Chapter 17 Reconstruction

1
Chapter 17Reconstruction
2
The Politics of Reconstruction

• Each side had catastrophic losses in lives. The
  Union -360,000 men and the Confederates - 260,000
  men.
• Supremacy of the National Government
• The South was left in total ruin
• Southern whites greatly despised Emancipation.
• Lincolns Plan was a gentle and forgiving
  approach to reconstruction and only 10 of the
  population would have to take an oath of
  allegiance.
• He vetoed harsher Wade-Davis bill that would have
  called for 50 of population taking the oath of
  allegiance.
• January 1865, General Shermans Special Field
  Order 15 - set aside the Sea Islands off the Cost
  of Georgia for freed people.

3
The Politics of Reconstruction (Continued)

• Following Lincolns ideals Johnson granted
  amnesty and pardoned many southerners.
• Conflict with the Radical Republicans
• Radicals wanted Federal Reconstruction
• Civil Rights bill, Freedmens Bureau 14th /15th
  amendments.

4
Johnsons impeachment crisis lame duck. By
summer of 1868, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida,
Louisiana, North/South Carolina, Tennessee had
returned to the Union.
5
The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

• Not trusted by the North
• A traitor to the South
• Tenure of Office Act
• 1867 - Impeachment

6
Election of 1868 Womans Suffrage

• Ulysses S. Grant was the Republican nominee.
  Horatio Seymour was the Democrats nominee. Grant
  won with 26 of the 34 states.
• Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia were readmitted
  after the ratification of 14th 15th amendment.
• Womens Suffrage took a huge hit with the
  incorporation of male in the 14th amendment.
• There was a split in woman suffragists into the
  American Woman Suffrage Association and National
  Woman Suffrage Association.

7
The Meaning of Freedom

• There was no actual set date in which all the
  slaves were freed. It was gradual as the news
  spread.
• Between 1865-70, the African American population
  of Southern cities doubled while the White
  population only increased by 10.
• African American families now decided for
  themselves when and where the women and children
  worked.
• The church was the first social institution fully
  controlled by African Americans and became a
  pivotal point in many lives.

8
The Meaning Of Freedom (Continued)

• The idea of The Freedmens Bureau Act of 1865
  (forty acres and a mule) became an issue of
  debate.
• Percy Roberts identified 3 types of systems for
  hire in a 1866 writing money wages, share
  wages, sharecropping.
• Sharecropping dominated the southern economy with
  80 of the land in the black belt(1880)
• African America political activity becoming a
  large Republican voting bloc.

9
Southern Politics and Society

• One key component of Reconstruction - the
  establishment of Republican party in the South
  to complete the two-party system.
• Federal troops were needed to secure the
  Republican governments in the south their
  supporters. But by 1877, Democrats had regained
  political control of all former Confederate
  states.
• There were 3 groups of Southern Republicans
  African Americans, Carpetbaggers, and scalawags.
• Economics
• Between 1868-72, the southern railroad was
  rebuilt and 3,000 miles of new track were laid.
• Black and Whites worked together.

10
Southern Politics and Society- White Resistance
Redemption

• The Ku Klux Klan launched a terrorist campaign
  against Reconstruction governments and local
  leaders.
• Supported the Democratic Party.
• Ku Klux Klan Act of April 1871 Civil Rights Act
  of 1875.
• Slaughterhouse cases of 1873, US v. Reese (1876),
  and US v. Cruikshank (1876).
• King Cotton began to grow in the post war
  south, but it soon created endless cycles of
  debt.

11
Southern Politics and Society
12
Reconstruction The North

• By 1873, Americans industrial production had
  grown 75 over the 1865 level.
• The Pacific Railway Act of 1862
• May 10, 1869, Leland Stanford hammers the last
  spike and finishes the 1st transcontinental
  railroad.
• Railroad paved the way for mass growth and
  expansion.
• Liberal Republicans
• Election of 1872, Grant defeats Greeley
• Depression of 1873, the result of commercial
  overexpansion, and drop in cotton prices.

13
Reconstruction The North The Election of 1876