Reconstruction1865-1877

Civil War 1861-1865

Reconstruction

Reconstruction:

• Era following the Civil War (1865-1877)

• A time for rebuilding the shattered nation

• 4 million men, women, and children newly freed

Meaning of Freedom?

The Central Question facing American Society:

• What did African American Freedom Mean??

• Whites?

• Freedom did not = equality

• African Americans?

• Escaping the injustices of slavery

Visions of Freedom

• African Americans:

• Immediately claimed their vision of freedom

• mobilty, voting, land ownership, owning

their own labor, access to basic education

• Reconstituted their families

• Held political demonstrations/meetings

• Established independent churches

Freedmen’s Bureau

• established by Congress

• Administered by the Union Army

• Helped to settle disputes between whites and blacks over

land and labor

• Ensured justice in the courts

• Monitored elections

• Organized Schools

• 500 by 1866

Visions of Freedom

• White Visions:

• Defined freedom in very narrow terms

• Did not want change

• White freedom = mastery

• Freedom = privilege not a right

• Freedom did not = political or civil equality

Black Codes 1865-1866

• Illustrate White Visions of Black Freedom

• Immediately passed by southern state legislatures

• Outlined legal rights

• Aimed at creating a subservient labor force

Reconstruction

• Two Phases of Federal Reconstruction:

• Presidential, 1865-1867

• Congressional (Radical), 1867-1877

President

Andrew Johnson

• Restored former

Confederates to

Power

• Opposed rights for

freed people

• Supported State’s

Rights

Congress

• Republican Party/Radical Republicans

• Northern Industrialists

• Free labor ideology

• Pres. Johnson vetoed all attempts to extend

rights to freedmen

• 1866 gained a majority in Congress/over-rule

veto

Radical

Reconstruction

• Redefined black’s political & economic rights

• Supported education

• Significant for what it did & did not accomplish

Reconstruction Amendments

• First Attempt of Federal Government to define the rights

of African Americans

• 13th, 14th, & 15th Amendments

• Southern states had to ratify these amendments to be

readmitted to the United States

14th Amendment, 1868

• African Americans = US Citizens

• Equal protection under the law

• Put penalties on states that denied suffrage

to male citizens

• New Role for the Federal Government

Limits of 14th Amendment

• Uses the world “male”

• Difficult to enforce

• Did not guarantee suffrage to African Americans

• “equal protection” did not mean equality or equal

access to goods and services

• Leading to “separate but equal” in Plessy

ruling 1896

15th Amendment, 1870

• Forbid states and and federal government

to deny suffrage to any citizen on account

of “race, color, or previous condition of

servitude.”

Limits of 15th Amendment

• Does not mention gender or religion

• Does not outlaw literacy tests, poll taxes,

grandfather clauses, property

qualifications, or discrimination against

women

End of Reconstruction

• Northerners grew tired of it

• Finally left southern states to deal with

their “own people”

• Democratic Party became the party of

White Supremacy