RECONSTRUCTION

The restoration of the former Confederate states to the Union

1865-1877

What Could Have Happened: chaos and vengeance• imprisonment of Confederate leaders• former rebel troops wage a guerilla war• slaves rage a racial war

What Did Happen: political stalemate• political conflict with some violence• Constitutional Amendments and legislative reform• impeachment crisis

“It is intended to revolutionize their principles and feelings… a radical reorganization in Southern institutions, habits, and manners…or all our blood and treasure have been

spent in vain.”~ Thaddeus Stevens, Pennsylvania Representative

Questions to Consider

• What issues (both short and long term) need to be addressed?

• What other issues do you assume exist? Pre-existing conflicts – are they addressed?

• Who is capable of and responsible for addressing them?

• What are the priorities of reconstruction? Who decides what the priorities are?

• Who or what is expendable or can be sacrificed in this process?

• How can you measure the efficacy or success of the recovery plan? Pragmatism vs. ideology

• When does it end?

Lincoln’s 10% Plan

“With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God

gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the

nation's wounds. “

1863 Proclamation ofAmnesty and Reconstruction

• Oath of allegiance and acceptance of emancipation by 10% of 1860 voters

• Excluded Confederate officials and officers

• Excluded blacks

Attempt to undermine the Confederacy and build a southern Republican Party

Radical RepublicansWade-Davis Bill

Passed by Congress in July of 1864, introduced by Radical Republicans, OH senator Benjamin F. Wade and MD representative Henry Winter Davis

• majority of eligible voters required to swear oath of allegiance to the Union• repeal secession• abolish slavery

Pocket-vetoed by Lincoln

AndrewJohnson

Southern Senator, remained in Congress

Anti-Confederate

Military governor of TN

Self-educated Jacksonian

Anti-agricultural elite

Supporter of emancipation

Johnson’s PlanMay 1865: AL, FL, GA, MS, NC, SC and TX still not readmitted

Leniency Requirements and Powers

Pardon and amnesty for southerners taking oath of allegiance

Elect delegates to state conventions

All property except slaves returned

Call regular elections

Confederate civil and military leaders and wealthy property owners disqualified from taking the oath

Proclaim secession illegal

Power to the “humble men, the peasantry and yeomen of the South”

Ratify the Thirteenth Amendment

Governments of Southern Statesstatus quo ante bellum

Confederate officers and large planters assumed state officesFormer Confederate congressmen won election to Congress

BLACK CODESInsure a landless, dependent black labor force through contracts

Legalized segregation

Banned intermarriage, jury service by blacks, testimony againstwhites

Defended by Johnson

Southern law allowed marriage to blacks, ownership of property and right to testify against other blacks

Congressional Reconstruction

Democrats;Radical, Moderate and Conservative

Republicans

1865 – extend Freedmen’s Bureau

1866 (March) – Johnson vetoed it:the Constitution did not sanction military trials of civilians in peacetime, nor care for “indigent persons”

1866 (February) – Congress passed Civil Rights Act of 1866 guaranteeing African American citizenship

Vetoed by Johnson;Overridden by CongressFreedmen’s Bureau Act then passed over a presidential veto

Midterm Election 1866: Republican LandslideRadical Republican Agenda:African American suffrageFederal support for public schoolsConfiscation of Confederate estatesExtended military occupation of the South

Three Reconstruction Acts passed over Presidential Veto

Reconstruction Act of 1867All Reconstruction governments except TN were invalidatedRemaining 10 states divided into 5 military districtsBlack males and enfranchised whites elect delegation for new constitutionGrant African American suffrage and ratify 14th Amendment to be re-admitted

Temporary military occupationNo prosecution of Confederate leadersNo confiscation or redistribution of property

Impeachment CrisisMarch 1867Congress passed Tenure of Office Act which prohibited the president from removing any executive officer confirmed by the Senate without Senate approval. (Eventually the law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.)

February 21st, 1868, Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the last of several pro-Radical military officers Johnson had fired

House approved 11 articles of impeachment, 9 based on Tenure of Office and 2 others for unbecoming conduct

7 Republican Senators voted with the Democrats and Johnson was spared conviction by one vote

Reconstruction Amendments

Amendment and date of Congressional passage

Provisions Ratification by the States

ThirteenthJanuary 1865

Prohibited slavery in the United States

December 1865

FourteenthJune 1866

• Citizens are all persons born or naturalized in the U.S.• loss of congressional representation for states that denied suffrage to any male citizens• disqualified prewar Confederate officeholders from holding state or national office

July 1868 after Congress made ratification a prerequisite for re-admission of ex-Confederate states to the Union

FifteenthFebruary 1869

Prohibited denial of suffrage due to race, color or previous condition of servitude

March 1870; ratification required of VA, TX, MS and GA for readmission to the Union

Carpetbaggers and ScalawagsAccording to Democrats, there were three types of Republicans

Scalawags – poor, ignorant, white southerners who supported the RepublicansSome former Whigs; mostly small farmers from the mountains (NC, BA, AL, AR); former Unionists who didn’t

support the planter elite seeking their own economic improvement; no interest in black rights

Carpetbaggers :northerners who had come south for wealth and powerFormer Union soldiers seeking land, factories, RR work or warmer climate; they held 1 in 3 political offices; recruited the black vote to the polls

Hordes of uneducated freedmen:Backbone of southern Republicanism; 8 out of 10 Republican votesSought land, education, civil rights and political equalityHeld only 1 in 5 political officesNo black governors; only 2 Senators; 6% House members were black

Black lawmakers sought equal rights; most freedmen sought land

White CounterattacksEx-Confederates decried the “horror of Negro domination”

NC constitutional convention delegates called “Ethiopian minstrelsy…baboons, monkeys, mules…and other jackasses” by democratic newspapers

Political Tactics – employed after readmission• contested elections• backed dissident Republican factions• elected Democratic legislators• lured away scalawags

Violent Vigilantism• shooting, murder, rape, arson, and “severe and inhuman beating”• 1866 six Confederate veterans formed KKK• by 1868 the Klan was a domestic terrorist organization targeting black voters

EmancipationUrban black population tripled as blacks left farms

seeking lost family members and economic opportunity

Black Churches:worship, relief, schools, political activism

Education:Freedmen’s Bureau schools, Howard, Atlanta, Fisk Universities and Hampton Institute

By 1877, 80% of blacks remained illiterate

Sharecropping – Crop Lien Economy40 acres and a mule1866 Southern Homestead Act

Obstacles to Black Landownership:Lack of capitalWhite opposition to selling to blacksPreservation of a captive labor force

The Abandonment of ReconstructionThe Election of U.S. Grant, 1868

• popular candidate but incompetent President• surrounded by fraud, bribery and corruption (“Grantism”)

Liberal Revolt• radicals and others revolted; formed Liberal Republican Party• Horace Greeley 1872 Candidate for President• civil service reform, end to “bayonet rule”, qualified leaders

Panic of 1873• Railroad speculation caused bank failure and five-year depression• bankrupt businesses, 3 million unemployed, labor violence• sound money vs. easy money and repayment of the debt• Specie Resumption Act, 1875 (Senator John Sherman)• Bland-Allison Act, 1878

End of ReconstructionThe Supreme Court

• Ex Parte Milligan (1866)• Texas v. White (1869)• Slaughterhouse decision (1873)• U.S. v. Reese (1876)• U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876)•Invalidated the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and the KKK Act of 1871 (1883)• Plessy v. Ferguson (1898)

Redemption: the return of Democrats to power• Republican coalition crumbled• Democrats rewrote state constitutions• cut budgets, lowered taxes• eliminated social programs• limited rights of tenant farmers and sharecroppers• directed at blacks severe penalties for misdemeanors• restored conditions of slavery and prompted black exodus

Election of 1876: Hayes (Republican) vs. Tilden (Democrat)• Contested electoral outcome• Decided by electoral commission, certified by the House

“When you turned us loose, you turned us

loose to the sky, to the storm, to the

whirlwind, and worst of all… to the wrath

of our infuriated masters… The

question now is, do you mean to make

good to us the promised in your

Constitution?”

Frederick Douglass

Don’t forget…• What issues (both short and long term) need to be addressed?• What other issues do you assume exist? Pre-existing conflicts –

are they addressed?• Who is capable of and responsible for addressing them?• What are the priorities of reconstruction? Who decides what the

priorities are?• Who or what is expendable or can be sacrificed in this process?• How can you measure the efficacy or success of the recovery

plan? Pragmatism vs. ideology• When does it end?

Choose AT LEAST three to address in your next journal entry…