Chapter 17RECONSTRUCTION: NORTH AND SOUTH

The XIII Amendment to the Constitution

In the final months of the Civil War Congress debated the adoption of the XIII Amendment

Text of the XIII Amendment Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a

punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Ratification Process Passed by 2/3 majority of both the House and the Senate

Ratified by 3/4ths of the States (by various processes)

Ratification of the XIII Amendment

Passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864

Passed by the House of Representatives: January 31, 1865 119 to 56 (seven votes above the 2/3 majority required)

Ratified by the required ¾ majority of states by December 6, 1865

Civil War Ends

Formal surrender by Robert E. Lee on April 9, 1865

President Lincoln shot on April 14, 1865

President Lincoln died on April 15, 1865

President Andrew Johnson declared the Civil War over on May 9, 1865

Questions in the War’s Aftermath

How were the Confederate States to be treated? Conquered states?

Forgiven prodigal sons?

Traitors to the United States?

Industrial North firmly in control of Congress and was no longer at the mercy of the southern coalition of congressmen

South: rebuilding What money was available for this?

Who would pay?

Rebuilt how?

“The Burned District” Richmond VA 1865

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A Transformed South

Southern people defeated but unbowed

Viewed Northern troops with hatred

Legally Free, Socially Bound

Free but unemployed

Northern troops and politicians refused to consider “freedmen” as socially equal with whites

Citizens? Did the Constitution define who was and who was not a citizen?

The War’s Aftermath

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The Battle over Reconstruction

Lincoln’s Plan and Congress’s Response

Once 10% of people who voted in 1860 (while men) took an oath of allegiance to the Constitution, they would be permitted to return to the Union.

Congress: reconstruction is a legislative function not an executive function

Refused to allow Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana to return to the Union

Wade-Davis Bill: harsh demands– Vetoed by Lincoln

Wade-Davis Manifesto accused Lincoln of violating his constitutional authority.

The XIV Amendment Passed by Congress: June 13, 1866

Text:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Ratified amendment pre-certification, 1866–1868 Ratified amendment pre-certification after first

rejecting it, 1868 Ratified amendment post-certification after first

rejecting it, 1869–1976 Ratified amendment post-certification, 1959 Ratified amendment, withdrew ratification (rescission), then re-ratified Territories of the United States in 1868, not yet states

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The War’s Aftermath

The Freedmen’s Bureau

Created in March 1865 by Congress to help with basic necessities in the transition between slavery and self sufficiency

Reconstruction Violence

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American History in Video—Violence and Reconstruction in the South Playlist

Freedmen’s school in Virginia

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Congressional Reconstruction

Any state that had met previous guidelines to return to the Union was still in rebellion

President denied power to remove members of his cabinet

Grant made independent of Johnson

Conditions of Readmission to the Union

States must craft new constitutions

States must adopt universal male suffrage

States must adopt the 14th Amendment

South divided into 5 military districts controlled by governors

Freedmen Society

Church became the center of society

Marriage (illegal under slavery) exploded. By 1870 the majority of black families had established a two parent home.

Schools built in local communities of Freedmen frightened whites who feared that education would cause them to seek better opportunities and living conditions.

Freedmen exercised the right to vote and attended the state constitutional conventions

Social distinctions and conflicts between urban and rural freedmen

XV Amendment

Ratified in 1870

Text Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not

be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Women’s suffrage organizations split over XIV Amendment National Women’s Suffrage Association opposed (Susan B. Anthony &

Elizabeth Cady Stanton)

American Women’s Suffrage Association (Lucy Stone & Henry Brown Blackwell)

Reconstruction Violence

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American History in Video—Violence and Reconstruction in the South Playlist

Grant Elected President in 1868

Grant ( R ) Defeats Seymour (D)Electoral College 214 to 8052.7 % to 47.3%

Grant Presidency Scandals

Plot to corner the gold market

Credit Mobilier

Whiskey Ring

Reform and the Election of 1872

Scandals and Radical Reconstructionist in Republican Party spawned creation of the Liberal Republican faction.

Liberal Republicans Favored free trade not tariffs

Redemption of greenbacks with gold

A stable currency

End to reconstruction in the South & restoration of rights of former Confederates

Civil Service Reform

Nominated Horace Greely for President in 1872

Southern Democrats supported Greely

Election of 1872

Grant defeats Greely

Electoral College: 286 -0

55.6% to 43.8 %

Greely died on November 29, 1872

After the popular election but before the electoral college met.

His electors split their votes among 4 other people.

North Grows Weary of Reconstruction

By 1873 many in the North are more concerned with other pressing problems than reconstruction Western Expansion

Indian Wars

Political controversy over tariffs and greenbacks

Southern resistance to reconstruction increased the cost and the time

Democrats in the South mobilized the “white” vote using the issue of race to mobilize the white electorate and create climate of fear

“While White and Black Republicans may outvote us but we can out count them”

1876 Radical Republican regimes survived only in Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida. These collapsed in 1877.

Debt

War Bonds are what paid for the war. War bonds could be purchased with “greenbacks” (paper money

issued during the war).

What to do with “greenbacks” after the war?

Replace greenbacks with hard currency (gold)?

Hard money (gold replacing greenbacks)

Soft money (withdraw greenbacks from circulation

Ohio Idea: use greenbacks to pay back war bonds

Public Credit Act (1869) Government debt had to be paid in gold

Panic of 1873

In 1873, 25 Railroad companies defaulted on their debts causing the market in Railroad bonds to crash

September 18, 1873 Investment Bank, Jay Cooke and Company goes bankrupt

Investor stampede to sell securities for cash caused the stock market to close for 10 days.

Depression resulting from the Panic of 1873 lasted 6 years

During the Depression, Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives

Circular confusion: greenbacks < gold

Gold paid foreign debts causing outflow

Reduction of greenbacks to match ever shrinking gold supply caused currency and credit shortage that hurt business expansion causing loss of jobs.

To ease the currency shortage, the treasury issued more greenbacks

Specie Redemption Act of 1875

People who turned in their greenbacks would be paid in gold

Compromise of 1877

Republicans nominate Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio “he is obnoxious to no one”

Democrats nominate Samuel J. Tilden Wealthy corporate lawyer

Reform governor of New York who directed the campaign to overthrow Boss Tweed

Both parties agreed on the issues Democrats: “aired the dirty linen” (Republican scandals)

Republicans: “waved the bloody shirt” linking Democrats to the civil war and Lincoln’s assassination: “every scar you have on your heroic bodies was given you by a Democrat!”

Election Doubt

Early election returns pointed to Tilden victory 254,000 votes ahead of Hayes

184 electoral votes (1 vote shy of a majority)

Hayes had only 165 electoral votes Republicans claimed that they had 19 electoral votes from Florida,

Louisiana, and South Carolina

Rival election boards sent in different returns

January 29, 1877 Congress set up special Electoral Commission

15 member (5 House) (5 Senate) (5 Supreme Court)

Commission decision: 8 to 7 along party lines for Hayes

House voted to accept commission decision and declared Hayes the winner by electoral vote of 185-184

Deal to End Reconstruction

February 26, 1877: Ohio Republicans and Southern Democrats agreed to let Hayes be President in return for ending Reconstruction in the South and removing Federal troops. Hayes remove troops from S.C. and Louisiana so those Republican

state governments would collapse

Democrats would accept the Reconstruction Amendments (13, 14, 15)