Objectives
 Describe the United States after the Civil War
 What questions were answered?
 What questions still remain?
 Describe the condition of the South after the War?
 What were the various plans for Reconstruction and which
plan ultimately won out?
 What were the goals of the “Radical Republicans”?
 Describe some of the landmark legislation the Republican
Congress passed.
Post-Civil War America
 The Civil War settles a key constitutional
crisis
 United States is singular not plural
 Federal Government supremacy over the
states
 “The Lost Cause”
 Romanticized the Pre-Civil War South
 Revered Confederate leaders- Lee, Jackson,
Davis
Post Civil War South
 White South
 In economic ruin
 1 in 5 white adult males
killed in the war
 Stripped of capital($)
invested in slaves,
Confederate bonds and
currency
 Social class structure
destroyed
 Southern code of “honor”
dealt a crushing blow
 Racism and sectional tension
intensifies
Freed Slaves
 13th Amendment- Ends slavery in U.S.
 Freedmen (4 million) What now?
 Left plantations during or shortly after the war
 Some searched for family members
 Freedom for Freedmen means:
 Set up their own churches, schools, fraternal societies
Freed Slaves
 Freedmen’s Bureau
 Distributed food to former
slaves
 Established schools, taught
by northern white women
 Some help to settle
freedmen on land
 Also assisted poor whites
 Is this enough?
Reconstruction Plans
 Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction
 Conservative Plan- wanted a smooth “readmission” of
Southern States
 10% Plan
 Suffrage to freedmen who were educated, owned property
and served in Union Army
Lincoln Assassination- Conspiracy!
 Shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth
 George Atzerodt decided not to go
through with plan to kill Johnson,
Seward was stabbed and survived.
 Results?
Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan
 Racist- felt that “White men alone must
manage the South”
 Similar to Lincoln’s Plan
 Exception- High ranking Confederate
officials, any Southerner with land worth
$20,000 or more had to apply to the
president for an individual pardon.
 Also opposed by Radical Republicans
 Stage set for showdown between:
“Radical” Republicans’ Plan
 Pushed for much more harsh treatment of the South
 Wanted to destroy the political power of Southern slave
holders
 Responsible for many of the legal advancements of
African-Americans at the time
 Led by Thaddeus Stevens (Penn) and Charles Sumner
(Mass)
 Successfully overrode vetoes by Andrew Johnson on
Civil Rights Act and Freedmen’s Bureau Act
“Radical” Republicans
 Elections in 1866- Johnson campaigns for
conservatives in Congressional elections
 Radicals win out in elections- carry overwhelming
majorities in both the House and Senate
“Radical” Reconstruction
 14th Amendment- Constitutional definition of
American citizenship
 Anyone born or naturalized in the U.S. is a citizen
 All citizens are guaranteed equal protection of the
laws (by state and nat’l gov’t)
 Restrictions on former Confederates’ ability to hold
office (unless pardoned by 2/3 of Congress)
Radical Reconstruction
The Reconstruction Act of 1867
 Ten Confederate States divided into 5 military districts
 Military commander governed each district and registered qualified voters
 Voters would elect conventions (many AA delegates) to prepare new state
constitutions
 Constitutions would have to give AA males right to vote and ratify 14th
Amendment
Radical Reconstruction
 15th Amendment (1870)
 Forbade states and the federal
government to deny suffrage to any
citizen on account of “race, color, or
previous condition of servitude”
 Gives all black males the right to vote
 President Johnson tried to veto
Radicals’ bills but was overridden a
record number of times
 Causes Congress to impeach Johnson
Johnson’s Impeachment
 Review of Impeachment rules
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Impeachment is NOT to be thrown out of office
Charges are brought by the House of Reps
Senate acts as the jury in an impeachment trial
2/3 of the Senate must vote to convict
Johnson’s Impeachment (1867)
 Radicals pass the “Tenure of Office Act”
 President could not fire a civil official without consent from the
Senate
 Johnson tries to test it in the courts by firing Edwin Stanton (ally of
the Radicals)
 Vote is 35-19- one short of 2/3 majority
 Why does this happen?
Johnson’s Impeachment
 Excerpt from Iowa Senator James W. Grimes’ Opinion on
the Trial of Andrew Johnson:
 “[The Tenure of Office Act]was directed against the
President alone. It interfered with the prerogatives of his
department as recognized from the foundation of the
Government. It wrested from him powers which, according
to the legislative and judicial construction of 80 years, had
been bestowed upon him by the Constitution itself. … This
Government can only be preserved and the liberty of the
people maintained by preserving intact the co-ordinate
branches of it-legislative, executive, judicial—alike. I am no
convert to any doctrine of the omnipotence of Congress. I
cannot agree to destroy the harmonious working of the
Constitution for the sake of getting rid of an Unacceptable
President.”
 Fame or Shame for Grimes?
Reconstruction Politics
 Republicans in South
 Scalawags- Southern white Republicanssmall minority- stigmatized by the white
Southern Democrats (accused them of
using positions for personal gain)
 Carpetbaggers
 African-Americans
 Most of white South- Democrats
Gains of Reconstruction
 African-Americans seek to develop
their own institutions
 Black churches give unity and
political self-confidence.
 Key to the Civil Rights Movement
later
 African Americans’ participation in
politics- all types of political office
 Southern whites- “Negro rule”
 Hiram Revels- First black US Senator
Gains of Reconstruction
 Schools improve in South
 Northern women come south to work in Freedmen’s schools
 Public school system established in the South
 Segregated system
 African-Americans wanted to establish their own institutions
separate from whites
 Whites refused to attend any schools that were integrated
Sharecropping
 Should land be redistributed to freedmen in the South?
 Freedmen’s Bureau fails to redistribute land to freed slaves
 Federal Government gives confiscated land back to Planters
 Many freed slaves and poor whites worked the land of planters,
and in return…
President Grant (1869-1877)
 Ineffective politician- chose a
poor cabinet
 Rampant scandals and
corruption within his
administration plagues the
Republican party for years to
come
 Panic of 1873 takes the focus off
of Reconstruction
Southern States “Redeemed”
 Many Southern whites began to regain suffrage
 Causes Democrats to regain control of Southern state governments
 Paramilitary organizations forced whites to join Democratic Party
The Ku Klux Klan
 Social society established by former
Confederate General Nathan Bedford
Forrest
 Becomes a terrorist organization that
attempted to:
 Overthrow Republican govt’s in the
south
 As more Southern whites regain
suffrage, the South is trying to rid
itself of Republican rule
Abandonment of Reconstruction
 Many Republicans begin to feel that with the right to vote,
Reconstruction had served its purpose
 Panic of 1873- takes focus off of Reconstruction
 1874 elections- Democrats take control of the House
Compromise of 1877
 Election of 1876- Rutherford B. Hayes (R) vs. Sam Tilden
(D)
 Tilden won an apparent victory but 20 electoral votes
were disputed (left Tilden 1 electoral vote short of a
majority)
 Series of Compromises between both parties’ leaders
gives Hayes the victory
 Hayes would:
 Remove all federal troops from occupied areas in the
South
 Appoint one Southerner to his cabinet
 Internal improvements for the South (Texas-Pacific RR)
Redemption
 After 1877 and withdrawal of federal troops, Democrats take
control of every southern state government
 South again controlled by a powerful, conservative, oligarchy,
known as the “Redeemers” (Southern Democrats)
 Once again establishes “ home rule ” in the South
The Birth of Jim Crow
 Jim Crow laws- instituted an elaborate system of
segregation
 Involved almost every aspect of Southern life
 Allowed whites to control social relationships between races
 Laws enacted between 1876 and 1964
Jim Crow Laws
 Nurses: No person or corporation shall
require any white female nurse to nurse
in wards or rooms in hospitals, either
public or private, in which negro men
are placed. (Alabama)
 Intermarriage: The marriage of a
person of Caucasian blood with a Negro,
Mongolian, Malay, or Hindu shall be null
and void. (Arizona)
 Barbers: No colored barber shall serve
as a barber [to] white women or girls.
(Georgia)
Segregation Legalized
 Court cases take away the significance of 14th Amendment
 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)- legalizes segregation in railroad cars
 Establishes the principle of “separate but equal”
 Other court cases segregate schools- even when there are no
equivalent schools for blacks
 Brown v. Board of Education (1954) overturns the Plessy decision by
ending school segregation
Disenfranchisement
 Voting rights restricted but South had to work around
the 15th Amendment
 Poll tax
 Property qualifications
 Literacy tests
 Courts voided Grandfather clauses but upheld literacy
test.
 Result?
Lynchings
 Used along with Jim Crow laws to inhibit black
agitation for equality
 U.S. averages 187 lynchings per year in 1890’s
 Sometimes mobs of people from miles around
 Often carried out by friends or family members of
the “victim”
 Especially used to avenge advances toward white
women (Emmett Till)
 Ida B. Wells- journalist who was a leader of the
anti-lynching movement
Booker T. Washington
 Founded Tuskegee Institute in Alabama
 Committed to economic independence,
education and integration; seen as a
moderate
 Encouraged African-Americans to adopt
standards of the white middle class
 Refine speech, improve their dress, and
get a solid industrial education
The Legacy of Reconstruction
 Was Reconstruction successful or was it a failure?
 Why didn’t Reconstruction achieve more?
 What irreversible gains were made during Reconstruction?
The Legacy of Reconstruction
 Presidency weakened
 Andrew Johnson’s impeachment
 Grant’s scandals
 Election of 1876/Hayes
 African Americans become 2nd class citizens
 Tenant farming/sharecropping system lasts until 1960s
 14th/15th Amendments bright spots
 Lead to a “2nd Reconstruction” in the Civil Rights movement
of the 1950s and 1960s