Reconstruction
1865-1877
Key Questions

What would the key questions be for the
country once the war is over?
1. How do we
bring the South
back into the
Union?
2. How do we
rebuild the
South after its
destruction
during the war?
4. What branch
of government
should control
the process of
Reconstruction?
3. How do we
integrate and
protect newlyemancipated
black freedmen?
President Lincoln’s Plan

10% Plan


Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction
(December 8, 1863)
When 10% of the voting population in the 1860
election had taken an oath of loyalty and established
a government, it would be recognized.



Also had to formally establish a state government.
He didn’t consult Congress regarding Reconstruction.
1864  “Lincoln Governments” formed in LA, TN, AR
Wade-Davis Bill (1864)




Republican Response: viewed Lincolns plan as to soft on the
South
Then 50% of the number of 1860 voters to take an “iron clad”
oath of allegiance
Required a state constitutional convention before the election of
state officials.
Protect newly freed. (But not the right to vote)
Lincolns Response: pocket vetoes the bill
Lincoln v Congress over Reconstruction:
- Congress: South did leave the Union
- could not be readmitted without
Congressional recognition/conditions
- Lincoln: South did not leave the Union
- easier re-admittance into the Union
Republican Divide:
- Moderates agreed with Lincoln, but Congress decision
- Minority more punishment for the South
Enter President Andrew Johnson




Jacksonian Democrat.
Anti-Aristocrat.
White Supremacist.
Agreed with Lincoln
that states had never
legally left the Union.
President Johnson’s Plan (10%+)

Offered amnesty upon simple oath to all except
Confederate civil and military officers and those with
property over $20,000




But they can ask for a pardon from Johnson
He gives out thousands of them
In new constitutions, they must accept minimum
conditions repudiating slavery, secession and state
debts.
New governments restore the old status quo



Old planter elite back in power
Pass “black codes”
Republicans are upset!
Black Codes

Purpose:



Guarantee stable labor
supply now that blacks
were emancipated.
Restore pre-emancipation
system of race relations.
Forced many blacks to become
sharecroppers [tenant
farmers].
Congress Breaks with the President





Congress bars Southern
Congressional delegates.
Joint Committee on
Reconstruction created.
February, 1866  President
vetoed the Freedmen’s
Bureau bill.
March, 1866  Johnson
vetoed the 1866 Civil Rights Act.
Congress passed both bills over
Johnson’s vetoes  1st in
U. S. history!!
14th Amendment

Congress proposes it:




Provide a constitutional guarantee of the rights and
security of freed people.
Southern states would be punished for denying the
right to vote to black citizens
President Johnson opposes it
Congressional elections of 1866 become a
referendum on it


Republicans win by a landslide
Amendment is ratified
Radical Plan: Reconstruction Act of
1867


Military supervision in the South
Required new state constitutions, including
black suffrage and ratification of the 13th and
14th Amendments.


All freedmen could vote, white men who hadn’t been
disqualified
Needed military to enforce the plan

Johnson appoints generals sympathetic to the South
who won’t do it
The Impeachment Crisis

Tenure of Office Act

The President could not remove
Cabinet members without the
Senate’s consent, if the position
originally required Senate
approval.
 Designed to protect radical
members of Lincoln’s government
– Edwin Stanton
Edwin Stanton
The Impeachment Crisis




Johnson removed Stanton in February, 1868.
Johnson replaced generals in the field who were
more sympathetic to Radical Reconstruction.
The House impeached him on February 24 by a
vote of 126 – 47
Goes on trial in the Senate


Johnson acquitted 35 to 29
1 vote short of the 2/3 majority
15th Amendment




Ratified in 1870.
The right of citizens of the United States to vote
shall not be denied or abridged by the United
States or by any state on account of race, color,
or previous condition of servitude.
The Congress shall have power to enforce this
article by appropriate legislation.
Women’s rights groups were furious that they
were not granted the vote!
Republican Governments in the
South

A new electorate:



700,000 freedmen now able to vote
Majorities in 5 states
Blacks in politics:


Freedmen overwhelmingly vote for
Republicans
Black representatives

Usually wealthy, free before the war
Republican Rule

Political reform


Universal male suffrage in the South
Civil Rights Act of 1875 – desegregate the South


No land reform

Stevens’ proposal: “40 acres and a mule”



Passed, but Supreme Court rejects it
Wants to confiscate land from whites, distribute to blacks
Fails in the states and in Congress
Criticisms:


Reform was expensive – taxes go way up
“Scalawags” and “carpet baggers”
Sharecropping

Very few freedmen own their own land


Don’t have the $ or the equipment
White southerners won’t sell it to them


Want blacks to be their labor source
Black codes require freedmen to sign yearly
labor contracts



Work in return for wages, housing, food, and clothing
Could keep a small portion of the crops for their own
profit
They are stuck
Sharecropping
Tenancy and a Crop-Lien System
Furnishing Merchant



Loan tools and seed
up to 60% interest
to tenant farmer to
plant spring crop.
Farmer also secures
food, clothing, and
other necessities on
credit from
merchant until the
harvest.
Merchant holds
“lien” {mortgage} on
part of tenant’s
future crops as
repayment of debt.
Tenant Farmer



Plants crop,
harvests in
autumn.
Turns over up to ½
of crop to land
owner as payment
of rent.
Tenant gives
remainder of crop
to merchant in
payment of debt.
Landowner

Rents land to tenant
in exchange for ¼
to ½ of tenant
farmer’s future
crop.
The Rise of the KKK
The Rise of the KKK

Ku Klux Klan founded in 1866


“social club” to intimidate black voters
Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871


Gave the federal government power to use
federal troops to supervise elections, punish
KKK members
But the government never sends in the troops
Election of 1868
Grant Administration Scandals
Grant presided over an era of
unprecedented growth and corruption.





Railroad stock
Selling contracts: The Indian Ring
Federal workers and the stock market
Grant not involved, but he defends his
supporters
Scandals blamed on expansion of voting
The Election of 1872

Liberal Republicans run Horace Greeley


Greeley dies on November 19, 1872!
Grant wins a second term
The Panic of 1873

Postwar years = rapid economic growth



Over-speculation, especially in railroads
Northern Pacific Railroad goes bankrupt in
1873
Jay Cooke, the owner, also owns the country’s
biggest bank


It shuts down
5 year depression
The Panic of 1873

Dispute over currency



Specie Redemption Act of 1875



People in debt want the government to circulate
“greenbacks”
Creditors, intellectuals want only hard currency
Have to pay everything in gold
Greenback Party forms in protest
Issue not resolved
Legal Challenges to Reconstruction

The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)


Supreme Court said the 14th amendment only
protected your national citizenship, not your
state citizenship
Federal government doesn’t have to protect
you if your state violates your rights
Republicans Retreat

Grant never really enforces Reconstruction



Radical Republicans are gone from Congress
by 1875
Most now believe blacks are inferior to whites
Republicans in the South either leave, or
become Democrats

Democrats “redeem” the South

Take back office in the 1870s
The Election of 1876
Election of 1876




Hayes – Republican
Tildon – Democrat
No one wins a majority of electoral votes
“Compromise of 1877”


Hayes agrees to pull out federal troops from
the South
Hayes abandons Reconstruction to become
President