Reconstruction Review Lincoln interpreted his reelection as a

Reconstruction

Review • Lincoln interpreted his reelection as a mandate to end slavery permanently by amending the Constitution. • On January 31, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was sent to the states for ratification. • With his ragged and battered troops surrounded and outnumbered, Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9, 1865.

Review • With the war over, Lincoln delivered a speech describing his plan to restore the Southern states to the Union. – Mentions having African Americans serve in southern state governments • However, on the evening of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln.

Notes The South is destroyed • The Civil War ended April 9, 1865. • Most of the land in the South was destroyed by the Civil War. The South would need to be rebuilt. • This rebuilding of the South was called Reconstruction.

Notes Reconstruction • In the months after the Civil War, the nation began the effort to rebuild and reunite. Reconstruction Begins • After the Civil War, the president and Congress grappled with the difficult task of Reconstruction. • In December 1863, President Lincoln set forth his moderate plan for reuniting the country in the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. (quickly!) – Did not want to punish the south.

• “With malice [hatred] toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and for his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Notes • He offered a general amnesty to all Southerners who took an oath of loyalty to the US – Any southern state with at least 10% of its voters making a pledge to be loyal to the U. S. could be readmitted to the Union. • accept the Union’s proclamations concerning slavery. • Resistance to plan surfaced among Radical Republicans.

Notes • Radical Republicans wanted to achieve the following: – Prevent the leaders of the Confederacy from returning to power. – Make the Republican Party powerful in the South. – Most importantly: the federal government help African Americans achieve political equality guarantee their right to vote in the South.

Notes • By the summer of 1864, the • moderates and radicals had come up with a plan for Reconstruction that they could both support, known as the Wade-Davis Bill. – Requires majority of white southern males of former confederate states take an oath of allegiance to the Union – No one who supported the Confederacy could serve in the new government • Lincoln blocked it -pocket veto, fearing a harsh peace would alienate many whites in the South.

Notes • The south is in chaos • In March 1865, Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, known as the Freedmen’s Bureau. • • Feeding and clothing war refugees in the South 30, 000 rations a day for a year Helped former slaves find work on plantations Established schools in the South. – Laws against educating slaves during the Civil War meant that most ex-slaves did not know how to read and write

Notes • After Lincoln’s assassination, Andrew Johnson (a Southern Democrat) became president. – He remained loyal to Lincoln’s moderate policy to bring the South back to the Union. • members of Congress were angered that Southern voters had elected dozens of Confederate leaders to Congress. • Congressional Republicans were angry that the new Southern legislatures had passed laws known as black codes.

Notes • black codes – intended to keep African Americans in a condition similar to slavery • They required African Americans to enter into annual labor contracts. Those who did not could be arrested for vagrancy and forced into involuntary servitude. Several codes • established specific hours of labor and also required them to get • licenses to work in nonagricultural jobs

Voting Rights • Other laws were passed to keep blacks from voting. • One law said former slaves had to pay a tax to vote. It was called a poll tax. • Another law was passed that said a person could only vote if their grandfather had voted. These laws were called the Grandfather Clause.

Radical Republicans • The Black Codes angered many Republicans in Congress who felt the South was returning to its old ways. • The Radical Republicans wanted the South to change more before they could be readmitted to the Union. • They were angry at President Johnson for letting the South off so easy.

Notes • In March, congressional Reconstruction began with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. • Rights enjoyed by white citizens granted to all male persons in the United States "without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude. " – Citizenship – Own property – Equal under the law

Notes • Fearing that the Civil Rights Act might later be overturned in court, the Radicals introduced the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. – Citizenship

The 14 th Amendment • The 14 th Amendment guaranteed citizenship to all people born or naturalized within the U. S. except for the Indians. • It said that state governments could not “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. ”

Notes • After the Republicans won approximately a three-to-one majority in Congress, they began to enact their own Reconstruction program in place of Johnson’s. • In March 1867, Congress passed the Military Reconstruction Act, which essentially nullified Johnson’s programs and divided former Confederacy into 5 military districts.

Figure 7

Notes • In the meantime, each former Confederate state had to hold another constitutional convention to design a constitution acceptable to Congress. • To restrict Johnson’s power further, Congress passed two new laws: the Command of the Army Act and the Tenure of Office Act.

Notes • After Johnson challenged the Tenure of Office Act, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Johnson. • Impeachment is the process of charging a public official with a crime. • The next step was to try the president in the Senate. • By a single vote, Republicans failed to convict Johnson. • He was one vote short of conviction, and finished his term quietly.

Notes • Republican Ulysses S. Grant won the 1868 election. • Congressional Republicans moved rapidly to expand their Reconstruction program. • 1870 Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment. – The 15 th Amendment gave African American men the right to vote. – Women’s rights activists were angry because the amendment did not also grant women the right to vote.

Notes • Southerners, particularly supporters of the Democratic Party, called the Northerners who traveled to the South after the Civil War and supported the Republicans carpetbaggers. • Some white Southerners did work with Republicans and supported. Reconstruction. – The other Southerners called them scalawags

Notes • Having gained the right to vote, African American men entered into politics with great enthusiasm. – They served as legislators and administrators for nearly all levels of government.

Notes • The Republican governments in the South instituted a number of reforms that included: – repealing the black codes – establishing state hospitals and institutions for orphans – rebuilding roads, railways, and bridges damaged during the Civil War – providing funds for construction of new railroads and industries in the South

Notes • Unable to strike openly at the Republicans running their states, some Southern Democrats and opponents of Reconstruction organized secret societies to undermine Republican rule. – The largest of these groups was the Ku Klux Klan. • The KKK was a secret society opposed to African Americans obtaining civil rights, particularly the right to vote.

Ku Klux Klan • The KKK used violence and intimidation to frighten blacks. • Klan members wore white robes and hoods to hide their identities. • The Klan was known to have murdered many people. • Congress passed three Enforcement Acts in 1870 and 1871, one of which outlawed the activities of the Klan.

Notes • Eventually, Grant’s lack of political experience helped to divide the Republican Party and to undermine public support for Reconstruction. – In addition, the nation endured a staggering and long-lasting economic crisis. • Link

Notes • In the 1870 s, Democrats began to regain power in the South. • They did so in the following ways: – intimidation and fraud – defining elections as a struggle between whites and African Americans – promising to cut the high taxes the Republicans had imposed – accusing Republicans of corruption

Notes • In 1876 the presidential election pitted Republican Rutherford B. Hayes against Democrat Samuel Tilden. – On Election Day, twenty electoral votes were disputed. – Congressional leaders worked out a deal known as the Compromise of 1877. (unwritten deal that settled the Election, pulled federal troops out of state politics in the South, and ended Reconstruction) – Hayes then took office. (LINK)

Segregation and Jim Crow Laws • Starting in 1881, blacks had to stay in separate hotels, sit in separate parts of theaters, ride in separate rail cars, and have separate schools, libraries, and parks. This is known as segregation. • Segregation - the legal separation of blacks and whites in public places • Jim Crow Laws - laws that forced segregation (LINK)

Plessy v. Ferguson • The Supreme Court ruled segregation was legal in Plessy v. Ferguson. • They said that segregation was fair as long as “separate-but-equal” facilities were provided for African Americans. • In practice, the African American facilities were usually “separate-and-unequal. ” • It would take until the 1965, 100 years after the Civil War ended, for Jim Crow laws to be outlawed and blacks to finally realize legal equality in America.

Notes • Tenant Farmers –paying rent for the land they farmed – Many worked for wages or became Sharecroppers (farmer who works land for an owner who provides equipment and seed and receives a share of the crop). – The Civil War had ended slavery, but Reconstruction had left many African Americans trapped in poverty.

Figure 8

40 Acres and Mule • During Reconstruction, ex-slaves were promised 40 acres of land a mule. • Unfortunately, the government never came through with their promise. • During the riots in the 1960’s, people were overheard saying, “That’s for my 40 acres and a mule, ” as they stole something from a store. • Film maker Spike Lee’s company is called 40 Acres and a Mule.

Notes • Many Southern leaders called for the creation of a “New South”—believing the region needed a strong industrial economy. – Some parts of the South did witness great economic changes, while other parts remained agrarian and changed only a little. • The collapse of Reconstruction ended African American hopes of being granted their own land in the South.