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Reconstruction
Reconstruction
The time between 1865 and 1877
Three major tasks: The return of the Southern states
The status of ex-Confederate leaders,
The Constitutional and legal status of the African-American Freedmen.
Physical Toll of the War
Destroyed 2/3 of the South’s Shipping industry
9,000 miles of railroad
Destroyed farmland, machinery and 1/3 of all live stock
Value of all Southern property dropped 70%
Human Toll of the War
364,000 Northerners
260,000 Southerners (1/5 of the white adult population killed, one out of three killed or wounded)
Southern Hardships
Black Southerners- 4 million freed people. After a lifetime of forced labor they now found themselves homeless and jobless
Plantation owners – Lost slave labor worth $3 billion and federal government could seize property.
Poor white southerners- could not find work because of the competition from freedmen
Presidential Reconstruction 1863-66 was controlled by Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, with the goal of speedily reuniting the country. Radical Reconstruction, 1866-1873 emphasizing civil rights and voting rights for the Freedmen.Redemption, 1873-77, a reaction in which conservative white Southerners (calling themselves "Redeemers") overthrew the Republicans and took control of each state.
Presidential Reconstruction
Lincoln- 10% Plan very forgiving! Offered a pardon (Official forgiveness) to any Confederate willing to take an oath to the Union and accept new slavery laws
Denied pardon to Officials in Army/Gov’t
Permitted states to hold new constitutional conventions after 10% of the population had sworn allegiance to the Union
States could then hold election and resume in the union
Lincoln cont
Opposition came from his own party, the Radical RepublicansRadicals believed reconstruction should restructure society and give blacks true equality. Created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands in January 1865, known as the Freedmen's Bureau.
Johnson’s ReconstructionIt pardoned Southerners who swore allegiance to the UnionEach state could hold constitutional conventions (Without Lincoln's 10% requirement)States required to void secession, abolish slavery and renounce Confederate debt. State’s could then hold elections and rejoin the Union(Officially denied pardons to Confederate leaders but if they asked Johnson personally he would pardon them, giving 13,000 pardon’s in 1865)
Freedom Movement
Freedom to own land (Forty acres and a Mule)
Freedom to Worship
Freedmen’s Bureau (First relief agency in US History- gave out clothing, medical supplies, and food more than 250,000 African Americans received their first education from it)
Freedom to Learn (1860 90% of black adults were illiterate)
“I never before saw children so eager to learn. Coming to school a constant delight and recreation to them… Many of the grown people [also}] are desirous of learning to read. It is wonderful how a people who have been so long crushed to the earth can have so great a desire for knowledge, and such a capability for attaining it.” –Charlotte Forten
Pop Quiz
What was Lincoln’s Plan Called?
Who’s Plan was more lenient Johnson or Lincoln?
Name two of the groups that suffered in the south?
Name one of the three issues faced in reconstruction.
Presidential Reconstruction
While Johnson’s plan was in effect, white southerners wrote black codes. (Took away many of the rights of the freed African Americans- could not vote, serve on juries, curfews, vagrancy laws, rent land only in rural areas, pay fees to have a job…)
In response Radical Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which guaranteed African Americans citizenship.
Fourteenth amendment- created in 1866 and ratified by states in 1868 which made civil rights part of the constitution.
“All persons born or naturalized in the US are citizens… no state shall make or abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens”
(13th had been passed in 1865 to abolish slavery)
Civil Rights Act of 1875- guaranteed equal rights in public places.
Johnson urged states not to ratify the 14th amendment and Northerners were mad enough to sweep Radicals into the Congress who set about their own agenda.
Radical Reconstruction
Strict Laws Imposed! Reconstruction Acts States who hadn’t accepted the 14th amendment were put under military rule
Ordered southern states to create new constitutions
Required states to allow ALL qualified voter to vote
Guarantee equal rights to all citizens.
Ratify the 14th amendments
Barred those who had supported the Confederacy from voting.
The Fight Begins!!!
Reduction of Presidential Power
Johnson is Impeached 126 to 47 with 11 articles of impeachment
Saved from impeachment by one vote
Grant elected to presidency
Carpetbaggers- Southerners called the Northerners how came to the south carpetbaggers.
Scalawags-white southerners who supported reconstruction
Freed African Americans- many had to return to the plantations where they had been enslaved. A system called sharecropping developed were a person farmed the land and paid a portion of harvest for the rent.
Fifteenth amendment passed in 1869 – the right of a person to vote could not be denied “on account of race, race, color or previous condition of servitude”
1866 6 former confederate soldiers formed a secret society known as the KKK – spread quickly through the South
Reconstruction ends
Four reasons Reconstruction endsCorruption The economy (panic of 1873)Violence Democrats return to power
Compromise of 1877 Hayes vs Tilden. Hayes made president and remaining troops removed from south.
