attempt to withdraw black females and children
from labor market had economic consequences
 Contributed to decline in per capita production
 Black males took on new assertive role as
representatives of their families
 Evidenced by the gender differences in dealings with
Freedmen’s Bureau
 Many whites did not think black women should
have same fashion and leisure styles as whites
 Lambasted if wore fashionable attire
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Economic Adjustment
 Majority of black women, however, worked,
primarily in the fields
 Changing Conditions of Farm Labor
 Blacks resisted conditions placed on agricultural
workers
 Overall per capita labor hours reduced by
one-third
 Incentives and flexibility were provided to
blacks to meet urgent labor needs
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Upland Cotton
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Economic Adjustment
 Sharecropping
 Sharecropping a “compromise” between
planters’ need for stability and control over
agricultural production and freedpeoples’ need
for less risk in economic compensation
 Flawed system; most sharecroppers assumed
great debt due to cost of maintenance
 Under this system, white South recovered more
quickly than freed blacks
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Economic Adjustment
 The Freedmen’s Bank
 Chartered by federal government for use by
blacks; encouraged blacks to save money
 Some of its financiers acted unscrupulously
 Frederick Douglass unable to save it; closed in
1874
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Reconstruction’s End
 Reconstruction’s End
 Democratic party revived in South after general
amnesty given to most ex-Confederates
 The Reign of Violence
 White supremacist secret societies grew
 Used legal and extra-legal means to deny blacks
equality
 Camelias and Klan most powerful; used violent
means to stop blacks from participating in
politics
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Reconstruction’s End
 Efforts to outlaw organizations and stop the
violence were unsuccessful
 Societies had success in influencing politics
 Mississippi
 Louisiana
 South Carolina
 Despite black defiance to the intimidation, blacks
began to stay at home and political power shifted
to the Democrats
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Reconstruction’s End
 Corruption in Republican Governments
 Republican corruption hastened end of Radical
Reconstruction
 Following deaths of old antislavery leaders,
Republican Party headed in new direction
 Supreme Court Decisions
 1875 Supreme Court decisions weakened black
voting rights
 United States v. Cruikshank
 United States v. Reese
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Reconstruction’s End
 The Campaign of 1876
 Controversy over who won 1876 election led to
formation of commission charged with deciding
the presidency
 To break impasse, Republicans promised to
withdraw troops; assist South with obtaining
federal subsidies; and allow for better
representation in Washington
 Rutherford B. Hayes declared winner
 Withdrew federal troops while Congress removed
other restrictions
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