Topic: Evaluating the Plans for Reconstruction: Presidential vs. Radical Reconstruction

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Topic Evaluating the Plans for Reconstruction
Presidential vs. Radical Reconstruction
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Costs of the Civil War and Lincolns Plan

• Effects of the Civil War
• 600,000 soldiers killed
• 15 billion to fight
• South in ruins, social chaos
• Southern bitterness
• Northern economy stronger than ever
• Nullification theory discredited
• Federal government has more authority
• Early Reconstruction
• Freedmens Bureau established
• Lincoln wanted to quickly restore the states to
  the Union
• Lincolns 10 Percent Plan vs. Wade-Davis Bill
• Congress vs. Lincoln???
• April 1865 Lincoln assassinated

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Andrew Johnson vs. Congress

• Johnsons background
• Johnson favors a variation on Lincolns Plan
• 13th Amendment
• New Southern Governments
• Ex Confederates must ask for pardons
• Johnson threatens to veto Freedmans Bureau
• Northern Congressional Republicans angry at
  Johnson
• Congress demands 14th Amendment
• Radical Republicans attack Johnson
• Sir Veto, drunkenness
• Thaddeus Stevens Charles Sumner

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The Impeachment of Johnson

• 1866 Congressional elections
• Johnsons Swing round the Circle speeches
• President vs. Congress
• Republicans win the elections
• Radical Republicans emboldened
• Radicals try to Impeach Johnson
• The charge Johnson violated the Tenure of Office
  Act (Firing of E. Stanton)
• March 1868 Impeachment
• Senate acquits
• However, the office of the Presidency remains
  weakened for decades

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Radical Reconstruction (1867-1877)

• Republican fears is the South growing too
  powerful?
• Black Codes
• Southern representation in Congress issue
• Moderate vs. Radical Republicans
• Radicals must transform the south entirely
• Both agree Blacks must be able to vote
• 15th Amendment
• Reconstruction Act 1867 The military controls
  southern districts
• However, Radical Reconstruction faces problems
  too.

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Conclusion

• 1) Which of the Reconstruction Plans do you think
  should have been enacted? Explain your reasoning.
• 2) Predict and Analyze why will Radical
  Reconstruction have problems?