HIS 132 Lesson One

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Lesson 1

• Reconstruction, 1865-1877

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Emancipation Proclamation

• January 1, 1863.
• Emancipation takes effect.
• Freed no slaves.
• No clear plan to deal with former slaves.
• Field Order 15.
• General William Sherman.
• 40 acres and a mule.
• March 1865 Freedmens Bureau.
• Provided food, clothing, and fuel to former
  slaves.

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Radicals and Moderates

• Abolitionists
• Full emancipation.
• Radical Republicans.
• Abolition of slaves.
• Full citizenship for former slaves.
• Sweeping changes in the South.
• Moderate Republicans.
• Opposed the spread of slavery.
• Did not support immediate emancipation.
• Did not support full civil rights for former
  slaves.

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Radicals and Moderates

• Republicans divided over the war.
• Moderates claimed war was to restore the Union.
• Radicals claimed war was also about abolition,
  citizenship, equality before the law.

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Lincolns Reconstruction Plan

• Lincoln and Radicals agreed
• The South must end slavery to be re-admitted.

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Lincolns Reconstruction Plan

• Lincoln and the Radicals disagreed
• How to deal with the Confederate States.
• Moderates (i.e. Lincoln) wanted to focus upon
• Rapid restoration of the South.
• Stimulating the new economy.
• Developing the West.

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Lincolns Reconstruction Plan

• President Lincoln wanted
• A full pardon and restoration of property to
  southerners who swore an oath of allegiance to
  the U.S. and Emancipation.
• Only high-ranking Confederates were excluded.

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Lincolns Reconstruction Plan

• President Lincoln wanted
• When the number of any Confederate states voters
  who took the oath reached 10 of the number who
  had voted for secession (1860) that state could
  establish a recognized government.
• Called the 10 Plan.

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Lincolns Reconstruction Plan

• The Radicals wanted
• The Union restored.
• The South punished.
• July 1864.
• Wade-Davis Bill.
• Benjamin Wade and Henry Davis.
• Required 50 before elections could be held.
• Lincoln pocket vetoed the bill.
• Radical plan would slow Reconstruction.

Benjamin Wade
Henry Winter Davis
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With Malice Toward None

• January 1865.
• Congress approved the 13th Amendment.
• Ended slavery.
• Adopted on December 18, 1865.
• March 4, 1865.
• Lincoln gave his second inaugural address (link).
• April 14, 1865.
• Lincoln killed by John Wilkes Booth.

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Andrew Johnson Reconstruction

• Tennessee Democrat.
• Only southern Senator who sided with the Union.
• Made Lincolns V.P.
• Meant to give Lincoln some appeal with Democrats
  in border states.

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Andrew Johnson Reconstruction

• Committed to states rights.
• Opposed to the Radicals (strong central
  government).
• Desired a quick restoration of the Union.
• Issued pardons to former Confederates who pledged
  loyalty to the U.S. and supported emancipation.

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Andrew Johnson Reconstruction

• Appointed provisional civilian governors.
• Governors to
• reconstitute functioning state governments.
• Call for state constitutional conventions
  (delegates elected by pardoned voters).

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Andrew Johnson Reconstruction

• Conventions to
• Abolish slavery.
• Ratify 13th Amendment.
• Renounce secession.
• Hold elections.
• Resume their place in the Union.

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Andrew Johnson Reconstruction

• 1866 Southern states fulfilled requirements.
• President Johnson troubled by elections in the
  southern states.
• Many were former Confederates and wealthy
  planters.
• Each state rejected black suffrage.

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ConfrontingThe White South

• The Black Codes.
• Laws that denied many rights of citizenship to
  free blacks.
• Defined the status of free blacks as subordinate
  to whites.

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ConfrontingThe White South

• The Black Codes.
• Codes varied from state to state.
• Common aspects of the black codes
• Required free blacks to have annual employment
  contracts.
• Required free blacks to work only in agriculture.
• Restricted the movement of free blacks.
• Limited land ownership rights for free blacks.
• Allowed forced slavery for those guilty of
  vagrancy.

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The Civil Rights Act of 1866

• December 1865.
• 39th Congress met.
• Moderate Republicans join Radicals to exclude
  newly elected southern congressmen.
• Article I, Sec. 5 Each house of Congress is the
  judge of member qualifications.

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The Civil Rights Act of 1866

• Joint Committee on Reconstruction.
• Judged the qualifications of excluded
  southerners.
• Determined which southern states were entitled to
  representation.
• Confederate states had no representation in
  Congress.

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The Civil Rights Act of 1866

• Republicans extended the Freedmens Bureau.
• President Johnson vetoed the bill.
• Congress revised the bill.

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The Civil Rights Act of 1866

• Civil Rights Act of 1866.
• Defined all persons born in the U.S. as citizens
  (except untaxed Indians).
• Bestowed full citizenship on African Americans.
• Overturned the 1857 Dred Scott decision.

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The Civil Rights Act of 1866

• Civil Rights Act of 1866 (cont).
• Listed rights of all citizens
• Testify in court.
• Own property.
• Make contracts.
• Bring lawsuits.
• Enjoy full and equal benefits of all laws and
  proceedings for the security of person and
  property.
• Restricted state actions (citizenship takes
  precedence over states).

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The Civil Rights Act of 1866

• Civil Rights Act of 1866 (cont).
• Johnson vetoed bill (violated states rights).
• April 1866 Congress passed bill over Johnsons
  veto.

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The 14th AmendmentDefining Citizenship

• Fears the Civil Rights Act would be amended,
  repealed, or declared unconstitutional.
• A constitutional amendment would safeguard the
  freed peoples rights as citizens.
• 14th Amendment
• Defined American citizenship and placed
  restrictions on former confederates.

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• No state shall make or enforce any law which
  shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
  citizens of the United States nor shall any
  State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
  property, without due process of law nor deny to
  any person within its jurisdiction the equal
  protection of the laws

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The 14th AmendmentDefining Citizenship

• Objections to the 14th Amendment.
• Some radicals objected. Claimed it did not
  prevent former confederates from holding
  office/voting.
• Women suffrage advocates (Susan B. Anthony)
  objected to the term male being connected with
  voting rights.
• any of the male inhabitants of each state,
  being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the
  United States
• Established suffrage movement for women.
• Passed by Congress June 1866.
• Ratified July 1868.

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Impeachment!

• Spring/Summer 1866.
• Republicans portrayed President Johnson and
  northern Democrats as disloyal and white
  southerners as unregenerate.
• waving the bloody shirt (remember the dead
  Yankees).
• November 1866
• Republicans sweep Congress
• House R 143, D 49
• Senate R 42, D 11

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Impeachment!

• Congressional Reconstruction.
• 1867-1870 Republican dominated Congress controls
  reconstruction.

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Impeachment!

• March 1867 First Reconstruction Act.
• Divided the South into five military districts
  subject to martial law.
• States must hold new constitutional conventions.
• Ratify the 14th Amendment.
• Guarantee African American suffrage.
• Passed over Johnsons veto.

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Impeachment!

• Congress limits Presidential power.
• The Tenure of Office Act
• Any office holder appointed by the President with
  the Senates advice and consent could not be
  removed (fired) until the Senate approved a
  successor.

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Impeachment!

• Summer 1867
• Congress adjourns for summer break.
• Johnson suspended Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.
• Appointed Ulysses S. Grant as interim.
• Allowed Johnson to remove generals he did not
  like.

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Impeachment!

• January 1868
• Senate overrules Stantons suspension.
• Stanton returns to office.
• Moderate Radical Republicans (in the House)
  join forces.
• Vote to impeach Johnson.
• 126-47.
• The Senate fails to get the two-thirds needed to
  remove the president (Art 1., Sec. 3).
• May 16, 1868
• 35 for conviction.
• 19 against conviction.

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The Election of 1868

• Republicans nominated Ulysses S. Grant.
• Civil War hero.
• Supported emancipation.
• Supported congressional reconstruction.
• Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour.
• New York Governor.
• November 1868
• Republicans win large majorities in both Houses.
• Grant elected 18th President.

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Political Terrorism

• The South a very dangerous place for
• African-Americans.
• Republicans.
• Southern whites used violence to force
  African-Americans to accept subordination.

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Political Terrorism

• Ku Klux Klan
• Formed to resurrect white supremacy by means of
  violence and intimidation.
• Made up of small farmers, workers, and community
  leaders.
• Wore hoods and white robes to intimidate.
• Burned black churches, schools, and crosses.
• Devastated Republican organizations in southern
  communities.

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Voting Rights

• Radicals turned to black suffrage.
• February 1869
• Fifteenth Amendment.
• Forbids any state from denying the right to vote
  because of a persons race or previous condition
  of servitude.
• Womens suffrage supports complained that it left
  out sex.
• February 1870.

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Civil Rights

• 1870 Senator Charles Sumner.
• Introduced bill prohibiting discrimination.
• The Civil Rights Act of 1875
• Prohibited racial discrimination in the selection
  of juries and in public transportation and
  accommodations.
• Enforcement Acts
• To enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
  Amendments.
• 1871 Federal Government starts prosecuting the
  Klan.
• 1872 Strength of the Klan broken.

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Southern Politics

• Congressional Reconstruction
• Newly enfranchised black men organized for
  political action.
• Black Reconstruction.
• Supported the Republican Party.
• Majority of Republican support in the South.

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Southern Politics

• Suffrage made politics of central importance for
  African American communities.
• 1869-1877
• Fourteen black men served in the House of
  Representatives.
• Mississippi sent Hiram Revels and Blanche Bruce
  to the U.S. Senate.
• Six African Americans served as Lieutenant
  governors.
• P.B.S. Pinchback was Governor of Louisiana for
  forty three days.
• African Americans held majority in South Carolina
  state legislature.

Hiram Revels
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Southern Politics

• Carpetbaggers
• Northerners who moved south (white or black).
• Usually well-educated.
• Middle-class backgrounds.
• Lawyers, businessmen, newspaper editors,
  teachers, or Freedmens Bureau agents.
• Hoped to transform the South by creating new
  institutions based on northern models.
• Mainly free labor and free public schools.
• Took leading roles in state legislatures.

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Southern Politics

• Scalawags
• Southerners who aligned themselves with the
  Republican Party.
• Southern Unionists.
• Those who believed the Republican Party was best
  for the southern economy.
• Scalawags, Carpetbaggers, Freedmen made up the
  Southern Republican Party.
• Tried to make the post-War South look like the
  North.
• Repealed outdated laws, established/expanded
  public schools, hospitals, orphanages, and
  penitentiaries.

Franklin Moses (SC)
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Railroads in Politics

• Republicans sought to use government to encourage
  economic growth.
• Focused on railroad construction.
• Railroad companies sought favorable treatment by
  bribing public officials.
• Many officials accepted the bribes.
• Conditions in the South perfect for corruption.
• Government responsibilities expanded quickly
  creating new opportunities for corruption.

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The Meaning of Freedom

• Freedom meant re-birth.
• Freedmen took new names and began to test what
  freedom meant for them.
• They Traveled.
• Reuniting families.
• They Established Families.
• Male dominated.
• Many refused to let their wives work for whites.
• Usually two parent households.
• They Established Churches.
• Central point of African-American life.
• Political meetings.
• Assistance to those in need, schools, and social
  events.
• Maintained community moral standards.

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The Meaning of Freedom

• African-Americans also sought quality education.
• Film Clip.
• African Americans found employment.
• Limited to agriculture.
• Negotiated employment with former masters.
• Sharecropping.
• System of renting farmland to poor tenants.
• Land owners furnished laborers with a farm,
  house, animals, and tools.
• The tenants gave the landlords a share of their
  crops as rent.

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Sharecropping

• Sharecropping (cont..)
• Landlords required contracts which specified what
  crop/s would be planted.
• Usually cotton.
• Sharecropping continued the Souths dependence
  upon cotton.
• Landlord would receive one-third to one-half of
  each years crop. The remaining would be sold by
  the tenant for profit.
• Offered freedmen limited freedom.

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Sharecropping

• Tenants often owed landlords large debts.
• How?
• Local merchant would advance supplies on credit.
• The merchant required a crop lien.
• Tenant could not pay debt.
• Ended up owing more than they could grow.
• Sharecroppers were often trapped politically.
• Remained a largely subordinate agricultural labor
  force.

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The End of Reconstruction

• 1869
• Leading Democrats abandoning resistance to
  reconstruction.
• Cooperation with some measures (black suffrage,
  etc). Hope to win compromises more favorable to
  them.
• New Departure.
• Peaked in 1872.
• Liberal Republicans.
• Opposed President Grants position on
  Reconstruction.
• Found allies among democrats by arguing against
  further reconstruction measures.

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The End of Reconstruction

• Horace Greely.
• Liberal nomination for President.
• Opposed to slavery.
• Supported Southern secession.
• Ulysses S. Grant reelected in 1872.
• Fall 1873 Financial Panic.
• Economic Depression.
• Democrats hoped to win the White House in 1876.
• Nominated Gov. Samuel Tilden (NY).

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The End of Reconstruction

• Republicans nominated
• Rutherford B. Hayes (OH).
• Civil War veteran.
• Lawyer who defended runaway slaves.
• Distinguished military record.
• Promised to vigorously prosecute corrupt
  officials.
• Proposed civil service reform.
• Universal education.

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The End of Reconstruction

• Tilden won the popular vote.
• The electoral college was too close.
• Results from four states in dispute
• South Carolina
• Oregon
• Louisiana
• Florida
• January 1877
• Congress appoints commission of five senators,
  five representatives, and five Supreme Court
  Justices.
• 8 Republicans, 7 Democrats.

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The End of Reconstruction

• Commission voted along partisan lines to award
  disputed states to Hayes.
• Democrats threatened to filibuster the
  inauguration of Hayes.
• February 1877
• The compromise.
• Presidency to Hayes.
• Promise that the Federal government would not
  interfere in Southern affairs.
• President Hayes removed all federal troops from
  the South Carolina and Louisiana state houses.
• Former slaves on their own.

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End of Lesson