The “New South” and the “Old West”

Failure to implement truly radical measures during reconstruction failed

to truly help southern Blacks while thoroughly angering and alienating

southern whites.

I. After Appomattox: The Ultimate Questions

• How do you reconstruct the Union?

• How far should the federal government go to insure Black freedom and civil rights?

II. Philosophies of Reconstruction

• Presidential--quick restoration with minimal protection for southern Blacks

• Congressional-- “loyal” southern governments to replace ex-confederates--Southern Blacks need basic rights of American citizenship

III. Presidential Reconstruction

• Lincoln’s 10% plan

• Battle over who had the power to reconstruct the Union

• Andrew Johnson’s background

--hated southern planters

--no friend of Blacks

• Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan (May, 1865)

IV. Radical Republicans Gain the Upper Hand

• Johnson’s controversial vetoes

• Johnson’s opposition to the 14th amendment

• The “Swing Around the Circle” (1866)

• Republicans won veto-proof majorities in the 1866 election

V. Congressional Reconstruction (Begins in 1867)

• Reconstruction Act of 1867

• Military rule of the south• Readmission of states with

guarantees of Black suffrage

• Exclusion of ex-Confederates from government office

• Radicals wanted redistribution of land to Blacks—too radical

VI. The Impeachment Crisis

• Johnson tries to obstruct congressional reconstruction with executive privilege

• Tenure of Office Act• Johnson tries to remove

Secretary of War Stanton• Impeachment and Trial in

the Senate• Process neutralized

Johnson

VII. Reconstruction in the South

• A Condition of Ruin• “Forty Acres and a Mule”• Blacks resist gang labor

after the War• Development of

Sharecropper system• Black Codes• The Segregated South• Freedmen faced violence

if they tried to vote

VIII. The Southern Republican Party

• Hastily organized for 1868 elections

• Three constituencies:--southern Blacks--northern businessmen--poor, white farmers

• Some success, some corruption

• Blacks held only limited political offices in the south

IX. The Fifteenth Amendment

• Highpoint of Reconstruction era

• Ratified in 1870

• Ambiguous wording allowed the future use of literacy tests, poll taxes, and property requirements

• Worked to divide the feminist movement

X. Grant and the Retreat from Reconstruction

• Rise of the Ku Klux Klan between 1868-1872

• Inconsistent use of federal troops to protect Black voters

• Northern disenchantment with “propping up” corrupt southern state governments

• Open southern appeal to white supremacy after 1872

X. Retreat from Reconstruction (cont.)

• Grant administration facing charges of corruption

-- Credit Mobilier scandal

• Radical Republicans dying or out of office

• Civil service reform replaces Black civil rights as the major political issue of the time

XI. The Compromise of 1877

• The election of 1876• Tilden vs. Hayes• Disputed votes in the

electoral college• Electoral commission fell

under Republican control• Hayes’ victory in exchange

for southern “home rule”• Eliminates Republican

party in the south• Presidency of Hayes

XII. The “New South”

• Redemption governments

• Laissez-faire policies and white supremacy

• Northern industry attracted to no taxes and low wages for workers

• Corrupt governments

XII. “The New South” (cont.)

• Lynchings common

• Poor whites neglected just as much as Blacks

• Some Blacks continue to vote until the 1890’s

• Supreme Court decisions between 1875-1896 gutted Reconstruction

--Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

XII. “The New South” (cont.)

• Signs of sectional healing: Battlefield reunions

• Sectional reconciliation made possible by northern abandonment of Black rights

• “Lost Cause” myth also helps reconcile the two regions

• Blacks bore the burden of sectional reconciliation

XIII. “New South” Economic Growth

• Increase in southern cotton mills

• Growth of southern tobacco industry--Duke family

• Thriving Lumber industry

• Other southern industries

XIV. Voices in Opposition to Southern Racism

• Booker T. Washington• W.E.B. DuBois

--The Niagara Movement (1905)

• Ida Wells• Henry McNeal Turner• Frances E. W. Harper

XV. “The Old West”

• Competing perceptions of the “Old West”

• Best to view the “Old West” as a series of frontiers

• Geography and climate played a huge role in this area

XVI. Mining the West

• Scattering of settlements in non-agricultural areas

• History of western strikes

• Deadwood, South Dakota

• Admission of new western states

XVII. Western Indian Wars

• Life and disunity of the western tribes

• The Chivington massacre (1864)

• The Battle of the Little Big Horn (1876)

• The retreat of the Nez Perces and Chief Joseph

XVII. Western Indian Wars (cont.)

• Capture of Apache Chief Geronimo in 1886

• The Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee (1890)

• The extinction of buffalo herds

• Eastern concerns for Indian welfare--Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor

• The Dawes Act of 1867

XVIII. The Cattle Frontier and Cowboys

• The history of cattle raising

• The “average” cowboy• Mexican origins of the

cowboy life• Abilene and Dodge City,

Kansas• The disintegration of the

cattle drive--Invention of barbed wire (1873)

XIX. The Farming Frontier

• “Sodbusters”—the least romantic of the western frontiersmen

• The importance of the railroad

• Plains farmer faced a grim struggle with danger, adversity and monotony

• Last Indian territory opened to settlement in 1889

XIX. The Farming Frontier (cont.)

• Egalitarian gender roles on the frontier

• The competition of “bonanza” farms

• The western farmers’ conspiracy theory

• 1890 U.S. census = “frontier closed”

• The historical theory of Frederick Jackson Turner