Reconstruction

1
Reconstruction
2
Assassination of Lincoln

• When April 14, 1865
• Where special performance of the comedy, "Our
  American Cousin (Fords Theater)
• WhoJohn Wilkes Booth

3
Timeline of Events

• After a medical examination by Dr. Charles Leale,
  Lincoln's body is carried to a bedroom in the
  nearby Petersen House.
• Booth and his accomplice David Herold escape
  Washington into southern Maryland.

4

• Confined to a sickbed at his home on Lafayette
  Square, Secretary of State William Seward is
  nearly killed from a vicious knife attack
  administered by co-conspirator Lewis Paine.
  George Atzerodt fails to follow through on a plan
  to assassinate Vice President Johnson.

5

• April 15President Lincoln dies at 722 a.m. At
  his bedside, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton
  remarks, "Now he belongs to the ages.

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Lafayette Bickley was the leader of a secret
organization, the Knights of the Golden Circle,
founded in the 1850s with the mission to expand
the territory of slave-holding southern states
beyond the borders of the United States.
Immediately after the assassination, there was
speculation that Booth was a member of this
organization
7
Reconstruction Acts

• Civil War Amendments
• 13th Amendment Abolished Slavery
• 14th Amendment Made all persons born or
  naturalized in the U.S. citizens.
• 15th Amendment Right to vote based not based on
  race, color, or servitude.

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14th Amendment

• Struck down black codes. nor any State deprive
  any person of life, liberty, property, without
  due process of law.
• Did not make segregation illegal.

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Problem with the 14 Amendment

• South hated the idea of racial equality.
• They refused to vote for the 14th Amendment.
• In response, Congress passed the Reconstruction
  Act of 1867.
• This act divided the South into 5 military
  districts to protect all persons in their
  rights.
• Each state had to draw up a new constitution that
  guaranteed blacks the right to vote. The state
  would be forced to ratify the 14th amendment.

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• The South still refused to vote for the 14th
  Amendment.
• 4 different Reconstruction Acts were passed that
  put even more pressure on the South.
• Finally, after the 4 act, the South started to
  accept the amendment.

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Crop-Lien System

• South was in need of money and needed investors.
• Landowners had to pledge the future crop as
  security for the loan.
• They put a lien on the crop. Meaning that if
  they did not pay for the loan, the crop was
  belonged to the them (the investory)

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Problems with Crop-Lien

• Investors wanted/demanded that only major cash
  crops be planted. (tobacco and cotton)
• This put a strain on the soil and if they had a
  big harvest the price of cotton would go down.
• Why did people blame the bankers?

13

• Most people in the South stayed poor.
• It took around 20 years to get production back to
  what it was.
• African-Americans standard of living improved
  gradually.
• They worked for themselves.

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Resistance

• Ku Klux Klan-secret organization that tried to
  keep African-Americans from voting and
  influencing political life.
• Would dress in white robes and burn crosses in
  yards.
• They would beat people that would not be
  frightened.
• 1871-Troops went to troubled areas in the South
  and protected African-Americans.
• Many Klan members were arrested.

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Election of 1876

• Amnesty Act of 1872-Act that allowed Confederate
  officials to run for office.
• Republican party was hurting (Grant was
  ineffective)
• Dem. Samuel Tilden-New York
• Rep. Rutherfurd Hayes of Ohio
• Page 612

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What ways did the South try to stop
African-Americans from voting?

• Racial SegregationLong Night
• 1. Poll Tax-Tax one had to pay to vote. In most
  Southern States if one would skip an election the
  amount would be added on to the next years
  election.
• 2. Literacy Test-Tests in which both African
  Americans and whites would have to read to be
  allowed to vote. The test was hard.
• 3. Grandfather clauseAllowed people that voted
  or their children prior 1867 to vote without the
  literacy test and poll taxes.

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Court and Segregation

• The Civil Rights Act of 1875-Made it legal for
  all to be entitled to full and equal treatment.
• By 1877, whites started to ignore the law. Why?
• Jim Crow Laws- First was in TN.
  African-Americans had to ride different railroad
  cars.

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• By 1883, many Supreme Court justices ruled that
  the Civil Rights Act was unconstitutional.
• Private businesses to practice racial
  segregation.

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Plessy v. Ferguson

• Plessy light-skinned black man refused to give
  up his seat in a railroad car reserved for whites
  only.
• Supreme Court ruled separate but equal page 615.