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, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace . . .

-Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural AddressMarch 4, 1865

Differing Views of ReconstructionTen Percent Plan

Proposed by: Lincoln

Lenient

Requirements: 10 % of Southerners must take an oath of allegiance

Goal: bring the Union together quickly

Supporters: South, Northern moderates

Outcome:

• Died before it could be put into place

Wade-Davis Bill

• Proposed by: Radicals in Congress

• Harsh

• Requirements: 51% of 1860 eligible voters pledge allegiance

• Goal: punish South/ empower freedmen

• Supporters: Congress, Radicals, freed slaves

• Outcome: Lincoln pocket vetos

Johnson’s Presidential Reconstruction

Proposed by: Andrew Johnson

Lenient

Requirements: State conventions must abolish slavery, swear allegiance

Goal: Reunite N/S, punish wealthy white Southerners

Supporters: South

Outcome: Some states held conventions and sent reps to Congress

Reconstruction Act of 1867• Proposed by: Congress• Harsh• Requirements: Conventions to write new

state constitutions with black suffrage, ratify 14th amendment, and bans Confederates from voting/holding office

• Goal: punish South; empower freedmen• Supporters: Congress, African Americans• Outcome: military rule of South

• Freedman’s Bureau

• Goal was to feed/house freed slaves & poor whites

• He vetoed this

• Civil Rights Act of 1866

• vetoed this bill that was meant to protect freed slaves from Black codes

In the Congressional midterm election in 1866, Congress gets 2/3 control of both houses of Congress and can override Johnson’s veto.

Congressional ReconstructionGoal: punish Southern whites-protect/empower freed slaves

14th Amendment:

Provided equal protection under the law for blacks, banned Confederates from voting/holding office

Reconstruction Act of 1867:

Divided South into 5 military districts under martial law

Tenure of Office Act:

They impeached Johnson for breaking this law. He was found not guilty by 1 vote and kept his job

15th Amendment:

States that no one can be prevented from voting based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”

Johnson Impeached-

Johnson had repeatedly angered Congressional Republicans by vetoing legislation.

Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act which stated the president could not fire cabinet members without consent from the Senate.

Johnson thought this unconstitutional, and fired Secretary of War Stanton.

The House brought 11 charges of impeachment.

Senate fell one vote short of two-thirds majority needed for conviction.

• Tenure of Office Act– Grounds on which Johnson was impeached– Fired gov’t official– Escaped impeachment by 1 vote

Immediate Effects of Reconstruction on African

Americans

Political

African Americans vote:

Republicans dominate Southern governments as 90 % of qualified black men voted

First African American elected officials: Hiram Revels becomes first black senator

Many families are reunited.

Many African-Americans founded their own churches, and ministers became influential community leaders

Educational institutions were established to educate freed people of all ages

From 1865 to 1870 the African-American population of the South’s ten largest cities doubled as thousands fled the plantations looking for jobs.

Social

Economic

40 acres and a mule:

• General Sherman had made this promise to freed slaves that had followed his army.

• Never happened on a large scale.

Former plantation owners need field workers.

Former slaves need land.

Sharecropping:

• a landowner divides his land and gives each worker-freed slave or poor white- a few acres to work along with tools and seed.

• At harvest, the worker gave a share of his crop ( about half) to the planter.

• Hard to get out of poverty (result :economic enslavement).

Tenant farmers:

• actually had cash for rental of land, and kept their own crop.

• More likely to get out of poverty

Sharecropping & Tenant Farming

Reconstruction Comes to an End

Southern Resistance Increases

• Carpetbaggers:

Northerners that come South

•Scalawags:

Southerners who joined the Republican party.

• Black Codes:

racist laws limiting freed slaves’ rights

“Is This A Republican Form of Government?"Harper's Weekly, September 2, 1876

• poll taxes / Literacy tests/grandfather clauses:Measures to keep blacks from voting.

• Rise of the KKK

• Amnesty Act- returned the right to vote & hold office to many former Confederates

Attempts to Stop Resistance

• Enforcement Acts: - oversee elections - send troops against KKK

Public Opinion Changes

• Corruption up, people think $ is being wasted

Examples

Whiskey Ring Belknap Bribery

• Panic of 1873:

People more worried about the economy than punishing the South

• Currency dispute:

poor want more $ printed

Supreme Court Interpretation

• U.S. v. Cruikshank 14th Amendment does not involve people discriminating against people; only the government discriminating

• U.S. v. Reese undermined idea all black

males can vote: ruled the 15th Amendment didn’t give right to vote, simply listed grounds on which states could not deny right to vote

Changes within the Republican Party

• White Southern ‘scalawags’ not committed to protecting African-Americans

• The party splits over corruption

• Republicans v. Liberal Republicans

Election of 1876

Republican- Hayes of Ohio v. Democrat – Tilden of NY

• Tilden won popular vote, needs 1 electoral vote more

• Florida’s 20 electoral votes uncertain b/c of KKK violence

So…the electoral college can’t render a verdict!

Compromise of 1877

• Hayes became president

• Democrats allow it b/c troops will leave the South

• Result: “Redemption” – White Southerners regain control of the South

**White Supremacy and Home Rule Restored**

Reconstruction: Success or Failure?