Reconstruction

1

• Reconstruction
• 1863 - 1877

2
Reconstruction Themes

• How to rebuild the South
• How to readmit ex-Confederate states
• What to do with millions of freed slaves
• Who will make these decisions Congress or the
  President?

3
Destruction of the South

• Physical Damage
• Economic Impacts
• Social Orders

4
(No Transcript)
5
(No Transcript)
6
Change v. Continuity

• How revolutionary was the Civil War and
  Reconstruction?
• How did life actually change for
• Southern whites?
• Northern whites?
• Freed slaves?
• Women?

7
Lincolns Reconstruction Plan

• 10 of eligible voters in 1860 take an oath of
  allegiance to the Union
• Abide by emancipation
• Fallen brother
• Moral authority of Lincoln
• Vetoed Wade-Davis Bill

8
Johnsons Reconstruction Plan

• Perception of Johnson
• Attempted to follow in Lincolns spirit
• Added
• Disfranchised some Confederate leaders
• Called for special state conventions
• Repeal their ordinances of secession
• Repudiate Confederate debts
• Ratify 13th Amendment

9
Radical Republican Plan

• Congressional elections of 1866
• Constitutional power struggle
• Most idealistic domestic agenda
• Envisioned the total restructuring of Southern
  society
• Instituted worlds first multi-racial democracy
• Too ahead of the times

10
The Black Experience

• Previous historic accounts
• Definition of freedom
• Some travel
• Agricultural Work
• White attempts to
• preserve order

11
Black Codes

• Restrictions on blacks passed by southern state
  governments
• Attempted to reinstate the antebellum social and
  economic order
• First law passed in 1865 most passed in the
  later 1870s near the end of Reconstruction
• Ultimate goals
• stable labor force
• establishment of social order

12
Sharecropping

• Land owners allowed blacks whites to farm land
  for a share of the harvest
• Halves Thirds
• Crop lien system
• Viable option for an economic order to replace
  the antebellum plantation system

13
(No Transcript)
14
Freedmans Bureau

• Government program to provide food, clothing,
  medical care and education
• Some attempts at economic and social integration
• Freedmans Bank
• Genealogy Studies by Mormons
• Expectation of Land Reform
• Shermans General Field Order No. 15
• Examples from world history
• Most notable success establishing schools

15
(No Transcript)
16
(No Transcript)
17
(No Transcript)
18
Exodusters

• Mass migration of freedmen to Kansas

19
14th Amendment

• Prompted by emerging black codes
• State v. Federal contest of power
• Guaranteed citizenship civil rights to blacks
• Benefits to corporations personhood

20
Congressional Elections of 1866

• Provided Radical Republicans with a veto-proof
  majority in congress
• Popular mandate for Congressional Reconstruction
• Possibilities for significant change in the South
  Political, Economic, and Social Revolution

21
Reconstruction Act (1867)

• Divided the South into 5 military districts
• Note Tennessee

22
Reconstruction Act (1867)

• Ex-Confederates must
• Ratify the 13th 14th Amendment
• Allow freedmen to vote

23
15th Amendment

• Suffrage for black males
• Universal male suffrage

24
Radical Regimes in the South

• Investment in infrastructure social services
• Blacks in leadership
• Opened doors for northern investment
• Colonial relationship
• Carpetbaggers northerners who moved south
  during Reconstruction
• Scalawags southern whites who voted Republican

25
(No Transcript)
26
Redeemer Governments

• Reestablishment of all-white governments after
  former confederates were enfranchised
• Impediment to radical change
• Reinforced a separate southern identity
• Colonial status
• Jim Crow

27
Ku Klux Klan

• Nathan Bedford Forrest TN CSA veteran
• Extra and Illegal activities to intimidate
• Black voters, Republicans, Carpetbaggers,
  Scalawags, and any other damnyankees

28
Johnson Impeachment

• Increased tension between the executive and
  legislative branches
• E.g. Johnsons public disdain for the 14th and
  15th amendments

29
Johnson Impeachment

• Tenure of Office Act
• Johnson fired Edward Stanton to test
  constitutionality
• House impeached AJ
• Senate found not guilty by one vote

30
Sewards Folly

• Purchased Alaska from Russia
• First step towards aggressive expansionism

31
Grant Administration

• Election of 1868
• Waving the Bloody Shirt
• Close Election Freedmen vote

32
Grant Administration

• Election of 1872
• Defeated Horace Greely by a comfortable margin
• Called Greely an atheist, a communist, a
  free-lover, a vegetarian, a brown bread eater,
  and a cosigner of Jefferson Davis bail bond

33
Grant Administration

• Corruption Controversies
• Credit Mobilier Scandal
• Railroad officials distributed valuable stock to
  several Congressman and Vice-President Colfax to
  prevent investigation. Future president James
  Garfield denied all charges against him.

34
Grant Administration

• Corruption Continued

35
Grant Administration

• Whiskey Ring Scandal
• Treasury officials accepted bribes not to collect
  excise taxes from certain distillers. Grant
  implicated by the scandal when his personal
  secretary was names by prosecutors. After
  declaring, Let no guilty man escape., he
  provided written testimony that lead to the
  exoneration of his friend.
• Fisk Gould Gold Scandal (my title)
• Grants association with a scheme to corner the
  gold market
• Secretary of War William Belknaps resignation
  for accepting bribes
• Grants Court Packing
• Controversy and questions of legality of folding
  money issued from the civil war era

36
Grant Administration

• Memoirs Twain
• 3rd Term?

37
(No Transcript)
38
(No Transcript)
39
Election of 1876

• Rutherford B Hayes (R) v. Samuel Tilden (D)
• 20 disputed electoral votes (LA, SC, FL OR)
• Compromise of 1877
• Hayes became president
• Remaining federal troops would leave the South
• Ended Reconstruction

40
Legacy of Reconstruction

• Success or Failure
• Effects on blacks and whites
• Change or continuity
• a different history from the rest of the country

41
The Lost Cause

• Mythologized southern leaders
• Noble cause
• Christian soldiers
• Robert E. Lee
• Jefferson Davis
• Stonewall Jackson

42
The Lost Cause

• Memorials
• Women
• Institutions