The Crisis of Reconstruction
Chapter 16
1865-1877
Introduction
• How did the Radical Republicans gain control
over reconstructing the South and what was the
impact of their program on the ex-Confederates,
o0ther white southerners and southern blacks?
• How did freed blacks remake their lives after
emancipation?
• What brought about an end to Reconstruction?
Should it be considered a success or failure?
Why?
Lincoln’s Plan
• Differences began to emerge as early as 1863 between
Congressional Reconstruction and Lincoln’s plan
• December 1863 Lincoln issued a plan that would allow a
state to re-enter the Union with 10% of the voting
population taking an oath of loyalty to the Union and a
recognition of the end of slavery
• Lincoln hoped that this plan would draw southern
Unionists into the Republican party and stir sentiment
against the war in the South
• Congress passed the Wade-Davis Bill that required 50%
of voters to take the oath of loyalty and excluded those
from participation that had supported the Confederacy
• Lincoln pocket-vetoed the bill and he and Congress were
still at an impasse at the time of Lincoln’s death
• President Andrew Johnson announced his
Reconstruction Plan in May of 1865
• Southern whites had to take an oath of
allegiance, proclaim secession illegal, repudiate
Confederate debt and ratify the 13th Amendment.
• Whites who held office in the Confederacy or who
owned a taxable property of $20,000 plus had to
apply for a Presidential Pardon
• By the summer of 1865 Johnson had handed out
pardons wholesale and many of the new
governments created by Johnson’s plan were in
reality the same governments that existed in the
South before and during the war.
• Southern governments quickly passed legislation
to limit freedmen called “Black Codes”
• Republican congress refused to recognize the
new state governments
Presidential
Reconstruction
Under Johnson
• Radical Republicans wanted to
punish the South for the war,
and create a biracial South
• The majority of Republicans
were moderates who only
wanted to protect the basic
rights of blacks
• Moderates passed the
Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil
Rights Act of 1866 which were
vetoed by President Johnson
• Moderates and Radicals joined
together to override the
Presidential veto
Congress
versus
Johnson
The 14th Amendment
• The Amendment stated that all persons born in the US
were naturalized citizens.
• No one could deny a person’s rights without due process
of law
• States that refused the rights of black men could see
their representation in Congress reduced
• Former Confederate officials were denied the right to
participate unless pardoned by a 2/3 volte of Congress
• The Southern States with exception of Tennessee
refused to ratify the Amendment and Johnson
denounced it. 1866 Republicans won a huge majority in
Congress allowing them to force passage of the
amendment and proceed with Congressional
Reconstruction
Congressional Reconstruction
• 1867-1868 Congress enacts a Reconstruction Plan over the
veto of president Johnson
• All state governments that had been restored by Johnson
were invalidated
• The Southern states minus Tennessee were divided into
military districts
• Each southern state was required to write a new
Constitution enfranchising black men and ratifying the 14th
Amendment
• When these things were done, a state could reapply for
statehood
• Radicals also wanted to confiscate southern land and
redistribute it to freedmen
• President Johnson drug his feet as Commander in Chief of
the military and Congress determined that it must do
something to deal with him.
The Impeachment
Crisis, 1867-1868
• In March of 1867 Congress passed the
Tenure of Office Act to limit Presidential
authority
• President Johnson violated the Act by
firing Secretary of War Stanton
• Republicans began impeachment
proceedings
• The vote to removed the President fell one
short in the Senate
The 15th Amendment and the
Question of Women’s Suffrage,
1869-1870
• The Amendment said that the right to vote could
not be denied based upon race, color or
previous condition of servitude
• The Republicans hoped that this would protect
southern blacks, extend voting rights to northern
blacks and gain new voters to the Party
• Congress refused to include women in the
amendment which angered feminists
• By 1877 all three amendments had be ratified
and all of the southern states had re-entered the
Union.
A New Electorate
• The new laws temporarily enfranchised
black males and disenfranchised about
15% of white males
• The new electorate put Republican
government in power in the South made
up of carpetbaggers, scalawags and
blacks
Republican Rule
• Property and Racial qualifications were
abolished for voting and office holding
• State legislatures were re-districted
• Public works, public schools were
established
• Taxes rose to pay for new public projects
• Southern landowners bitterly opposed
these measures
Counterattacks
• Southern Democrats bitterly
opposed and refused to cooperate
with the Republican governments
• Vigilante groups began to form and
used violence and threats to
intimidate blacks, Freedmen’s
Bureau officials and white
Republicans
• Congress passed the Enforcement
Acts to suppress the Democrats
• By the 1870’s President Grant and
the Congress were no longer willing
to use military force in the South
Confronting Freedom
• Freedmen, usually lacking land, tools,
money or literacy searched for family
members
• Many legitimized their marriages and
raised their families as best they could
• Many returned to the plantations because
they had no where else to go
Black Institutions
• Black churches, schools and social
organizations were founded to help blacks
• Freedmen’s Bureau helped form Howard,
Atlanta and Fisk Universities
• Charles Sumner’s Civil Rights Act of 1875
failed to end segregation and was later
invalidated by the Supreme Court
Land, Labor, Sharecropping
• Moderate Republicans refused to take and
redistribute land
• Planters cam up with a new system of
labor that relied upon tenantry
• By 1880 80% of Southern lands were
worked by landless tenants
Toward a Crop-Lien Economy
• Rural merchants sold supplies to sharecroppers
on credit
• Tenants paid off debts by lien agreement
• The crop was collateral
• Interest rates were high, cotton prices were low,
merchants were sometimes dishonestsharecroppers typically fell deeper into debt
• Southern law prevented a person from leaving
the land without paying their debt so
sharecroppers were typically locked into a cycle
of debt
Grantism
• Ulysses S. Grant won the Presidency in
1868 as a Republican
• His administration was marred with
corruption as were many of the state and
local governments as well
• In 1872 Republicans split over the issue of
corruption and the Liberal Republican
Party was formed
The Liberals’ Revolt
• Liberals nominate Horace Greeley for
President
• Democrats endorse Greely as well
• Republicans nominate Grant for reelection
• Grants wins but Republican power is
weakened
The Panic of 1873
• Nation suffers a financial crisis
• Financial Panic, mass unemployment
dispute over the currency
• Republicans are further divided
Reconstruction and the
Constitution
• Supreme Court made a series of rulings
that undermined the Reconstruction
Amendments
• Slaughterhouse Cases- National
Citizenship and State Citizenship are not
the same
• Supreme Court ruled Civil Rights Act of
1875 and Enforcement Acts as
Unconstitutional
Republicans in Retreat
• Republicans more interested in the
economy than equal rights
• Many northerners wanted to normalize
relations with the South
• Corruption in Grant’s administration and
state and local governments was
attributed to the Republicans
Redeeming the South
• 1872 pardons restored voting and citizenship
rights to ex-Confederates
• South’s ruling class rose to redeem the South
from Republican rule
• Economic pressure, intimidation and violence
were used to regain control of all of the Southern
states but South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida
by 1876
• Democrats cut taxes, public works and services
and passed laws favoring landlords
• Some blacks migrated North
The Election of 1876
• Republicans nominated Rutherford B. Hayes
• Democrats nominated Samuel Tilden
• Tilden won the popular vote but 4 states were
disputed
• Republicans in Congress awarded all of
disputed states to Hayes
• Compromise was worked out to
– Let Democrats take over governments in Louisiana,
South Carolina and Florida
– Remaining troops removed from the South
– Federal Aid for internal improvements in the South