Chapter 17
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Chapter 17 Section 1
I. Reconstruction Debate (Pages 500–502)
A. Americans faced many difficult issues over how Reconstruction, or rebuilding the
South, should be carried out. Before the war was over, Lincoln proposed in 1863 the
Ten Percent Plan for accepting Southern states back into the Union. When ten percent
of the voters of a state took an oath of loyalty to the Union, the state could form a new
government and adopt a new constitution banning slavery.
1. Lincoln wanted Southerners who supported the Union to take charge of the state
governments.
2. Lincoln offered amnesty to all white Southerners who were willing to swear loyalty
to the Union, except Confederate leaders.
3. He supported giving educated African Americans or those who served in the
Union army the right to vote.
4. Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee established governments under Lincoln’s plan
in 1864. A struggle occurred when Congress refused to seat their representatives.
B. Amore radical plan proposed by Radical Republicans called for a tougher approach
to Reconstruction. The plan called for breaking up Southern institutions. Since the
Radical Republicans controlled Congress, they voted to deny seats to any state
reconstructed under Lincoln’s plan.
C. Congress developed its own harsh plan in July 1864 by passing the Wade-Davis Bill.
1. Fifty percent of white males had to swear loyalty.
2. Only white males who swore they had never fought against the Union could vote
for delegates to a state convention.
3. Former Confederates were denied the right to hold public office.
4. If a new state constitution abolishing slavery was adopted at a convention, then
the state could be readmitted to the Union.
5. Lincoln refused to sign the bill. He knew, though, that he would have to compromise
with the Radical Republicans.
D. Another difficult issue of Reconstruction was how to help freed African Americans.
Anew government agency, the Freedmen’s Bureau, was established to help former
enslaved persons. It distributed food and clothing, provided medical services, and
established schools staffed mostly by teachers from the North. It helped African
Americans buy land and get jobs and receive fair wages. It also gave aid to new
African American higher institutions of learning, such as Atlanta University, Howard
University, and Fisk University.
II. Lincoln Assassinated! (Pages 502–503)
A. The country mourned the death of a man who saved the Union and helped African
Americans win freedom. On the evening of April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was shot
while attending a play at the Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. His assassin, John
Wilkes Booth, entered the box Lincoln was sitting in, shot him in the back of the head,
and escaped. Lincoln died a few hours later at the home of a nearby tailor.
B. Vice President Andrew Johnson became the president. As a former senator, he was the
only Southern senator to support the Union. He called his plan for the South
“Restoration.”
1. Most Southerners would be granted amnesty once they swore an oath of loyalty to
the Union.
2. High-ranking Confederate officials and wealthy landowners could only be pardoned
by applying personally to the president. This was his way of attacking the
wealthy leaders who he thought tricked Southerners into seceding.
3. The president would appoint governors and require them to hold elections for
state constitutional conventions.
4. Only whites that swore their loyalty and had been pardoned would be allowed to
vote.
5. Before a state could reenter the Union, its constitutional convention had to
denounce secession and abolish slavery.
6. States had to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment passed in January 1865 that
abolished slavery.
C. By the end of 1865, Johnson declared Restoration was almost complete because all the
former Confederate states had established new governments and were ready to rejoin
the Union.
Copyright © by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc
Chapter 17, Section 2
end
I. African Americans’ Rights (Pages 504–506)
A. The new Southern states passed a series of laws in 1865 and early 1866 called black
codes. These laws reestablished slavery in disguise. They deprived freed people of
their rights and enabled plantation owners to exploit African American workers.
1. Some laws allowed local officials to arrest and fine unemployed African
Americans and make them work for white employers to pay off their fines.
2. Other laws banned African Americans from owning or renting farms.
3. One law allowed whites to take orphaned African American children as unpaid
apprentices.
B. Congress challenged the black codes. It extended the life of the Freedmen’s Bureau in
1866 and granted it the power to set up special courts to prosecute people charged with
violating the rights of African Americans. It also passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866,
giving full citizenship to African Americans, and gave the federal government the right to
intervene in state affairs to protect them. It overturned black codes and contradicted the
1857 Supreme Court Dred Scott decision saying that African Americans were not citizens.
C. Johnson vetoed both bills. However, Republicans were able to override both
vetoes and the bills became law. This split between the president and the Radical
Republicans led Congress to draft a new Reconstruction Plan.
D. In June 1866 Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution granting
full citizenship to all individuals born in the United States. The amendment also says
that no state can take away a citizen’s life, liberty, and property “without due process
of law.” Every citizen was also entitled to “equal protection of the laws.”
1. It did not include voting rights for African Americans.
2. It also barred certain former Confederates from holding national or state office
unless pardoned by a two-thirds vote of Congress.
E. Congress declared that Southern states must ratify the amendment in order to be
readmitted to the Union. Because Tennessee was the only state to ratify early, adoption
of the amendment was delayed until 1868 when the other ten states finally ratified it.
F. Republicans won victories in the congressional elections of 1866. They increased their
majorities in both houses and gained control of every Northern state government.
II. Radical Reconstruction (Pages 506–508)
A. Radical Reconstruction was the period that began when Congress passed the
Reconstruction Acts. The First Reconstruction Act, passed on March 2, 1867, called for
the creation of new governments in the ten Southern states that had not ratified the
Fourteenth Amendment. Tennessee was quickly readmitted to the Union because it
had ratified the amendment.
1. The ten states were divided into five military districts under the command of
military officers.
2. African American males were guaranteed the right to vote in state elections.
3. Former Confederate leaders could not hold political office.
4. To be readmitted, each state had to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and submit
its new state constitution to Congress.
B. The Second Reconstruction Act was passed a few weeks later. It required military
commanders to begin registering voters and to prepare for new state constitutional
conventions.
C. By 1868 seven Southern states had established new governments and met the conditions
for readmission. They were Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, North
Carolina, and South Carolina. By 1870 the final three states restored to the Union were
Mississippi, Virginia, and Texas.
D. The rift between Congress and President Johnson grew wider. Congress passed the
Tenure of Office Act in March 1867 to limit the president’s power. It prohibited him
from removing government officials without the Senate’s approval.
E. When Congress was not in session in August 1867, Johnson suspended his secretary
of war, Edwin Stanton. When the Senate met again and refused to approve this act,
Johnson fired Stanton. Johnson also appointed as commanders of Southern military
districts some generals whom the Radicals opposed.
F. Because of Johnson’s actions, the House voted to impeach him. The case went to the
Senate for a trial that lasted three months.
1. His defenders said he was exercising his right to challenge laws he thought
unconstitutional. They said the impeachment was politically motivated and that
Congress was trying to remove him from office without accusing him of a crime.
2. His accusers argued that Congress should retain the power to make laws. A senator
from Massachusetts said that Johnson had turned “the veto power into a remedy
for ill-considered legislation . . . into a weapon of offense against Congress.”
3. The Senate vote was one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict,
so Johnson remained in office until March 1869.
G. The 1868 presidential election was a vote on Reconstruction. Most states had rejoined
the Union by the election. Americans chose Republican and former Northern general
Ulysses S. Grant as their new president.
H. Another major piece of Reconstruction legislation was the Fifteenth Amendment. It
prohibited the state and federal governments from denying the right to vote to any
male citizen because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It became law
in February 1870. The Republicans thought that the power of the vote would allow
African Americans to protect themselves.
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Chapter 17 Section 3
Chapter 17 Section 3
I. New Groups Take Charge (Pages 509–511)
A. The Republican Party consisted of three main groups that dominated Southern politics:
African Americans, white Southerners who supported Republican policies, and
white settlers from the North who moved to the South.
1. African Americans held important positions but did not control the government of
any state. Between 1869 and 1880, sixteen African Americans served in the House
and two in the Senate. Hiram Revels was elected to the Senate from Mississippi in
1870 and served one year. Blancke K. Bruce was the other senator, also from
Mississippi, who was elected in 1874 and served six years.
2. The Confederates called some Southern whites who had opposed secession and
were nonslaveholding farmers or business leaders scalawags or scoundrels. They
hated them for siding with the Republicans.
3. Many Northern whites who moved to the South and supported the Republicans
were called carpetbaggers by their critics. They got the name because they carried
suitcases made of carpet fabric with all their belongings. Others were reformers
who wanted to help reshape Southern society.
B. Most white Southerners opposed efforts to expand the rights of African Americans.
Plantation owners still tried to keep control of the freed people. They kept them on the
plantations and refused to rent land to them. Storeowners refused them credit, and
employers refused them work.
C. During Reconstruction secret societies committed violence against African Americans
and white supporters of African Americans. The Ku Klux Klan, formed in 1866, killed
them and burned their homes, churches, and schools. The Klan’s supporters were
Southerners, especially planters and Democrats who wanted to reestablish white
supremacy and saw violence as a way to attack Republicans.
D. Southerners opposed to violence and terrorism appealed to the federal government. In
1870 and 1871, Congress passed several laws without too much success. Some arrests
were made, but most white Southerners would not testify against these people.
II. Some Improvements (Pages 511–512)
A. Reconstruction brought important changes, especially in education. African Americans
created their own schools in some regions. The Freedmen’s Bureau and private charities
spread the value of education. Free African Americans from the North and Northern
women taught in the schools. By 1870 about 4,000 schools existed and more than half
the teachers were African Americans.
B. Public school systems for both races were created in the 1870s. Generally whites and
African Americans attended different schools. More than 50 percent of white children
and about 40 percent of African Americans went to public schools within a few years.
C. The other major change occurred in farming. Most African Americans were not able to
buy their own land. Instead, they rented a plot of land from a landowner along with a
shack, some seed, and tools. They became sharecroppers. Sharecropping was not much
better than slavery for many because in return for the use of the land, the sharecroppers
had to pay the landowner by giving him a share of the crops they grew. Barely anything
was left for their families, and they rarely had enough to sell and to make any money.
Copyright © by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc
Chapter 17, Section 4
end
I. Reconstruction Declines (Pages 513–515)
A. As Southern Democrats began to regain political and economic control in the South,
support for Radical Reconstruction policies decreased. Many Northerners also began
believing in the end of Reconstruction. They thought it was holding back Southern
economic expansion.
B. Grant was reelected in the 1872 presidential election despite division in the Republican
Party. Reports of corruption in Grant’s administration and in Reconstruction programs
caused a group of Republicans to form the Liberal Republicans. They nominated Horace
Greeley. Although Greeley also had the support of many Democrats, Grant won.
C. Congress passed the Amnesty Act in May 1872 that pardoned most former
Confederates. This caused the political balance in the South to change and allowed
Democrats to regain power. During the 1872 election, Liberal Republicans called for
expanded amnesty for white Southerners.
D. Democrats regained control of state governments in Virginia and North Carolina. The
Ku Klux Klan and other violent groups terrorized Republican voters, thus helping
Democrats take power. The Democrats used threats to pressure white Republicans to
become Democrats. They also used violence to persuade African Americans not to
vote. By 1876 Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana were the only Southern states to
remain Republican.
E. Scandals and corruption charges weakened the Republican Party. The nation was also
in an economic depression. Blame fell on the Republicans. In the 1874 congressional
elections, the Democrats won control of a part of the federal government. They gained
Senate seats and won control of the House. This weakened Congress’s commitment to
Reconstruction and to protecting the rights of newly freed African Americans.
.II. The End of Reconstruction (Pages 515–517)
A. The disputed election of 1876 confirmed the Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes
the winner four months after the election. Samuel Tilden, the Democrat, appeared the
winner, but disputed returns from Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina changed the
result. A special commission was appointed to resolve the election. It awarded all 20
disputed electoral votes to Hayes, giving him the required majority for victory. Congress
confirmed the commission’s findings, so Hayes became president although he had
fewer popular votes than Tilden did.
B. Congressional leaders made a deal to settle the election. This was the Compromise of
1877. It said that the new government would give more aid to the South and withdraw
all remaining troops while the Democrats promised to maintain the rights of African
Americans.
C. Hayes sent a clear message in his Inaugural Address that Reconstruction was over.
The federal government would no longer attempt to reshape Southern society or help
African Americans.
III. Change in the South (Pages 517–518)
A. By the 1880s the country saw the rise of the “New South.” Industry developed based
on the region’s resources of cotton, tobacco, lumber, coal, iron, and steel.
1. The textile industry advanced. Instead of shipping cotton to the North and
Europe, the South built their own textile mills.
2. The tobacco industry grew. James Duke’s company, Dukes American Tobacco
Company, eventually controlled almost all tobacco manufacturing in the nation.
3. The iron and steel industry also grew. Alabama had deposits of iron ore. By 1890
Southern mills produced nearly 20 percent of the nation’s iron and steel.
B. The following factors helped this growth:
1. a cheap and reliable workforce of people who worked long hours for low pay
2. the railroad rebuilding of destroyed track caused a railroad boom; between 1880
and 1890, the miles of track doubled
C. Anew ruling party, the Democrats, took over. Many of these people were merchants,
bankers, industrialists, and other business leaders who supported economic development
and opposed Northern interference. They were conservatives. They called themselves
“Redeemers” because they saved themselves from Republican rule. Policies included
lower taxes, less public spending, and reduced government services. Many social
services that had started during Reconstruction were cut or eliminated, including public
education.
D. The South still remained primarily a rural economy even as it developed some industry.
It sank deeper into poverty and debt as time went on.
1. Some plantations, although not many, were broken up. When divided, the land
was used for sharecropping and tenant farming, which were not profitable.
2. Reliance on sharecropping and cash crops, or crops that could be sold for money,
hampered the development of a more modern agriculture. An oversupply of the
biggest cash crop, cotton, forced prices down. With less money, farmers had to buy
on credit and pay high prices for their food and supplies. Thus, their debt increased.
IV. A Divided Society (Pages 519–520)
A. Reconstruction was a success and a failure. It helped the South recover and begin
rebuilding. However, the South remained a rural economy that was very poor. African
Americans did not have true freedom because the South created a segregated society,
separating them from whites.
B. Southern states imposed voting restrictions even though the Fifteenth Amendment
prohibited any state from denying the right to vote because of race.
1. Many states required people to pay a poll tax before voting. Because many African
Americans and poor whites could not afford to pay the tax, they could not vote.
2. Many states required prospective voters to also take a literacy test. Because African
Americans had little education, they could not pass the test and therefore could
not vote. Some states passed a grandfather clause to enable some whites who
may not have been able to pass the test be able to vote. The law said that if their
fathers or grandfathers had voted before Reconstruction, they were also allowed
to vote. African Americans were excluded because they did not gain the right to
vote until 1867.
C. The South became a segregated society. Many states passed Jim Crow laws, which
were laws that required African Americans and whites to be separated in almost every
public place and facility. The facilities were separate but not equal. Southern states
spent more money on schools and facilities for whites than for African Americans.
This segregation lasted for more than 50 years.
D. Violence against African Americans increased. Threats of violence and the voting laws
caused African American voting to drop. Mob lynching, or killing African Americans
by hanging, increased. If African Americans were suspected of committing crimes or
did not behave as white expected them to, they were lynched.