Chapter 12: Reconstruction

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Chapter 12 Reconstruction
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12-1 Presidential Reconstruction

• Reconstruction the federal program designed to
  repair the damage done to the south and bring the
  southern states back into the Union
• Lasts from the Wars end in 1865 until 1877

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The South in Ruins

• Physical Destruction
• Shipping industry
• Farms and equipment
• Entire cities
• Human costs
• 364,000 Northern troops
• 260,000 Confederate troops
• Countless civilian casualties

• Southern Hardships
• African Americans
• Farmers
• Captured and Abandoned Property Act of 1863
• Laborers
• Punishment or Pardon?
• The Constitution provided no policy for the
  situation being faced

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Lincolns Reconstruction Plan The Ten Percent
Plan

• 1. Offered a pardon to any confederate soldier
  who pledged allegiance to the Union and obeyed
  federal policy
• 2. Denied Pardons to military/government
  officials and those who killed African American
  POWs
• Each state could create its own constitution
  after 10 of voters pledge allegiance to the
  Union
• Could then hold elections and take part in the
  Union

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Lincolns plan (continued)

• Faces heavy resistance
• Radical Republicans believe the war was fought
  of the moral issue of slavery
• Wade Davis Bill 1864 asked that former
  confederates pledge past and future allegiance
  and state that they never willingly took arms
  against the U.S.
• Lincoln used a Pocket-Veto against the bill

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Andrew Johnson Presidential Reconstruction

• 1. Pardoned southerners who swore allegiance to
  the Union
• 2. Permitted each state to write its own
  constitution
• 3. void secession, abolish slavery, repay debt
• 4. States could then hold elections and rejoin
  the Union

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A Newfound Freedom

• The ability to move freely
• Freed slaves could now move in search of jobs,
  families, and shelter
• Freedom to Own Land
• True freedom from economic independence

• Freedom of Religion
• Many sought refuge in the comfort and involvement
  of churches
• Freedom of Education
• 90 of African Americans illiterate in 1862
• Freedmens Bureau
• The first major federal relief agency in United
  States history

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12-2 Congressional Reconstruction

• Johnsons plan allows southern states to
  re-establish their own governments and make new
  laws
• Black Codes Laws that restricted the rights of
  freedmen, creating a different sort of slavery.
• Curfews Vagrancy Laws Labor Contracts Land
  Restrictions

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The Fourteenth Amendment

• Radical Republicans and Congress oppose
  Democratic control in the south.
• 1866 Civil Rights Act meant to outlaw all Black
  Codes
• Johnson vetoes the bill
• Overridden
• Fourteenth Amendment States that no state shall
  make a law that deprives a person of life,
  liberty, or property without due process of the
  law

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Radical Reconstruction

• Radicals opted for more reform than others.
• Civil Rights wanted civil liberties to be
  protected by law for the African American people.
• Moderates were uncertain about this
• This begins to lessen as whites show more and
  more aggression and violence towards the African
  Americans

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Radicals vs. Johnson

• Reconstruction Act of 1867
• Military rule. 5 districts, 5 northern generals
• New elections and new constitutions
• African Americans can vote! temporarily,
  confederate supporters could not
• South must guarantee equal rights
• Must ratify the 14th Amendment

• Pres Vs. Congress
• Charles Sumner Massachusetts Senator, founded
  Republican Party, fought for civil rights
• Thaddeus Stevens- Pennsylvania congressman who
  threatened Johnsons presidency

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• Edwin Stanton
• Johnson attempts to fire him to prevent his
  taking over military rule in the south (Stanton
  was a Radical)
• Tenure in Office Act (1867) restricted the
  presidents abilities, he had to clear any hiring
  or firing with Congress.

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• Impeachment to charge a president with a crime
  while in office.
• February 24th, 1868 Thaddeus Stevens leads
  effort and a vote of 126 to 47 is cast to impeach
  Johnson
• Tried by Chief Justice Salmon Chase
• May 16th, 1868 a vote is taken and Johnson
  escapes removal from office by only one vote
• Johnson quietly served the rest of his term, but
  Republicans elected Ulysses S. Grant into office
  in the 1868 election.

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The Fifteenth Amendment

• Demands in the south build from freedmen
• Voting, holding office, serving in juries, and
  testifying in court
• The amendment passed in 1869 and was ratified in
  1870.
• It stated that no citizens could be denied the
  right to vote, including African Americans
• Some voting had occurred earlier for African
  Americans while the military had registered them
  in the south.

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• African Americans Get Elected
• The new voters created by the amendment nearly
  all voted Republican, while white democrats
  refused to vote
• A massive sweep of elections put a large
  Republican majority in the south
• More than 600 African Americans elected to state
  legislatures
• Many would form alliances with white republicans
  to try to acquire better positions
• By 1875 there would be eight African Americans in
  the House of Representatives
• By 1876, confidence in these elections would
  decline.

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Republicans in the South

• Carpetbaggers Northern Republicans who moved
  south after the war.
• Often seen as trying to make a quick dollar off
  of the destruction in the south
• Scalawags White southern Republicans
• They were seen by other southerners to be
  traitors.

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12-3 Birth of the New South

• Reconstruction begins to take effect in the lives
  and society of the southern people

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Agricultural changes

• Cotton production decreased due to a lack of
  interest in the labor force
• Sharecropping A process in which a person or
  family would be provided housing, they would farm
  land for a landowner and then be paid with a
  portion of the harvest.
• Tenant Farming Individuals would pay to rent
  land and then be free to farm that land however
  they wished. Because they had this freedom, they
  were seen as a higher social class than the
  sharecroppers

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• Changes
• White labor was now more prominent in
  agriculture.
• Cash Crops Farmers now focused on products that
  were in high demand such as cotton, tobacco, and
  sugar
• Many southerners became trapped by debt
• the Southern Homestead Act of 1866 offered cheap
  land to those who would farm it.
• Still, by 1876 only 1 in 20 African American
  families owned land.
• Merchants many southerners opened stores to sell
  the cash crops that were being produced.

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Southern Industry

• Railroads build cities The rebuilding of
  railroads in the south allow for the movement of
  people and products between cities
• Most southern industries dealt with the
  production of Raw Materials products which were
  freshly harvested. These were sent north for
  further production.

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How do you pay for reconstruction?

• gospel of prosperity It was thought that
  increasing business would solve problems for
  everyone.
• Rebuilding the infrastructure of the south after
  the war took its toll on the people.
• Government was forced to raise taxes in order to
  pay for these things, putting further stress on
  citizens
• With all this cash flow. Corruption takes its
  toll

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12-4 Reconstruction Comes to an End

• Rising violence in the south
• Ku Klux Klan a secret society that was formed in
  1866 and committed violent acts against African
  Americans and whites who attempted to help them.
• The claim they fought to defend white
  superiority
• Nathan Bedford Forrest
• The Klan also acted violently towards Republicans

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Government responds to the Klan

• Enforcement Act of 1870 banned the use of
  terror, force, or bribery as a way of keeping
  anyone from voting
• Military force arrested thousands and held them
  on trial for participating in KKK actions.
• Still. Violence continued towards African
  Americans

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Reasoning for the Close of Reconstruction

• Corruption
• The Economy
• Violence
• Strengthened Democrats
• Supreme Court shifts control of Civil Rights to
  state governments

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Election of 1876

• Rutherford B. Hayes (Rep)
• Samuel Tilden (Dem)
• Hayes loses to Tilden in the popular vote but
  controversy arises from the electoral college
• Two sets of tallies were submitted that were
  different
• A commission investigated and named Hayes the
  winner, but this was rejected by Democrats in
  Congress

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• Compromise of 1877 Hayes would be given the
  victory he hadnt won if
• Federal troops were removed from the south
• Railroad and levee funding was provided
• This highlighted the end of reconstruction and
  gave the Democrats a window of opportunity to
  regain control of southern politics

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Success/Failure of Reconstruction

• Successes
• African American civil rights including right to
  vote for men
• Rebuilt the Union including southern states
• Repaired damaged Southern states (cities,
  transportation systems, etc..)

• Failures
• Racism continued
• Ex KKK
• Economic problems happened
• Corruption on a large scale (south and federal
  gov)
• Black southerners remained in poverty
• So did poor white ppl