Reconstruction 1865 1877 Rebuilding the South Reconstruction Definition

Reconstruction 1865 -1877 Rebuilding the South

Reconstruction • Definition: history. sandiego. edu/GEN/civilwar/16/reconstruction 1. html – 1) rebuilding the South – 2) readmitting the South into the Union – 3) determining what to do about the new freedmen

Many Questions • 1) How would the South rebuild their economy? – Land, railroads, plantations were destroyed • 2) How would the South rejoin the Union? – Constitution didn’t have any guidelines • 3) What rights would African-Americans have in the new nation? – They weren’t citizens, couldn’t vote, had no land or jobs

Three Major Plans for Reconstruction • 1) Lincoln’s Plan: easy on South • 2) Radical Republican Plan: easy on blacks • 3) Johnson’s Plan: easy on South, hard on blacks

Three Major Plans for Reconstruction http: //commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File: Abraham_Lincoln_seated, _Feb_9, _1864. jpg • 1) Lincoln’s Plan (10% Plan) “With malice toward none and charity for all. ” • Wants the South to rejoin quickly and easily • 10% of voters were to swear allegiance to USA and state was to abolish slavery and educate blacks to become citizens • Would pardon Confederates

Three Major Plans for Reconstruction • Republican Senators Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner • 2) Radical Republicans (harsh on South) • Blacks to were to become citizens and vote • Majority of the state had to swear allegiance before getting admitted • Punish Confederates • • history. sandiego. edu/GEN/civilwar/16/reconstruction 1. html http: //commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File: Charles_Sumner_-_Brady-Handy. jpg

Wade-Davis Bill • Bill that expressed their ideas • Created by the Radical Republicans to reconstruct the South, this bill said: – 1) majority of South had to swear allegiance – 2) wanted blacks to have guaranteed equality Lincoln vetoed it and the Republicans were shocked

Freedman’s Bureau • One thing Lincoln did pass • Set up to provide food, clothing, education, etc. to freed blacks and white refugees • http: //commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File: The_freedman's_bureau. png

Five Military Districts history. sandiego. edu/GEN/civilwar/16/reconstruction 1. html

Freedmen’s School http: //www. learnnc. org/lp/multimedia/12778

Freedmen’s School http: //www. emu. edu/news/index. php/961

Three Major Plans for Reconstruction • • Johnson’s Plan: Johnson was from South (born in Raleigh; didn’t have slaves); Democrat • Johnson’s Plan (basically like Lincolns: fast and easy readmission) • Requirements: citizenship to all but Confed. leaders and wealthy landowners; states must abolish slavery and accept the 13 th Amend. • Problem: he didn’t want blacks to vote and basically wanted “states rights” to rule (“white rule” basically) • http: //terrenoire. blogspot. com/2009/02/george-bush-is-not-worst-presidentever. html

State Conventions make their decisions • http: //rncnyc 2004. blogspot. com/2008_11_01_archive. html • Thirteenth Amendment had been passed (set the slaves free) • However, Southern whites tried to keep blacks in their place: farmers (landless workers, arrest jobless blacks and send to prison camps, etc) • Black Codes!!

Black Codes • After the Civil War, South Carolinians showed little remorse and began immediately to devise ways of curtailing black freedom. Edmund Rhett summed up the attitude of whites -- black freedoms must be "limited, controlled, and surrounded with such safeguards as will make the change as slight as possible. . The general interest of both the white man and the negro requires that he should be kept as near to his former condition as Law can keep him. That he should be kept as near to the condition of slavery as possible, as far from the condition of the white man as practicable. " And so South Carolina -- like other Southern states -- developed the "Black Codes. "

Black Codes • African Americans were no safer than they had been as slaves. A black, John Picksley, explained, "it is almost a daily occurrence for black men to be hunted down with dogs and shot like wild beasts. " One individual remarked that, "since the negro has ceased to be property [they have no] pecuniary value [so] maiming and killing" went unnoticed. • http: //chicora. org/heritage-not-hate. html • Blacks couldn’t sit on juries, carry weapons in public, testify against a white man, etc. • http: //www. spartacus. schoolnet. co. uk/USAkkk. htm

Prison Camps http: //history. sandiego. edu/gen/civilwar/16/reconstruction 1. html

Civil Rights Act of 1866 (guaranteed blacks civil rights) • Radical Republicans are furious at the Slave Codes • President Johnson accused the Reps of trying to “Africanize the southern half of our country. ” • Johnson vetoed the law but it was overridden (1 st time major bill overridden) • http: //www. columbia. edu/itc/law/witt/raw_images/lect 17/

Civil Rights Bill http: //history. sandiego. edu/gen/civilwar/16/reconstruction 1. html

Fourteenth Amendment • Now the Republicans gained confidence • 14 th Amendment: blacks (people born in US) given the right to be citizens • This protected the blacks from states’ laws that would take away their rights as freed people (like the right to vote)

Reconstruction Act of 1867 • In order to stop further problems, this law was passed by the Republicans (after Johnson had vetoed it). If the South did these, they could join the Union. – 1) South would be divided into 5 military districts so that blacks could be protected – 2) South had to accept the 14 th Amend. and allow/enforce black suffrage (voting) in their new state constitutions – 3) South couldn’t let rich, plantation owners and some ex-Confederates, suffrage rights or from holding office

5 Military Districts http: //history. sandiego. edu/gen/civilwar/16/reconstruction 1. html

Military Districts keep the peace http: //afrotexan. com/freedmen/index. htm

Battle Between Congress and Johnson continues • Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act: President couldn’t fire a Cabinet member appointed by the President without the approval of Congress (reason: Sec. of War Edwin Stanton was a Rad. Republican) • http: //www. fifthohiolightartillery. com/

Tenure of Office Act • http: //www. stockton. edu/~gilmorew/0 impeach/impeachm. htm • Johnson fires Stanton • Congress decides to impeach Johnson (bring charges against him) • Congress doesn’t convict by 1 vote because…a) Lincoln had hired Stanton and b) Johnson promised to follow Reconstruction Acts

Election of 1868 http: //commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/Image: 1868_Electoral_Map. png

Grant Wins (#18) • • http: //www. lowdowncentral. com/who-said-that/2007/9/12/who-said-that. html http: //www. sonofthesouth. net/union-generals/ulysses-s-grant/ulysses-grantinaugural-address. htm

Fifteenth Amendment • Because the Democrats got a majority of the white vote, the 15 th Amendment was passed • Gave blacks the right to vote, in both the North and South (13 th and 14 th were for the former slaves) • http: //jdhilmer. com/Brandon/15 thamendment. htm

Political Parties in the South: Who’s in Charge? • South was dominated by Democrats before the Civil War • However, times were changing as the Republicans began to increase their numbers • http: //www. suite 101. com/view_image. cfm/682573

Republicans gain numbers in the South (three types of people) • 1) Free Blacks – Love Lincoln’s party • 2) Scalawags – Southern Whites who support the North • 3) Carpetbaggers – Northerners coming down to make money – http: //www. syp. org. uk/getinvolved/electoralregistration. htm

Carpetbaggers http: //caiti-online. blogspot. com/2007_06_01_archive. html http: //www. magicalcat. com/images-recon/hap 00068. jpg

Hiram Revels: Success Story http: //www. blackpast. org/? q=aah/revels-hiram-rhoades-1827 -1901 • Hiram Revels was the first black man elected to the Senate • Guess who he replaced? Jefferson Davis • During Reconstruction, 2 blacks were elected to the Senate and 14 to the House of Reps

Southern Whites Upset with Black Political/Economic/Social Advancements • Many groups started to stop blacks from getting their rights (Pale Faces, Sons of Midnight, Knights of the White Camellia) • The most famous group was “started” by Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) (was only to be a joke at first) • http: //commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File: Nathan_Bedford_Forrest. jpg

Nathan Bedford Forrest • The KKK was founded on December 24, 1865 by six Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee. In 1867, at its convention in Nashville, Tennessee, the Klan ordained their first Grand Wizard of the Invisible Empire - Nathan Bedford Forest. This was the "Fort Pillow Butcher" who was responsible for the massacre of African American troops who tried to surrender at Fort Pillow in April 1864. As even one member of the Confederate 20 th Tennessee reported, "The slaughter was awful. " Forest, however, was pleased with the outcome, remarking "The river was dyed with the blood of the slaughtered for 200 yards. It is hoped that these facts will demonstrate to the northern people that negro soldiers cannot cope with Southerners. " • http: //chicora. org/heritage-not-hate. html

Nathan Bedford Forrest • Was very wealthy slave owner who had $1. 5 million worth of property • Asked 44 of his slaves to join him in enlisting and he would set them free at wars end (43 fought with him) • Entered the war as a private and left as a General (Cavalry) • Had 29 -30 horses shot out from under him • Some say he never had anything to do with the KKK (Gen. Sherman, who was part of Congressional investigation), but did lend them his name in order to give them some credibility; he ordered the KKK to disband in 1869 (didn’t have enough control) • http: //www. blueshoenashville. com/history. htmlhttp: // books. google. com/books? id=a. LXSg. Diml. D 0 C&pg=P A 21&lpg=PA 21&dq=why+did+kkk+end+in+1869&so urce=web&ots=lso. R 1 zn. Z 79&sig=5 XDzi. Fiq 8 Jqzw. PH Mmn. Muvx 1 Hr. E&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=resu lt#PPA 21, M 1

Ku Klux Klan (KKK) • This group attacked blacks and whites (Carpetbaggers and Scalawags) who promoted black suffrage and rights • Didn’t want the blacks to vote Republican • http: //www. learnnc. org/lp/multimedia/12455

White Carpetbaggers too! http: //commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File: Kkk-carpetbagger-cartoon. jpg

KKK • The name “ku klux klan” comes from the Greek word “kyklos” which means “circle” (or maybe from the Mexican legend of Cukulcan, “god of light’) • Most may have been from Irish/Scottish descent and borrowed the word “clan” • http: //americanhistory. si. edu/Brown/history/1 -segregated/white-only 2. html

Why did they burn crosses? Borrowed the idea actually. • The original Ku Klux Klan, which was founded in 1866 and disbanded in the early 1870 s, didn't burn crosses, but that didn't stop author Thomas Dixon from saying they did in his pro-KKK novel The Clansman (1905). "The Fiery Cross of old Scotland's hills!" a character in the book announces. "In olden times when the Chieftain of our people summoned the clan on an errand of life and death, the Fiery Cross, extinguished in sacrificial blood, was sent by swift courier from village to village. " • http: //www. straightdope. com/columns/read/1038/why-does-the-ku-klux-klan-burn-crosses

Enforcement Acts (called the KKK Act) Passed by Congress/Grant • Enforcement Acts: – Federal government can prosecute crimes committed by anti-black groups – The Klan disbanded by the early 1870’s and Democrats began winning seats back from the Republicans • http: //www. gilderlehrman. org/teachers/seminar_docs/recon_doc 2. html

How were freed blacks and poor whites going to survive down South? • Radical Republican Thadeus Stevens suggested taking from the plantation owners and giving to the poor • This wasn’t passed so they were all competing with each other for jobs • http: //mikeely. wordpress. com/interviews/blacks-and-jews-arevolutionary-view/

Two ways of dealing with it • http: //blackcynic. com/blog/? p=2838 • 1) Sharecropping: landowner provided shelter, seeds, tools to freedman – Instead of getting paid, freedman kept half/third of crops as his payment for shelter, etc. – No money given to freedman

Two ways of dealing with it • 2) Tenant Farming: basically the same thing but the freedman has to pay cash instead of a share of the crops as payment for shelter, seed, equipment • http: //rippdemup. blogspot. com/2009/02/black-history-unsung- hero. html

Sharecropping http: //websupport 1. citytech. cuny. edu/Faculty/pcatapano/lectures_us 2/newsouth. html

Amnesty Act (1872) • http: //thesituationist. wordpress. com/2007/12/ • This act gave former Confederates (except military generals) the right to vote again (replacing the Reconstruction Act law which disenfranchised them) • http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Amnesty_Act_of_1872

Time to End Reconstruction • 1) Other issues of importance: immigration, political corruption, business • 2) North tired of fighting racial issues and want it to end • 3) Southern governments began to return to the whites (Democrats began pointing out how new schools, roads, hospitals, etc. had raised Southern taxes) (“Redeemers”) • 4) Grant loses favor with the people

Grant loses favor with the people • Although an honest man, Grant appointed dishonest men, who stole from the government or took bribes, while Grant looked the other way (The Whiskey Ring) • People associated their actions with Grant • http: //www. u-s-history. com/pages/h 234. html • http: //americanrevwar. homestead. com/files/civwar/grant. html

• The Whiskey Ring • Federal Agents bribed from liquor stillers to pay less taxes • Grant’s own Secretary was involved and Grant tried to shield him from prosecution • www. american-presidents. org/. . . /whiskey -ring-scandal. html

Election of 1876 Basically, a tie (three states are disputed) • Rep. Rutherford B. Hayes and Dem. Samuel Tildon http: //commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File: 1876_Electoral_Map. png

Compromise of 1877 (started by Henry Clay, ……I mean… just kidding) Compromise of 1877 North Hayes was Pres. Both Reconstruction was Over! South Fed. Troops went home And got a Cabinet Member

Effects of Reconstruction • 1) Positives: (13 th), 14 th, and 15 th Amendments, tax-supported public schools in South • 2) Negatives: racial bias not dealt with, women can’t vote (although they were the leaders in the suffrage movement), white Southerners still wholly one party (Democrat) and the South became known as the “Solid South”