Reconstruction Positives and Negatives Positive 1 New Amendments

Reconstruction Positives and Negatives

Positive 1 – New Amendments �Thirteenth – Slavery is outlawed �Fourteenth – African Americans are recognized as citizens �Fifteenth – African American males are permitted to vote

Positive 2 – Freedmen’s Bureau � Established March 3, 1865 � Headed by Union General Oliver O. Howard � The first type of welfare program in the U. S. � Pres. Andrew Johnson, who shared Southern Supremacist feelings, ended it in 1872

Union General Oliver O. Howard

Positive 2 – Freedmen’s Bureau �Government agency set up to aid the newly freed slaves �Clothes �Food �Schools �Health Care �Contract and Labor Relations

Positive 3 – New Schools �By 1870 more than 1, 000 schools in the South �Spent over $5 million to establish schools in the South �Howard University and other colleges

Freedmen’s School

Positive 4 – Black Role Models �Hiram Revels – First Black Senator (Mississippi) �W. E. B. Dubois – First Af. Am. To earn a Ph. D from Harvard �Booker T. Washington – valued industrial education along with academic education

Negative 1 - Sharecropping �Similar to slavery �Huge debts were rarely ever paid back �Unfair contracts, limited literacy

Negative 2 -Black Codes/Jim Crow Laws �State laws to limit the freedom of the freed-people �No assembling without supervision �Limits on behavior toward whites �No guns

Negative 2 – Black Codes

Negative 3 – Bitter Feelings �Racism and unfair treatment continue �Resentment �Hatred

Negative 4 - Ku Klux Klan �Started in Tennessee in 1866 �Kuklos = Circle – Ring/Band �Also known as the “Invisible Empire of the South” �Dedicated to scaring blacks into not voting or seeking employment

The Ku Klux Klan �Nathan Bedford Forrest �Grand Wizard

Negative 4– Ku Klux Klan �Mainly a terrorist organization �Burned homes �Beat and killed African Americans

Negative 5 - Lynching

Negative 6 - Impeachment �Andrew Johnson is impeached �Violated the Tenure of Office Act �Fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton

Negative 6 - Impeachment �Tenure of Office Act - passed in 1867 �Claims the President is not allowed by the Senate to remove his appointees if they have been approved by the Senate �They did this to keep Edwin M. Stanton, who was a Republican spy, in office �Johnson released Stanton of duty in 1868 �Republicans impeached Johnson

Negative 6 - Impeachment �Johnson advised not to testify by his lawyers �They claimed the Tenure of Office was unconstitutional �May 16, 1868, Johnson was acquitted of charges by one vote �Radicals were enraged by the acquittal �Politicians feared setting the precedent of removing the president of office by impeachment

Negative 7 - Scandals �Grant put former friends and army officials in office �Most were unqualified �Most took bribes �This caused the Republicans to split apart

Negative 8 – Compromise of 1877 �Presidential Election of 1876 �Tilden (Dem) v. Hayes (Rep) �Too close to call in some states (SC, FL, LA) �Democrats agree to give Hayes the victory for certain conditions � 1. More funding for the South ($$) � 2. Union troops removed from the South � 3. The South “promises” to ensure African-American rights.