Reconstruction (1865-1876)

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Reconstruction (1865-1876)
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Key Questions
1. How do webring the Southback into the Union?
4. What branchof governmentshould controlthe
process ofReconstruction?
2. How do we rebuild the South after
itsdestruction during the war?
3. How do weintegrate andprotect
newly-emancipatedblack freedmen?
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Wartime Reconstruction
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President Lincolns Plan

• Lincolns 10 Plan
• Pardon all confederates except high ranking
  military officers and those accused of crimes
  against POWs
• Once 10 of voting population swore allegiance
  to the Union and promised to obey its laws
  launch new gov reenter Union
• Lincoln guaranteed southerners that he would
  protect their private property, though not their
  slaves.
• 1864 Lincoln Governments formed in LA, TN, AR

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Radical Republicans in Congress Disagree

• Radical Republicans - Sen. Charles Sumner and
  Rep. Thaddeus Stevens
• want to destroy political power of former slave
  holders
• African Americans should have full citizenship
  rights to vote.
• Congress should be in Charge of Reconstruction

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Congresses 1st Proposal Wade-Davis Bill (1864)

• Required 50 of the number of 1860 voters to take
  an iron clad oath of allegiance (swearing they
  had never voluntarily aided the rebellion)
• A state must formally abolish slavery
• No Confederate officials could participate in the
  new governments
• Required a state constitutional convention before
  the election of state officials.
• Enacted specific safeguards of freedmens
  liberties.
• Congress, NOT THE PRESIDENT, is responsible for
  Reconstruction

SenatorBenjaminWade(R-OH)
Congr.HenryW. Davis(R-MD)
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Wade-Davis Bill (cont.)

• State Suicide Theory - MA senator Charles
  Sumner, believed southern states committed
  suicide when they seceded, therefore, treated as
  new states.
• Conquered Provinces Position PA
  representative Thaddeus Stevens, treated south
  like conquered territories/prisoners of war

PocketVeto
PresidentLincoln
Wade-DavisBill
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13th Amendment

• Ratified in December, 1865.
• Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except
  as punishment for crime whereof the party shall
  have been duly convicted, shall exist within the
  United States or any place subject to their
  jurisdiction.
• Congress shall have power to enforce this article
  by appropriate legislation.

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Freedmens Bureau (1865)

• First federal relief agency in American history
• Set up to assist freed African Americans
• distributed food, clothing
• set up hospitals, employment agencies, education.
  
• First Agency to provide public education for
  African Americans

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Freedmens Bureau (1865)

• Many former northern abolitionists risked, and
  some gave, their lives to help southern freedmen.

• Called carpetbaggers by white southern
  Democrats.

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Freedmens Bureau (1865)

• SCALAWAGS Southerners who believed in
  reconstruction (name given by southerners)

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Freedmens Bureau Seen Through Southern Eyes
Plenty to eat and nothing to do.
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Freedmens Bureau School
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Presidential Reconstruction
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President Andrew Johnson

• Jacksonian Democrat
• Anti-Aristocrat (blames rich southern plantation
  owners)
• White Supremacist.
• Agreed with Lincolnthat states had neverlegally
  left the Union.

Damn the negroes! I am fighting these traitorous
aristocrats, their masters!
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President Andrew Johnson
President Andrew Johnson lacked the experience,
charisma and patience of Lincoln and immediately
became involved in the struggle with Congress
regarding the process of Reconstruction
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President Johnsons Plan (10)

• Offered amnesty upon simple oath to all except
  Confederate civil and military officers and
  those with property over 20,000 (they could
  apply directly to Johnson)
• A state needed to ratify the 13th Amendment
  before being readmitted 
• Annul Confederate war debts
• A state was required to repeal its secession
  ordinance before being readmitted
• Named provisional governors in Confederate states
  and called them to oversee elections for
  constitutional conventions.

1. Disenfranchised certain leading Confederates.
2. Pardoned planter aristocrats brought them back
to political power to control state
organizations.
EFFECTS?
3. Republicans were outraged that planter elite
were back in power in the South!
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Growing Northern Alarm!

• Many Southern state constitutions fell short of
  minimum requirements. (ex MS didn't ratify the
  13th Amendment)

• Johnson granted 13,500 special pardons. (White
  men alone must manage the South)
• Dec. 1865 Southern Congressmen take their
  seats 58 were in the Confederate Congress, 6 in
  the cabinet and 4 in the army) Congress
  barred the Southern Congressional delegates.

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Slavery is Dead?
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Revival of southern defiance led to Black Codes

• Purpose
• Restore pre-emancipation system of race
  relations.
• Prohibited blacks from carrying weapons, serving
  on juries, testifying against whites, marrying
  whites, traveling without permits in some
  states, from owning land
• Laws were enforced by violence
• Forced many blacks to become sharecroppers
  tenant farmers
• Guarantee stable labor supply now
  that blacks were emancipated.

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Congress Breaks with the President

• Joint Committee on Reconstruction created.
• February, 1866 ? Presidentvetoed the
  FreedmensBureau bill.
• March, 1866 ? Johnsonvetoed the 1866 Civil
  Rights Act (gave blacks citizenship forbade
  black codes)
• Congress passed both bills over Johnsons vetoes
  ? 1st in U. S. history!!

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Johnson the Martyr / Samson
If my blood is to be shed because I vindicate the
Union and the preservation of this government in
its original purity and character, let it be
shed let an altar to the Union be erected, and
then, if it is necessary, take me and lay me upon
it, and the blood that now warms and animates my
existence shall be poured out as a fit libation
to the Union.
(February 1866)
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Radical (Congressional) Reconstruction
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14th Amendment

• Ratified in July, 1868.
• All people born in America are equal citizens and
  guaranteed equal protection
• Insure against neo-Confederate political power.
• Enshrine the national debt while repudiating that
  of the Confederacy.
• Southern states would be punished for denying the
  right to vote to black citizens!

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The Balance of Power in Congress
State White Citizens Freedmen
SC 291,000 411,000
Miss 353,000 436,000
Louis 357,000 350,000
GA 591,000 465,000
AL 596,000 437,000
VA 719,000 533,000
NC 631,000 331,000
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The 1866 Bi-Election

• A referendum on Radical Reconstruction.
• Johnson made an ill-conceived propaganda tour
  around the country to push his plan.
• Republicanswon a 3-1majority in bothhouses
  andgained controlof everynorthern state.

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Radical Plan for Readmission

• Civil authorities in the territories were subject
  to military supervision.
• Required new state constitutions, including black
  suffrage and ratification of the 13th and 14th
  Amendments.
• In March, 1867, Congress passed an act that
  authorized the military to enroll eligible black
  voters and begin the process of constitution
  making.

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Reconstruction Act of 1867

• doesnt recognize most new state
• governments (except TN with
• ratified 14th Amendment)
• divides South into 5 military
• districts
• sets new conditions for reentry in
• Union
• Johnson believes act unconstitutional, vetoes
  Congress overrides

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Military Reconstruction Act
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Reconstruction Acts of 1867 (cont.)

• Command of the Army Act
• - required President to issue all military
  orders through the General of the Army instead of
  dealing directly with military governors in the
  South.
• Tenure of Office Act
• - President cannot remove a federal official
  without approval of senate (designed to protect
  radical members of Lincoln's government)

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The Tenure of Office Act

• The Senate must approve any presidential
  dismissal of a cabinet official or general of the
  army.
• Designed to protect radical members of Lincolns
  government.
• Question of the constitutionality of this law.

Edwin Stanton
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President Johnsons Impeachment

• Johnson removed Stanton in February, 1868.
• Johnson replaced generals in the field who were
  more sympathetic to Radical Reconstruction.
• The House impeached him on February 24
  before even
  drawing up the
  charges by a
  vote of 126 47!

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The Senate Trial

• 11 week trial.
• Johnson acquitted 35 to 19 (one short of
  required 2/3s vote).

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The Grant Administration (1868-1876)
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The 1868 Republican Ticket
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The 1868 Democratic Ticket
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Waving the Bloody Shirt!
Republican Southern Strategy
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Election of 1868

• Ulyssess S Grant (Rep)
• Equal Rights African Americans
• Out of 6 million ballots casted Grant received a
  majority of only 310,000.
• 500,000 African Americans voted.

• Horatio Seymour (Dem)
• Return Southern Rule

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1868 Presidential Election
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Grant Administration Scandals

• Grant presided over an era of unprecedented
  growth and corruption.

• Credit Mobilier Scandal
• Whiskey Ring.
• Stock Market Collapse

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The Scandals

• Credit Mobilier Consturction Co skimmed off
  large profits from government. Involved Colfax
  (VP)
• Whiskey Ring IRS accepted bribes so that
  Whiskey distillers pay no taxes. Cost Millions
• Changed Gold Standard (influenced by Gould
  Fisk) sent stock market to collapse Sept. 24,
  1869 Black Monday

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The Panic of 1873

• Small Banks closed, 180,000 companies folded, 3
  million people out of work.
• 1875 Species Redemption Act US back on Gold
  Standard helps to restore the economy

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15th Amendment

• Ratified in 1870.
• The right of citizens of the United States to
  vote shall not be denied or abridged by the
  United States or by any state on account of race,
  color, or previous condition of servitude.
• The Congress shall have power to enforce this
  article by appropriate legislation.
• Womens rights groups were furious that they were
  not granted the vote!

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Legal Challenges to 14th and 15th
Amendments

• The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)
• Bradwell v. IL (1873)
• U. S. v. Cruickshank (1876)
• U. S. v. Reese (1876)

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Black "Adjustment" in the South
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Blacks Land Ownership

• Jan. 1865 - Sherman had promised the freed
  slaves who followed his army 40 acres and a
  mule
• 40,000 claimed 400,000 abandoned or forfeited
  land in GA SC
• Aug. 1865 Johnson ordered original landowners
  to reclaim land evict the former slaves
• Some Radical Republicans disagreed
• Majority felt it was wrong to seize citizens
  private property

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The Crop Lien System

• Crop-Lien System - Works land for someone else,
  includes sharecroppers and tenant farmers
• Sharecroppers - people who rent a plot of land
  from another person, and farm it in exchange for
  a share of the crop. does NOT live on the land.
• Tenant farmers - Someone who farms land owned by
  someone else, keeping part of the produce as
  payment. DOES live on the land.

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Tenancy the Crop Lien System
Furnishing Merchant Tenant Farmer Landowner
Loan tools and seed up to 60 interest to tenant farmer to plant spring crop. Farmer also secures food, clothing, andother necessities oncredit from merchant until the harvest. Merchant holds lien mortgage on part of tenants future crops as repayment of debt. Plants crop, harvests in autumn. Turns over up to ½ of crop to land owner as payment of rent. Tenant gives remainder of crop to merchant inpayment of debt. Rents land to tenant in exchange for ¼ to ½ of tenant farmers future crop.
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Little Change for African-Americans

• This photograph shows an African-American family
  in Kentucky living under conditions similar to
  what they probably experienced during slavery.

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Sharecropping
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Black White Political Participation
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Establishment of Historically Black Colleges in
the South
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Black Senate House Delegates
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Colored Rulein the South
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Blacks in Southern Politics

• Core voters were black veterans.
• Blacks were politically unprepared.
• Blacks could register and vote in states since
  1867.

• The 15th Amendment guaranteedfederal
  voting.

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Blacks in Southern Politics

• Constitutional Conventions of 1867 1867
• Held in all former Conf. states (except TN)
• Boycotted by many white Southerners
• Blacks were 26 of the
  1,000 total delegates
• They produced impressive,
  progressive (not radical)
  constitutions
• Over the next decade,
  1,465 held political offices
  (including 14 in Congress)
  

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The Invisible Empire of the South
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The Invisible Empire of the South

• Ku Klux Klan (KKK) Confederate veterans group -
  turns terrorist
• Grows rapidly - What is their goal?
• 18681871 kill thousands, burn schools,
  churches, homes
• Forces Republican state govts out of power
• Major Tool??

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• Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871
• 1870 Made it illegal for any state to
  discriminate against voters based on race.
• 1871 Allowed federal government to
  enforce/prosecute violations of the law
• Grant didnt use his power
• Supreme Court ruled them UNCONSTITUTIONAL on 1882

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Amnesty Act of 1872

• 1872 Returned the right to vote and hold
  federal public office (which had been revoked
  by the 14th Amendment)
• 150,000 former Confederates could now vote
• Southern Dems. Now have the ability to shift the
  political balance of power

Freedmans Bureau

• 1872 Congress allow the bureau to expire
  (believing it had served its purpose)

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The Civil Rights Act of 1875

• Crime for any individual to deny full equal use
  of public conveyances andpublic places.
• Prohibited discrimination in jury selection.
• Shortcoming ? lacked a strong
  enforcement mechanism.
• No new civil rights act was attemptedfor 90
  years!

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The Abandonment of Reconstruction
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Northern Support Wanes

• Grantism corruption.
• Panic of 1873
  a 6-year depression
  18,000 businesses
  fold
  3 million lose their jobs
• Concern over westwardexpansion and Indian wars.
• Key monetary issues
• should the government retire 432m worth of
  greenbacks issued during the Civil War.
• should war bonds be paid back in specie (money
  backed by gold) or greenbacks (not backed)

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The Election of 1872

• Spoilsmen v. reformers
• Rumors of corruption during Grants first term
  discredit Republicans.
• Horace Greeley runsas a Democrat/LiberalRepublic
  an candidate.
• Greeley attacked as afool and a crank.
• Greeley died on November 29, 1872!

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1872 Presidential Election
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1876 Presidential Tickets
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Regional Balance?
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1876 Presidential Election
Electoral votes after first ballot
Tilden (R) 184 Hayes
(D) 165
disputed 20 (FL, LA, SC OR)
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The Political Crisis of 1877

• Corrupt Bargain Part II? (1 was
  election of 1824 Jackson / Adams / 2 others)

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A Political Crisis The Compromise of 1877
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A Political Crisis The Compromise of 1877

• Republicans controlled electoral commission
• Democrats controlled House of Representatives

• Southern Democrats willing to elect Hayes---
  IF they got something in return

1. Withdrawal of federal troops form LA SC (states
   still governed by Republicans
2. Federal money to build a railroad from TX to the
   West Coast to improve rivers, harbors bridges
3. A conservative Southern MUST be part of Hayes
   cabinet

RESULT Democrats allow Hayes to steal
the election
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A Political Crisis The Compromise of 1877

• Result Southern Democrats achieve their long
  stated goal of HOME RULE ------ the ability to
  run state governments without federal
  intervention
• That passed laws that
• Restricted the rights of Blacks
• Wiped out social programs
• Slashed taxes
• Dismantled public schools