“Radical Reconstruction”???
Failure to implement truly radical
measures during reconstruction failed
to truly help southern Blacks while
thoroughly angering and alienating
southern whites.
I. After Appomattox: The
Ultimate Questions
• How do you
reconstruct the Union?
• How far should the
federal government go
to insure Black
freedom and civil
rights?
II. Philosophies of
Reconstruction
• Presidential
--quick restoration with
minimal protection for
southern Blacks
• Congressional
-- “loyal” southern
governments to replace
ex-confederates
--Southern Blacks need
basic rights of American
citizenship
III. Presidential Reconstruction
• Lincoln’s 10% plan
• Battle over who had the
power to reconstruct the
Union
• Andrew Johnson’s
background
--hated southern planters
--no friend of Blacks
• Johnson’s Reconstruction
Plan (May, 1865)
IV. Radical Republicans Gain
the Upper Hand
• Johnson’s
controversial vetoes
• Johnson’s opposition
to the 14th amendment
• The “Swing Around
the Circle” (1866)
• Republicans won vetoproof majorities in the
1866 election
V. Congressional Reconstruction
(Begins in 1867)
• Reconstruction Act of
1867
• Military rule of the south
• Readmission of states with
guarantees of Black
suffrage
• Exclusion of exConfederates from
government office
• Radicals wanted
redistribution of land to
Blacks—too radical
VI. The Impeachment Crisis
• Johnson tries to obstruct
congressional
reconstruction with
executive privilege
• Tenure of Office Act
• Johnson tries to remove
Secretary of War Stanton
• Impeachment and Trial in
the Senate
• Process neutralized
Johnson
VII. Reconstruction in the South
• A Condition of Ruin
• “Forty Acres and a Mule”
• Blacks resist gang labor
after the War
• Development of
Sharecropper system
• Black Codes
• The Segregated South
• Freedmen faced violence
if they tried to vote
VIII. The Southern Republican
Party
• Hastily organized for 1868
elections
• Three constituencies:
--southern Blacks
--northern businessmen
--poor, white farmers
• Some success, some
corruption
• Blacks held only limited
political offices in the
south
IX. The Fifteenth Amendment
• Highpoint of
Reconstruction era
• Ratified in 1870
• Ambiguous wording
allowed the future use of
literacy tests, poll taxes,
and property requirements
• Worked to divide the
feminist movement
X. Grant and the Retreat from
Reconstruction
• Rise of the Ku Klux Klan
between 1868-1872
• Inconsistent use of federal
troops to protect Black
voters
• Northern disenchantment
with “propping up”
corrupt southern state
governments
• Open southern appeal to
white supremacy after
1872
X. Retreat from Reconstruction
(cont.)
• Grant administration
facing charges of
corruption
-- Credit Mobilier scandal
• Radical Republicans dying
or out of office
• Civil service reform
replaces Black civil rights
as the major political issue
of the time
XI. The Compromise of 1877
• The election of 1876
• Tilden vs. Hayes
• Disputed votes in the
electoral college
• Electoral commission fell
under Republican control
• Hayes’ victory in
exchange for southern
“home rule”
• Eliminates Republican
party in the south
XII. The “New South”
• Redemption
governments
• Laissez-faire policies
and white supremacy
• Northern industry
attracted to no taxes
and low wages for
workers
• Corrupt governments
XII. “The New South” (cont.)
• Lynchings common
• Poor whites neglected just
as much as Blacks
• Some Blacks continue to
vote until the 1890’s
• Supreme Court decisions
between 1875-1896 gutted
Reconstruction
--Plessy v. Ferguson
(1896)
XII. “The New South” (cont.)
• Signs of sectional healing:
Battlefield reunions
• Sectional reconciliation
made possible by northern
abandonment of Black
rights
• “Lost Cause” myth also
helps reconcile the two
regions
• Blacks bore the burden of
sectional reconciliation