Reconstruction Study Guide

Rebuilding the Nation

Consequences of the Civil War

• Most devastating war in American history. Over 620,000 soldiers lost their lives. Billions of dollars of damage.

• Bitter feelings and hatred builds up between the North and the South.

• The growth of the National government-it overpowers the state governments.

• Four million freed slaves

Problems to be solved• 1. Should the Confederate leaders be tried for

treason?• 2. How should the new southern state

governments be formed?• 3. How was the South’s economy to be rebuilt?• 4. Who was going to pay for it?• 5. What was to be done about the 4 million freed slaves?

Two Proposed Plans For Reconstruction (1863)

Lincoln’s Plan (Leniency/10%)

• No punishing the South!• 10% of voters swear loyalty• Amnesty to most southerners

if they swear loyalty to the Union

• State constitutions must ban slavery

• Educated ex-slaves must be given the right to vote

• Ex-slaves would not be given equal rights

Radical Republicans

• Punish the South!• Former Confederates

cannot hold public office• 50% of voters must swear

loyalty to the Union• Only white males who

swore they never fought in the war could vote for representatives to the constitutional conventions

• Southern states must ratify the 14th Amendment

Freedman’s Bureau

• March 1865• 1st attempt to help the South after the war• Emergency relief to people displaced by the Civil

War• Set up schools to teach freedmen how to read

and write• Helped freedmen find jobs, shelter, and food• Provided courts where freedmen could go to

settle disputes between whites and blacks

The Struggle Begins

• Black Codes (1865)• Laws passed in southern

states to keep the freedmen from obtaining full equality.

• They varied from state to state.

• 13th Amendment– Dec. 6, 1865– Banned slavery in the United

States• 14th Amendment

– July 9, 1868– Defined citizenship– Gave citizenship to blacks– All citizens have the same rights

• 15th Amendment– Feb. 3, 1870– Right to vote for any man,

regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude

Presidential Reconstruction

• 1865• President Johnson• Leniency toward rebel leaders.• Neglect towards former slaves.• Amnesty to all who would take an oath of

allegiance.• Each state would have a provisional governor.• Must have a new constitution that outlaws

slavery.

Radical Reconstruction• Congressional Reconstruction– Reconstruction Act of 1867

• Imposed military rule for Southern States.• Five military districts.• Must make new constitution that gave voting rights to

blacks.• Must pass 14th Amendment

– Impeached President Johnson.• 11 Charges against him.• Most without merit.• Senate found him not guilty!

Military Districts

The South Fights Back • Literacy tests– Southerners who tried to vote had to pass a “Literacy

Test” before they could vote– Obviously, most ex-slaves could not read & write

• Poll Tax– Southerners who tried to vote had to pay a fee– Obviously ex-slaves could not afford such fees

• Grandfather Clauses– Anyone in the South whose Father or Grandfather

had voted before the Civil War could vote even if they failed the “Literacy Test”

– Obviously, no ex-slave had a father or grandfather who had ever voted before

South Fights Back

• Ku Klux Klan– A secret society that believed and practiced white

supremacy.– Targeted African-American voters at first.– Used intimidation and violence against blacks and

anyone who helped them.– Congress passes the KKK Act of 1870.• This outlawed the KKK!

A New President

• Ulysses S. Grant– Elected 18th President in 1868.– Grant appointed friends to government positions.– Many of these friends were corrupt and greedy.– Grant’s image was tarnished!

Democrats take control

• Slowly, the same class of former rich plantation owners began to take control of the South.

• Slavocracy!• The newly empowered African-Americans are

stripped of their hard won rights.

The Election of 1876

• Rutherford B. Hayes defeats becomes the 19th president of the United States.

• Hayes removes all federal troops from the South.• Reconstruction ends!

African-Americans Lose Rights

• Jim Crow Laws.• Began in 1880’s.• Grew out of the old “Black Codes”.• Separation of the two races.• Separate facilities for whites and blacks…– Restaurants, theatres, buses, trains, drinking

fountains, restrooms, waiting rooms….

Official Segregation

• 1896• U.S. Supreme Court case• Plessy v Ferguson.• Homer Plessy was arrested for sitting in a “Whites Only”

railroad car in Louisiana on June 7, 1892.• He did so intentionally to test the law (Separate Car Act).• “Separate But Equal” doctrine.

Cycle of Poverty

• Sharecroppers– Many poor whites and African-Americans relied

on farmers to survive.– Many poor whites and ex-slaves had no choice to

farm a portion of someone else’s land, only to keep a tiny portion of those crops.

– This unfair system would continue to build debt.– Ex-slaves would live in a constant cycle of poverty

in which they could not escape.

The New South

• Remember: Reconstruction was a failure!• The South without slavery!• Jim Crow (legalized racial separation in public

places)• The Federal government is going to give their

support to segregation in the South.• Life gets worse for the African-Americans in the

South.• Lynchings/violence/intimidation/terror increase

The Black Response• Ida B. Wells-Barnett

– Black journalist who begins a crusade to stop all the violence and lynchings against blacks

• Booker T. Washington– Spokesman for the black middle class– Urges them to learn mechanic and trade jobs to become useful to

the white man– Urges the black man to assimilate into the “White” society by

adopting white ways and work for gradual equality• W.E.B. Dubois

– Disagreed with Booker T. Washington– Wanted to work for equality now– Urged the “Talented Tenth” to go to universities to become

doctors, lawyers, and other professionals to lead the fight for equality now!

• NAACP– National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

• Organization to help blacks fight for equality using law suits

The Sin of Slavery• The South would remain backwards• Not able to catch up with the North in

agriculture or industry• Blacks who remained in the South would

remain trapped in the cycle of poverty from the life of sharecropping, a life deprived of equal rights, and a society that segregated the white and black races.

Will things ever get better?