Reconstruction

1
Reconstruction

• 1865-1877

2
Reconstruction

• reconstructing the union bringing the former
  Confederate states back into the fold
• 1865-1877
• Two stages
• Presidential/Moderate
• Congressional/Radical

3
Fundamental Questions of Reconstruction

• How to readmit the former Confederate states into
  the Union?
• Punish? How harshly? Forgive and forget?
• What about former slaves?
• Do nothing?
• Redistribute land? (40 acres and a mule)
• Civil/voting rights?

4
Reconstruction from a Political Perspective
5
Presidential Reconstruction (1865)

• President Andrew Johnson
• Pardon for former confederates who took oath of
  loyalty to union
• Readmission of states upon ratification of 13th
  Amendment (abolishing slavery)
• All former Confederate states were readmitted
  within eight months.

6
Congressional Action

• Congress had its own ideas.
• In early 1866, Congress
• Passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which
  attempted to protect the basic civil rights of
  freed slaves
• Extended the life of the Freedmens Bureau (a
  federal govt. agency set up to help feed slaves)
  for two more years
• Both bills were passed over President Johnsons
  veto.

7
Fourteenth Amendment

• Congress then passed the 14th Amendment and sent
  it to the states for ratification.
• The 14th Amendment prohibited states from
  depriving citizens of fundamental rights like
  life, liberty, and property without due process
  of law.
• It also guaranteed equal protection of the laws
  to all.
• Johnson campaigned against it and Southern states
  rejected it.
• Congressional Republicans were not pleased.

8
Congressional Reconstruction

• The Reconstruction Acts of 1867
• 1. unreconstructed/kicked out of the Union
  the former Confederate states
• 2. Divided South into 5 military districts
• 3. Set up a new process for readmission of
  states
• Delegates would be elected to new state
  constitutional conventions (w/ blacks voting)
• New state constitutions guaranteeing black
  suffrage would be created
• Each state would ratify 14th Amendment

9
Impeachment of Johnson

• Predictably, Johnson vetoed the Reconstruction
  Acts, but they were passed over his veto.
• Congress then passed the Tenure of Office Act,
  which forbade the president from firing members
  of his cabinet without Senate approval.
• Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.
• He was impeached by the House and sent to trial
  in the Senate.
• Johnson survived removal from office by one vote
  in the Senate.

10
Republican State Governments of Reconstruction

• Under Congressional/Radical Reconstruction, both
  blacks and whites voted and some blacks were even
  elected to office.
• These Republican-dominated state govts. Were
  often criticized for incompetence and corruption,
  but such criticisms were not necessarily valid.
• Significant advances were made in areas such as
  education.

11
Fifteenth Amendment (1869)

• Prohibited denial of the right to vote based on
  race
• Southern states that had not yet been readmitted
  to the Union by Congress were required to ratify
  it.
• In theory, it guaranteed Black Americans the
  right to vote.

12
Redemption

• By 1869, white Southern Democrats has resolved to
  take back their governments.
• A campaign of violence and terror aimed at
  intimidating Republican voters began in
  Mississippi and then spread to other states.
• This Mississippi Plan was quite successful and,
  during the 1870s, white Democrats again seized
  control of Southern states.

13
Ku Klux Klan

• Instrumental in the success of the Mississippi
  Plan were violent white supremacist organizations
  such as the KKK.

14
Northern Response

• Congress and President Ulysses S. Grant passed
  three Force Acts in 1870 and 1871 designed to
  respond to fight voter intimidation in the South.
• The third of these acts, the Ku Klux Klan Act, in
  essence outlawed the Klan.
• The acts were ill-enforced, however.
• Northern Republicans were becoming more
  interested in economic development and
  increasingly concerned that protecting Southern
  blacks would hurt their political standing.

15
Reconstruction from a Social and Economic
Perspective
16
Lives of Freed Slaves

• The Freedmens Bureau did some good work, but it
  was chronically under-funded and eventually
  dissolved.
• Economic freedom was particularly difficult for
  freed slaves to achieve.
• Without land of their own, they often signed work
  contracts with their former owners.
• Later, many former slaves became involved in
  share tenantry.

17
Sharecropping and Tenant Farming

• Former slaves would be provided with land, seed,
  tools, etc. by a white merchant/landowner.
• They would farm the land.
• At harvest, they would sell their crop and pay
  their debt to the white landowner.
• Often, debts had to be carried over from year to
  year, which resulted in free blacks, in
  essence, being bound to their white landlord.
• Slavery was replaced by a cycle of debt and
  dependence

18
The New South

• As the Souths plantation economy collapsed (with
  the abolition of slavery and destruction of the
  Civil War), the industrial revolution finally
  migrated south.
• Though agriculture still dominated, industry and
  railroads became a significant factor in the
  Souths economy for the first time.

19
Election of 1876

• Rutherford B. Hayes (R) v. Samuel Tilden (D)
• Tilden won a majority of electoral votes, but
  Republicans disputed some of the votes from
  newly-redeemed southern states, where fraud and
  intimidation was rampant.
• A special commission of 8 Republicans and 7
  Democrats voted 8-7 in Hayes favor.
• Democrats threatened to disrupt the meeting of
  the electoral college.

20
The Compromise of 1877An End to Reconstruction

• Democrats agreed to recognize the election of
  Hayes.
• Republicans agreed to end Reconstruction
• All remaining federal troops were withdrawn from
  the South.
• The 14th and 15th Amendments were not enforced.
• Racial injustice was ignored by the federal
  government.