The Ordeal of Reconstruction,
1865–1877
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural
• March 4, 1865
• Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that
this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass
away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the
wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and
fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and
until every drop of blood drawn with the lash
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as
was said three thousand years ago, so still it must
be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and
righteous altogether.”
• With malice toward 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 his orphan, to do all
which may achieve and cherish a just and
lasting peace among ourselves and with all
nations.
• April 1865- Lee surrendered to Grant at
Appomattox Courthouse
• April 14, 1865- Lincoln was assassinated by
John Wilkes Booth
• Andrew Johnson became President
• Johnson pardoned all rebel leaders in 1868
Freedmen Define Freedom
• Many southerners tried to resist emancipation
through various means
• Northern soldiers enforced emancipation
• Many former slaves took advantage of their
new-found freedom, leaving their former
masters
• Baptist and African Methodist Episcopal
Churches increased dramatically in size
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The Freedmen’s Bureau
• March 3, 1865
• Led by Oliver O. Howard, a Union general
• Its goal was to provide food, clothing, medical
care, and education to freedmen
• 200,000 educated
• Bureau not as successful in distributing land to
former slaves
• Expired in 1872
Andrew Johnson
• Democrat
• Refused to secede when his state, Tennessee,
did so
• When Union armies took over Tennessee, he
became war governor
• He was a champion of both states’ rights and
the Constitution
p470
Presidential Reconstruction
• Lincoln operated under the assumption that
the Southern states had never left the Union
• Lincoln’s “10 percent” Reconstruction plan
• A state should be reintegrated into the Union
when 10% of its voters in the presidential
election of 1860 had taken an oath of
allegiance to the U.S. and pledged to abide by
emancipation
• Republicans in Congress feared the restoration
of the planter aristocracy
• Wade-Davis Bill (1864)- required 50% of a
state’s voters to take the oath and demanded
stronger safeguards for emancipation
• Lincoln pocket-vetoed it
• Radical Congressional Republicans believed
the Southern states had left the Union and
forfeited all of their rights
• They should be readmitted only as
“conquered provinces”
• They wanted the planter aristocracy destroyed
and freed blacks protected by federal power
Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan
• May 29, 1865
• Leading Confederates were disfranchised
(they could petition for pardons)
• Special state conventions would have to be
held to repeal ordinances of secession,
repudiate all Confederate debts, and ratify the
13th Amendment
Stages of Reconstruction
• Presidential Reconstruction ended in 1866
– 11 Southern states had been readmitted; exConfederates had been returned to power; Black
Codes had begun to be passed
• Congressional Reconstruction- 1866-1867
– Reaction to what were seen as overly lenient
policies by Johnson
– Harsher policies toward Southern whites and
greater protections for African Americans
– Civil Rights Act of 1866
-Fourteenth Amendment passed by Congress
-Joint Committee- June 1866- issued a report
recommending that the former Confederate
states were not yet entitled to representation in
Congress
• Radical Reconstruction- 1867-1877
-Reconstruction Act of 1867
-Civil Rights Act of 1875
-guaranteed equal accommodations in public
places- poorly enforced
Table 22-1 p471
Black Codes
• First passed in Mississippi in November 1865
• Designed to ensure a stable and subservient
labor force
• Harsh penalties on those who broke their
labor contracts
• Laws prevented blacks from voting and
serving on a jury
• . . . the said Cooper Hughs Freedman with his
wife and one other woman, and the said Charles
Roberts with his wife Hannah and one boy are to
work on said farm and to cultivate forty acres in
corn and twenty acres in cotton, to assist in
putting the fences on said farm in good order and
to keep them so and to do all other work on said
farm necessary to be done to keep the same in
good order and to raise a good crop and to be
under the control and directions of said IG Bailey
and to receive for their said services one half of
the cotton and one third of the corn and fodder
raised by them on said farm in said year 1867. . .
– Contract between I.G. Bailey and Cooper Hughs and
Charles Roberts, January 1, 1867
• Many blacks and poor whites became
sharecroppers
p472
• Alexander Stephens, the former vice-president
of the Confederacy, and other Confederates
entered Congress representing the newly
reconstituted Southern states (many as
Democrats)
• African Americans in the South now counted
as a person (as opposed to 3/5ths) when
apportioning representation in the House and
the Electoral College
• December 6, 1865- Johnson declared that the
Southern states had satisfied his conditions
and that the Union was restored
• February 1866- Johnson vetoed a bill to
extend the existence of the Freedmen’s
Bureau (it was later repassed)
p473
Congressional Reconstruction
• March 1866- Congressional Republicans
passed the Civil Rights Bill
• Gave African Americans the privileges of
American citizenship
• Johnson vetoed the bill on Constitutional
grounds, but his veto was overridden
• Johnson and Congress clashed as a result of
their different views on Reconstruction
14th Amendment
• Conferred civil rights, including citizenship, on
freedmen
• Reduced the representation of a state in
Congress and in the Electoral College if it
denied African Americans the right to vote
• Disqualified from federal and state office
former Confederates
• Guaranteed the federal debt and repudiated
all Confederate debts
The Congressional Election of 1866
• Johnson hoped to gain a majority in Congress
sympathetic to his policies
• He made an unsuccessful speech tour
• Republicans won a two-thirds majority in both
houses of Congress
Radical Republicans
• Led by Charles Sumner in the Senate
– Sumner wanted freedom and racial equality
• Led by Thaddeus Stevens in the House
• Wanted to keep the Southern states out of the
Union as long as possible and use federal
power to bring about drastic social and
economic transformation
Moderate Republicans
• Accepted the principles of states’ rights and
self-government
• Wanted to restrain states from abridging
citizens’ rights
• Moderates were the majority faction
• Policies showed the influence of both factions
Radical Reconstruction/Military
Reconstruction
• March 2, 1867 Congress passed the
Reconstruction Act
• South was divided into five military districts
• Many former Confederates were temporarily
disfranchised
• The states had to ratify the Fourteenth
Amendment
Fifteenth Amendment
• 1869- passed by Congress
• 1870- ratified
• No one could be denied the right to vote
based on color
• Radical Republicans believed this was the only
way to keep Southern states from taking the
vote away from African Americans when the
states were readmitted to the Union
• Ex parte Milligan (1866)- Supreme Court ruled
that military tribunals could not try civilians
even during wartime when civilian courts
were open
• Supreme Court, however, did not oppose the
military rule set up in the South
• By 1870 all the states had reorganized with
new Republican “radical” regimes and had
their rights restored
• 1877 Federal troops left the South
• When troops left, “Redeemers” returned to
power (“Home Rule” regimes). These were
Democratic
Map 22-1 p476
Table 22-2 p477
No Women Voters
• A connection had existed between the
abolition movement and the women’s rights
movement
• After the passage of the 14th and 15th
Amendments offended many women’s rights
advocates (the 14th Amendment used the
word male when referring to a citizen’s right
to vote)
The Realities of Radical Reconstruction
in the South
• Political participation of African Americans
expanded greatly during Reconstruction
– 14 Congressmen, 2 Senators, and many in state
and local positions
• “Scalawags”- white Southerners (often former
Unionists and Whigs) who were accused of
plundering the states
• “Carpetbaggers”- Northerners who were
accused of coming to the South to seek power
and profit
Radical Regimes
• Successes: Public school, better tax systems,
public works, property rights for women
• Some regimes were corrupt (South Carolina
and Louisiana)
Hiram Revels
First African American in U.S. Senate
Blanche Bruce
First African American to serve a full
term in the U.S. Senate
p478
p479
The Ku Klux Klan
• 1866
• Terrorized African Americans and white
“carpetbaggers”
• In response, Congress passed the Force Acts of
1870 and 1871
• Around 1890 African Americans were
disfranchised through intimidation and fraud
• Literacy tests
• Poll taxes
p479
Johnson Walks the Impeachment
Plank
• 1867- Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act over
Johnson’s veto
– Required the president to get the consent of the Senate
before removing from office an appointee that had
previously been approved
• 1868- Johnson dismissed Edwin Stanton, the Secretary
of War
• House voted to impeach Johnson for “high crimes and
misdemeanors” for violating the Tenure Act. It also
charged him with actions involving “disgrace, ridicule,
hatred, contempt, and reproach”
• Johnson was found not guilty by one vote in
the Senate
• A dangerous precedent was avoided
p481
The Purchase of Alaska
• 1867- Secretary of State William Seward
signed a treaty with Russia acquiring Alaska
for $7.2 million
• He was criticized by many for the purchase
– “Seward’s Folly”
Map 22-2 p482
The Heritage of Reconstruction
• Many white Southerners resented
Reconstruction
• Benefits for African Americans in the South
proved temporary
• The Republican party vanished from the South
for almost 100 years
• Frederick Douglass on Lincoln and
Reconstruction, Matthew Pinskerhttps://www.gilderlehrman.org/multimedia?p
age=1#!60071
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