Reconstruction Era 1865 1877 16 1 How do

Reconstruction Era 1865 -1877 16. 1 How do you rebuild a nation. . ?

Title your paper: Reconstruction: Key Questions Item #1

Vocabulary Basics: ✤ ✤ Construct - to build something Reconstruct - to build something after it has been destroyed (regarding American history. . . ) ✤ ✤ Reconstruction - was the process of reuniting the nation and rebuilding the southern states without slavery. Reconstruction Era = 18651877

What needed reconstruction? ✤ ✤ Cities, towns and farms = ruined Crop failures and high priced food = starvation Confederate economy = in ruins Millions of freed slaves unsure where to go and what to do.

Key Questions 1. How do we bring the South back into the Union? 2. How do we rebuild the South after its destruction during the war? 4. What branch of government should control the process of Reconstruction? 3. How do we integrate and protect newlyemancipated black freedmen?

Next lesson: Items #2 and #3 • #2 (worksheet activity) “Report Cards” on Reconstruction Plans • #3 (homeworksheet) “My A+ Plan” for Reconstruction

Item #4: 16. 1 Rebuilding the South • Cornell-style notes

The Ten. Percent Plan ✤ ✤ Through it, Lincoln offered southerners amnesty (official forgiveness or pardoning) for all illegal acts and rebelling. To receive amnesty, southerners had to. . . 1. Swear an oath of loyalty to the U. S. 2. Agree that slavery was illegal

10 %. . . ✤ Once 10 % of voters in a state did pledge these two things, they could form a new state gov. and join the Union again.

Wait Abe! Not so fast! You are being too easy on the South! Benjamin Wade Henry Davis

Wade-Davis Bill ✤ ✤ ✤ Congressmen Wade and Davis propose another plan to reconstruct the South. FYI it will be vetoed by Lincoln. (duh, he likes his plan better!) 1. The state had to ban slavery 2. The majority of southern males in the state had to take an oath of loyalty

10 % Plan vs. Wade Davis Bill What were the differences?

Wade-Davis Bill continued. . . Lincoln refused to sign the bill because he thought that few southern states would agree to meet its requirements. He believed that his plan would help restore order more quickly. ✤

African Americans are freed. . . ✤ December 1865 - 13 th Amendment passes and makes slavery illegal all throughout the U. S. ✤ couples get married ✤ families search for lost relatives ✤ free traveling ✤ people take new last names ✤ demanding equal rights “Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot [vote]. ” –Frederick Douglass

Freedman’s Bureau Est. March 1865 ✤ It was an organization established by Congress that provided relief for not only freedpeople of the South, but white refugees as well. A part of the army. ✤ It established schools and increased efforts to educate free slaves (children and adults) ✤ Provided food, supplies, and medical services to the poor ✤ Set up hospitals ✤ Arranged work opportunities (jobs) and transportation

Freedmen’s Bureau Seen Through Southern Eyes Plenty to eat and nothing to do.

Freedmen’s Bureau School

• Five days after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, Lincoln and his wife attend a play Lincoln’s Assassination • Ford’s Theater, Washington D. C • Date: April 15, 1865

• John Wilkes Booth, a Southerner who opposed Lincoln’s policies, sneaks into theater box and shoots Lincoln. Date

• Lincoln dies the following day. Somebody else must lead the nation. . .

Video clip: Lincoln’s Assassination From The Civl War by Ken Burns

President #17: Andrew Johnson ✤ Vice president sworn in as new president (1865) ✤ former slave holder ✤ stubborn

Johnson’s reconstruction plan ✤ ✤ Similar plan to Lincoln’s, but declares that former Confederate leaders needed a presidential pardon to receive amnesty He pardons 7, 000 people by 1866, upsetting radical republicans

Johnson’s plan continued. . . ✤ ✤ ✤ Temporary governor given to each state States had to revise their constitutions Voters elect state and fed representatives State govs had to declare secession was illegal had to ratify the 13 th amendment

By the end of 1865. . . ✤ ✤ ✤ All southern states except Texas had created new governments. Congress refuses to readmit the southern states into the Union because many of their new leaders were their old enemies - the leaders of the Confederacy. The nation remains divided