The Crisis of Reconstruction,
1865-1877
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The biggest fight after the war
was political
◦ Power struggles between the
executive and legislative branches
◦ Constitutional amendments
◦ Presidential impeachment
◦ Ambitious domestic legislation
 Only a small group supported black
suffrage
Lincoln’s Plan

Proclamation of Amnesty and
Reconstruction
◦ 10% of those who had cast ballots in 1860
◦ A loyal state govt. would be created
◦ Excludes: Confederate govt. officials,
army/navy officers, those who resigned
commissions in 1861 (they would apply
for a pardon), blacks
This 10% Plan would undermine
Confederacy with pro-Union govts.
 He wants to win allegiance of southern
Unionists and rebuild a Southern
Republican Party
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Radical Republicans think Lincoln’s
plan is too weak
 They want to punish more
Confederates
 July 1864: Wade-Davis Bill
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◦ Each southern state to be ruled by a
military governor
◦ 50% plan for readmittance after they
repeal secession and abolish slavery
◦ Second “ironclad” oath to qualify as a
voter/delegate

Lincoln pocket vetoes the bill
By the war’s end AK, LA, TN,
and parts of VA had moved
towards readmittance under
Lincoln’s plan
 Congress refuses to seat the
delegates

Presidential Reconstruction
Under Johnson
Johnson was the only southern senator to
remain in Congress when his state seceded
 Johnson despised the planter class
 During Congress’s recess Johnson announces
how the seven remaining states can be
readmitted:
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◦ Almost all who take an oath may return
◦ All property except slaves will be restored
◦ State conventions would have to claim the
illegitimacy of secession, repudiate state debts,
and ratify the 13th Amendment
◦ Also, wealthy Confederates (over $20,000)
barred
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Johnson handed out 13,000 pardons
Confederate officers and large planters
assumed state positions
Even VP Stephens went to DC as a
senator
States enact Black Codes to get around
the 13th Amendment
When Congress reconvenes in
December of 1865 they refuse to seat
the new delegates and establish the
Joint Committee on Reconstruction
◦ It is now Congress vs. Johnson
Congress vs. Johnson

Status of southern blacks is now the key issue

Moderate Republicans were the largest bloc in Congress; they
agreed that Johnson’s plan was weak

They joined up with the Radicals in the following ways
◦ Continuation of the Freedman’s Bureau
 3-yr. extension; special military courts to settle labor
disputes
◦ Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (over Johnson’s veto)
 Blacks are citizens and it authorized the feds to intervene
in states to ensure black rights in the courts
 1st major piece of legislation passed over a presidential
veto
 Johnson vetoed because he felt it illegitimate because the
South had been cut out
The Fourteenth Amendment
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April 1866: Naturalization, due process, equal
protection
Nullifies Dred Scott
States who deny male suffrage can lose
representation in Congress
Disqualifies from office all prewar
officeholders
Repudiates Confederate debt and maintains
validity of federal debt
This was the first national effort to limit state
control of civil and political rights
Congressional elections of 1866 were a
referendum on the 14th
◦ Republicans win 2/3 of the House; 4/5 of the
Senate
Congressional Reconstruction
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Congress passes Reconstruction Acts
over Johnson’s vetos
Reconstruction Act of 1867
◦ Invalidated the state governments formed
under Lincoln and Johnson (except TN)
◦ Set up five military districts
◦ Blacks and whites could elect delegates to
set up new constitutions
◦ Then elect state officers
◦ Congress approves the state constitution,
state leg. Ratifies the 14th, readmittance
This act was harsher than
Johnson, but did not prosecute
Confederates for treason, or
permanently exclude them from
politics
 Also, it didn’t redistribute land

◦ Even Republicans didn’t want to
mess with the sacredness of
property rights
Impeachment Crisis
Tenure of Office Act and a rider to
an army appropriations bill
 Johnson fires Sec. of War Stanton
 Why not removed?

◦ Removal would upset the balance of
power
◦ Afraid of the Pres. Pro Tempore
Fifteenth Amendment and the
Question of Woman Suffrage
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The need to make black suffrage
national
Ratified in 1870 – The south didn’t
have enough votes to block it
Women’s movement splits into two
organizations
◦ American Woman Suffrage Assoc. –
states
◦ National Woman Suffrage Assoc. –
national (Stanton and Anthony)
◦ Minor v. Happersett – the state can deny
women the right to vote
A New Electorate
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Laws had disenfranchised 10-15%
Blacks held voting majorities in five
states
Carpetbaggers, scalawags, and
freedmen
◦ Carpetbaggers: no more than 20,000
◦ Scalawags: mostly small farmers that
cared little for black rights
◦ Freedmen: the backbone of southern
Republicanism (8 or 10 Rep. votes)
 At most1 in 5 political offices; in all southern
legislatures; majority in South Carolina; two
senators; no Governors; 6% of the House (half
from South Carolina)
Republican Rule
No state instituted land reform
 Politicians wanted to attract
northern investment
 Shift towards public works
projects
 Increased taxes to pay for
rebuilding
 Reconstruction was punishing the
propertied
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Counterattacks
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Vigilante groups spring up in all southern
states
There is an effort to deny blacks
participation in government
Intimidation, purchase, killing, etc.
1866- the KKK is formed
Federal govt. responds with the
Enforcement Acts (1870 and 1871): these
allow federal supervision and protection
Shows that federal supervision was
necessary, but it was never going to
happen on a large scale
Feds let the Freedman’s Bureau end in
1869
Confronting Freedom
House slaves were more likely to
flee the plantation than field slaves
 Most moved to adjacent plantations
 During the 1860s urban black
population increased by 75%
 Seeking family was prominent
 So was the legalization of unions
and quickly established two-parent
families
 Black women seek female roles
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Black Institutions
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Growth of the Black Church, esp. the African
Methodist Episcopal Church and Black Baptist
churches
Churches and ministers become the pillars of black
society
Black schools were set up by the Freedman’s Bureau
and northern philanthropic societies
Traditional black colleges such as Howard, Atlanta,
Fisk and Hampton all formed
However, by the end of Reconstruction 80% of
black pop. is still illiterate
1883 Civil Rights cases: 14th amendment did not
prohibit discrimination by individuals
A segregated society is developing, and is supported
by both races
Land, Labor, and
Sharecropping
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Forty acres and a mule never
really happened
1866: Southern Homestead Act
◦ 44 million acres set aside in five state
◦ Bad land and few made it work
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Blacks had no capital; no whites
would sell them land anyway;
labor contracts were unjust
By 1880, 80% of land in cotton
producing states is sharecropped
Crop-lien system comes into
existence
 Both sharecropping and the croplien system prevent diversification
of southern agriculture
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Grantism
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Grant is elected in 1868: Carried all
but eight states due to his popularity
in the North; being unscathed by
Reconstruction politics; and the black
vote in the South
His administration was riddled with
scandals
◦ Cornering the gold market, Credit
Mobilier, “Whiskey Ring,” and Indian
trading posts
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Grant may have not known all of
these, but it was the Gilded Age
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Foreign policy issues
◦ Seward’s Icebox
◦ Attempt to annex the eastern half of
Santo Domingo (Senate rejects this)
◦ By 1872, Liberal Republicans form
their own party to get away from
Grantism and the “Great Barbeque”
Liberals’ Revolt
Liberal Republicans believed in free
trade, the gold standard, and the
law of supply and demand. They
demanded civil service reform, the
end to bayonet rule in the South,
the end of high tariffs
 They nominate Horace Greeley
and lose
 Grant then supports the Amnesty
Act to undercut the Liberals views
on the South
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Panic of 1873
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The Transcontinental Railroad in
complete and over speculation in
RR begins
The collapse of the Northern
Pacific Railroad triggered a
financial meltdown in America (5year depression)
18,000 businesses go bankrupt; 3
million unemployed
Money and the debt
 What to do with the
greenbacks?
 How to pay off the debt?
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Reconstruction and the
Constitution
Ex parte Milligan decision dooms the
military courts established to enforce
the Freedman’s Bureau
 Texas v. White – Reconstruction was
constitutionally possible, grounded in
the Congressional power to provide a
republican form of government to
every state
 Slaughterhouse cases of 1873 –
chipped away at the 14th Amendment
by narrowly defining it

Republicans Retreat
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It was gradual, but it happened
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Grant’s elections
The rise of the Liberal Republicans
The Amnesty Act
Supreme Court decisions
Radicals had left the scene
Industrial expansion
Just plain tired of it
Redeeming the South
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Democrats a beginning home rule again
But it is New South advocates vs. the
Bourbons
The White League; Mississippi plan; Red
Shirts; Rifle Clubs were effective
Once the redeemers were back in power
they rewrote the laws to diminish
freedmen’s rights, as well as their
economic, political and social standing
Late 1870 “exodusters” to Kansas
Election of 1876
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Hayes (R) vs. Tilden (D)
Platforms were very similar
Tilden wins the popular vote by 3%;
however 19 electoral votes in South
Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana (proTilden) were challenged, and 1 in
Oregon (pro-Hayes)
Republicans controlled the three proTilden states so those were thrown
out; but Democrats had kept blacks
from voting
Neither had enough Electoral Votes

Compromise of 1877
◦ Commission of 7 Dems., 7 Rep. and 1
Independent to decide
◦ The Ind. Resigns to run for the
Senate and his position is filled with a
Republican
◦ Hayes wins!
◦ Not so fast: The Dems. Controlled
the House, and they were going to
obstruct the approval of Electoral
votes
◦ A deal had to be cut
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The Basic Deal
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Hayes gets to be President
Troops are taken out of the South
Democrats are back in charge
Reconstruction ends