Reconstructing the Nation1865-1877

• Questions confronting the nation• What was the political status of the newly-freed slaves?• How would their freedom be guaranteed?• How would the Southern states be readmitted to the Union?• Would former Confederates be punished?• How would the South rebuild its economy?

Presidential ReconstructionLincoln’s Ten Percent Plan

• Pardons for all Confederates except high-ranking officers (and those accused of crimes of against POWs)• Readmit a state when 10% of those voting in 1860 took a loyalty oath

promising allegiance to the United States.• Alabama, Louisiana , Tennessee, and Virginia accepted Lincoln’s terms

for readmission.• Johnson adopted Lincoln’s plan but he wanted former Confederate

states to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery throughout the United States.• In practice, though, he did not require this of all states.

Presidential Reconstruction

• The remaining states agreed to Johnson’s plan• Southern states elected former CSA generals & CSA Cabinet members

to the US Senate. (CSA VP Alexander Stephens was elected to Congress and he was still under an indictment for treason. Former Confederate officials elected to offices in the U.S. government were known as “white-washed Rebels”) • Southern states passed “Black Codes,” discriminatory laws regulated

the lives and movement of African Americans and were designed to keep them as a cheap and docile labor force.

Section of Georgia’s Black Codes, Adopted 1866

“All persons wandering or strolling about in idleness, who are able to work, and who have no property to support them ; all persons leading an idle, immoral or profligate life…; all persons having a fixed abode who have no visible property to support them, and who live by stealing or buying stolen property and all professional gamblers, living in idleness, shall be deemed and considered vagrants, and shall be indicted as such; and it shall be lawful for any person to arrest said vagrants, and have them bound over for trial to the next term of the County Court, and upon conviction they shall be fined or imprisoned, or sentenced to work on the public works or roads for no longer than a year, or shall, in the discretion of the Court, be bound out to some person for a time not longer than one year, upon such valuable consideration as the Court may prescribe, the person giving bond,…conditioned to clothes and feed, and provide said convict with medical attendance for and during said time,

Johnson and Thaddeus Stevens, Leader of the Radical Republicans

Congressional (Radical) Reconstruction• “Radical” Republicans” in Congress were angry because Johnson’s plan

didn’t help out former slaves (Johnson wasn’t requiring all states to ratify the 13th Amendment)• The “Radical,” led by Thaddeus Stevens wanted to ensure the rights of

newly freed slaves and wanted to be sure that white southern Democrats weren’t returning the same pro-slavery leaders to power.• “Radicals” began their own Reconstruction.• They passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 gave African-Americans citizenship

& prohibited “Black Codes”• Radicals passed it over Johnson’s veto. They passed the same legislation as

the Fourteenth Amendment to make it permanent.

Congressional (Radical) Reconstruction

• The Fourteenth Amendment made all former slaves citizens and as such could not be denied “life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”• It is the Fourteenth Amendment that makes all persons born in the

United States citizens of the U.S.• The Fourteenth Amendment greatly expanded the definition of civil

rights and is cited in more litigation (law suits) than any other amendment.

Congressional(Radical) Reconstruction

• The Radicals passed the Reconstruction Act which the South into 5 military districts governed by a Union General & required former Confederate states to ratify the 14th Amendment before they could be readmitted them to the Union. (Only Tennessee ratified the Fourteenth Amendment.)• The former Confederate states had to write new constitutions

guaranteeing former male slaves the right to vote.• Congress overrode Johnson’s veto to pass the Reconstruction Act.• Republicans in Congress did not trust the southern state governments to

allow former slaves to vote, so they passed the Fifteenth Amendment in 1869.• The Fifteenth Amendment granted the vote to African American men.

African Americans in Reconstruction Politics• African American men served as delegates in the constitutional

conventions of the former Confederate states.• Fourteen served in the House of Representatives during

Reconstruction. Hiram Revels & Blanche K. Bruce, both of whom were from Mississippi, served in the Senate.• African Americans served in state legislatures and as lieutenant

governors and were elected to local offices such as sheriff and mayor.

Johnson’s Impeachment

• Congressional Republicans were angry that Johnson was vetoing the legislation, such as renewal of the Freedman’s Bureau.• In 1868, the House of Representatives, led by Thaddeus Stevens

brought impeachment charges against Johnson for violating the Tenure of Office Act.• Johnson had fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who was a spy for

the Congressional Republicans.• The Radicals were unable to get the 2/3s majority vote in the Senate

needed to remove Johnson from office, so Johnson remained President.

Freedom in the South

• Newly freed slaves searched for families members who had been sold off, had formal wedding ceremonies.• Former slaves chose last names for themselves as they had been

denied the dignity of a surname under slavery.• The church became the focus of the African American community in

the years following the war. They formed their own churches pastored by their own ministers.• The churches grew enormously and became the center of the

community.

Social Conditions in the South: The Freedmen

• The Freedmen’s Bureau was established during war to help former slaves and impoverished whites with food, medical assistance, and education (first social government social welfare agency). • The establishment of schools was the most significant contribution was the

creation of schools.• Former abolitionists also came South & set up schools. African-Americans flocked

to these schools, and it was not uncommon to see a young child, his mother, and a grandparent in the same classroom.• They lobbied (asked the legislature) for public education. African-Americans were

the first large group in the South to lobby for public education• Many historically black colleges and universities were founded in this period.

Morehouse in Atlanta and Tuskegee in Alabama are some of the best-known examples.

White Resistance to Black Rights

• Black Codes were state laws to restrict African-Americans. They punished blacks for crimes like loitering and breaking labor “contracts.” These laws were intended to keep African Americans as a cheap and subservient labor force. Those who broke their labor contracts could forcibly dragged by to work by a “negro-catcher.”• Former slaves usually voted for Republican candidates because this was the party

of Lincoln and emancipation. The majority of white southern voters wanted to return the Democrats to power.• The Ku Klux Klan was a secret organization that used terror to keep blacks from

voting and to frighten whites who were trying to help blacks. • In 1870 Congress passed the Force Act which allowed President Grant to use the

military to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment and clamp down on the Klan. Grant was successful in his efforts to get rid of the Klan.

Reconstruction & the Southern Economy• When slavery was abolished, it ended the labor system on which the South had

relied. • Thaddeus Steven proposed giving land confiscated from Confederate officials to the

newly freed slaves, but this did not • Former slaves and poor whites began sharecropping – farming someone else’s land &

giving him a “share” of the crops• Sharecropping system created a vicious cycle of debt because the sharecropper had

to buy seed and supplies from the landowner at the beginning of each year on credit and was charged a high rate of interest. In addition, they had to buy other necessities on credit from merchants who also charged them a high rate of interest.• Many sharecroppers remained in debt to the landowner or the merchant year after

year. Even if they made a profit, it was usually not enough to buy their own land.• Sharecropping families became trapped in a cycle of poverty that lasted for

generations and would not really end until the advent of World War II.

The End of Reconstruction

• As the 1870s wore on, many Northerners began to grow tired of Reconstruction. • By 1876 federal troops had been pulled out all of the Confederate states,

except Louisiana and South Carolina.• As federal troops left, the rights of African Americans were no longer

ensured. • As African-Americans lost the right to vote, white voters returned pre-

war leaders to elected offices. These officials were known as the Redeemers. The Redeemers and their supporters believed they were rescuing the South from the incompetent and corrupt government by Republicans.

The End of Reconstruction: The Compromise of 1877

• The election pitted Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, a three-time governor of Ohio, against the Democrat Samuel Tilden, who had brought down a notoriously corrupt New York City politician.

• The Republican candidate Rutherford Hayes won the popular vote, but not enough electoral votes to take presidency

• 20 Electoral College votes were disputed, and Southern Democrats & the Republicans made a deal to end the deadlock.

• In exchange for Hayes getting the Presidency, the Republicans agreed federal troops are would be removed from the south. In addition, the South would get money to improve infrastructure, specifically to build a railroad from a transcontinental railroad.

• This deal was called the Compromise of 1877. It left the former slaves at the mercy of their former masters. The Compromise is considered the end of Reconstruction

The End of Recons

• In the years after Reconstruction ended, Democratic governments in the former Confederate states passed “Jim Crow” laws which legalized the informal separation of black and whites in areas of public accommodation that had existed since the end of the Civil War.• In addition, southern states passed laws which took away the voting

rights of African American men through literacy tests and poll taxes. (A poll tax is a tax you have to pay to vote.)• This system of discrimination would remain in placed for decades.