Describe the postwar challenges that faced the nation

Chapter 16 Section 1

Rebuilding the Nation

• Describe the postwar challenges that faced the nation.

• Compare and contrast President Lincoln’s plan for Reconstruction with the plan proposed by Congress.

• Identify the goals of the Freedmen’s Bureau.

• Describe the immediate impact of Lincoln’s assassination.

Objectives:



• Abraham Lincoln – president who wanted to bind up the wounds of the Civil War as quickly as possible

• amnesty – a group pardon

• freedman – a man or woman who was legally freed from slavery after the Civil War

• John Wilkes Booth – a Confederate sympathizer who shot President Lincoln

Terms and People



How did the government try to solve key problems facing the nation after the Civil War?

After the Civil War, enormous problems faced the nation, especially the South.

The government developed a plan for states to return to the Union and created an organization to help people freed from slavery.



After the Civil War, vast stretches of the South lay in ruins.

Americans had to bring the North and South together again.

This process was known as Reconstruction.



What plans would be made for

people who had been freed from

slavery?

Americans were forced to consider difficult questions during Reconstruction.

Who would help the homeless refugees who needed food,

shelter, and work?



President Abraham Lincoln and Congress proposed different plans for Reconstruction.



Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan made it easy for southern states to rejoin the Union.

That state could form a new state government.

That government declared an end to slavery.

10% of a state’s voters swore loyalty to the U.S.

The state could take part in national government again.

Former Confederates would receive amnesty.

If… Then…



The Wade-Davis Bill was much stricter.

That state could rejoin the Union.

People in that state had voluntarily fought for the Confederacy.

50% of a state’s voters swore loyalty to the U.S.

They would not have voting rights.

Lincoln refused to sign the bill, so it was never passed.

If… Then…



Lincoln believed that a “soft” policy would help him win support

from influential southerners.

Others argued that a strict plan would

keep the South from regaining power and weaken their control.

Republican leaders had different ideas about how to keep their party strong in the new South.



In 1865, Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau.

The government also had to deal with the needs of freedmen.

The Bureau’s first duty was to provide emergency relief to people displaced by the war.



The Freedmen’s Bureau set up schools in the South.

Many southern states lacked public education before the war.

Now, public schools began to educate both blacks and whites.



The Freedmen’s Bureau defended the freedom of former slaves in several ways.

It helped freedmen find jobs.

It resolved disputes between

white Americans

and freedmen.

It set up its own courts to

deal with some

disputes.



President Lincoln did not live to put his plans into practice.

Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer, while attending a play.

Booth was captured and killed, but Americans remained stunned by Lincoln’s death.



Lincoln’s successor was Vice President Andrew Johnson, a southern Democrat who had remained loyal to the Union.

Many Americans expected him to take a strict approach to Reconstruction.

Johnson had shown bitterness toward the Confederates.



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Describe the postwar challenges that faced the nation