U.s history week 1- reconstruction

Reconstruction Period

the 12 years following the Civil War, during which the North and South debated the future of black Americans and waged bitter political battles while attempting to bring the 11 confederate states back into the Union

Reconstruction

is the general term for the transition of the former Confederate states from Federal control to restoration of statehood. spanned from 1865 to 1877.

1861 inaugural address

Although Reconstruction is usually associated with the period after the Civil War, it actually began when Abraham Lincoln, in his _____, announced his intention to preserve the Union.

cs constitution

confederate states constitution

the secession of the Southern states

Lincoln never recognized ______ and he believed that it was his supreme constitutional duty to restore legitimate, loyal governments in each state.

The right of secession

_____ is not mentioned in either the US or CS Constitution, either to permit or prohibit it.

Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction

In December 1863, Lincoln addressed Congress and announced a ___

the 10 Percent Plan

Lincoln’s plan, also known as ____, included a full pardon to all Rebels who had not held high Confederate office, accompanied by a full restoration of property rights in everything but slaves.

loyalty oath

To take advantage of the pardon, and to ensure full political participation in the future, a _____ pledging to obey the laws of the US Congress and the Constitution would have to be taken. Oath takers would also have to pledge to obey future presidential proclamations regarding slavery.

one-tenth of the voters

The rebellious states would be granted political recognition when they called constitutional conventions and reestablished loyal state governments supported by at least ____ who had registered for the presidential election of 1860.

On July 2, 1864

Radical Republicans in Congress put forth their own plan of reconstruction, the Wade-Davis Bill, designed not only to ensure black freedom but also provide for a more stringent Union settlement in the South.

Wade-Davis Bill

made abolition of slavery a first step in the political reorganization of any Southern state.

50 percent

To ensure republican government elected by the majority of voters, the bill also required that _____ of 1860 voters participate in the elections to reconstitute state governments.

ironclad oath

any electors to the state constitutional conventions were required to swear ______ of loyalty stating that they had never taken up arms against the United States.

pocket vetoed

Lincoln _____ the Wade-Davis bill; mainly because it would undercut the work of reconstruction begun by him in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee

Andrew Johnson

assumes presidency after Lincoln’s assassination,

developed a battle between him and Congress

was a Tennessee self-made man (a Jacksonian Democrat)

Slave owner but loyal to the Union

the Freedmen's Bureau

Formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands,

was a federal agency within the War Department that was charged with supervising the transition from slavery to freedom in the Southern states

brought relief in the form of food and clothing to hard-pressed white and black Southerners. Not only did they set up schools to educate the freed slaves, they gave them land that was abandoned by southern plantation owners.

This type of assistance, however, was always considered an emergency measure, necessary only until the new free-labor system could bear fruit.

Emancipation Proclamation

During the Civil War, and especially after President Lincoln had issued the _____ on January 1, 1863, abolitionists and many Republicans argued that the federal government had a responsibility to assist the former slaves of the South in adjusting to their new status.

Black Codes:

series of laws passed by southern states in 1865 and 1866, modeled on the slave codes in effect before the Civil War.

granted African Americans some rights that had not been enjoyed by slaves.

legalized marriages performed under slavery and allowed black southerners to hold and sell property and to sue and be sued in state courts.

Yet - their primary purpose was to keep African Americans as propertyless agricultural laborers with inferior legal rights.

Alexander Stephens

the vice president of the Confederacy, who was elected defiantly by southerners to be senator from Georgia

March 27, 1866

Andrew Johnson vetoes the Civil Rights Act of 1866

April 1866

Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the first United States federal law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. It was designed to nullify the Black Codes by guaranteeing equal civil rights to blacks

July 1866

Congress passed a bill that overrode Johnson's Presidential veto of the Freedmen’s Bureau and the Civil Rights Act.

When Congress overrode the Presidential veto they essentially seized control of Reconstruction and all hope of compromise with the South evaporated.

The Republicans were motivated by the noblest of purposes, the end of slavery, but they were not prepared to negotiate at all with the South who had yet to embrace this new concept.

Congress votes to impeach Pres. Johnson

For refusal to follow Radical Reconstruction policy of Congress- believed Johnson was overstepping bounds

Johnson had tried to undermine Reconstruction and use his presidential authority to override the votes of Congress

After 11-week trial, Johnson was acquitted of presidential misconduct and impeachment proceedings ended

Reconstruction Amendments

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, adopted between 1865 and 1870

were intended to guarantee the freedom of the formerly enslaved and grant certain civil rights to them, and to protect the formerly enslaved and all citizens of the United States from discrimination.

The Fourteenth Amendment

clearly forbade any state from enacting a law that “abridged the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” and guaranteed the voting rights of all citizens.

While it seemed very noble, parts of it were very vengeful.

• Section 3 barred Confederates from holding office unless individually pardoned by 2/3 of Congress.

• Section 4 took away any claim the confederates had for the losses incurred through the emancipation of any slave. By Confederate law, slaves were property and now the 14th Amendment was not allowing any compensation for the loss of a slave; the South considered this property to then be seized.

The Reconstruction Act

was passed in March 1867 over President Johnson's veto and was strengthened by three supplemental acts passed later the same year and in 1868.

It provided for the organization of loyal governments in all former Confederate states except Tennessee, which, having ratified the 14th Amendment, was regarded as already reconstructed.

The ten remaining states were divided into five military districts, each headed by a military commander.

The military commander was responsible for seeing that each state under his command wrote a new constitution that provided for voting rights for all adult males, regardless of race.

the 15th Amendment

Passed by congress in 1869, which was ratified in 1870.

It broadened the 14th Amendment's protection of black suffrage by providing that no citizen could be denied the right to vote on the basis of “race, color or previous condition of servitude.”

The Civil Rights Act of 1875

barred discrimination by hotels, theaters, and railroads.

In 1883, however, it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

A resistance movement grew in response to reconstruction abuses and a band of confederate veterans started a social club in the winter of 1865 to 1866 led by former Confederate general, Nathan Bedford Forrest, which grew into the notorious _____.

became the principle vehicle for covert resistance to stop Radical Republicanism, blacks, and Northerners from carrying out their government and social reforms.

Knights of the White Camellia

A similar movement to the KKK that started in Louisiana

Force Act

In 1871 Congress passed the ____ which allowed the president to suspend habeas corpus, suppress public disturbances by force, and impose other penalties on terrorist organizations.

Ulysses S. Grant

Andrew Johnson’s presidential term ended in 1869 and _____ became the 18th President of the United States.

Rutherford B. Hayes

Reconstruction ended as part of a compromise after the 1876 elections which saw the Republican presidential candidate, ______ admitted to office.

He was elected President in exchange for the agreement that no Republican administration would ever again interfere with the Southern world of segregation.

“Compromise of 1877”

This led to a massive scaling back of Reconstruction's accomplishments. Taxes were slashed; so too was spending on education, especially for black schools.

Throughout the South, a campaign ensued to put blacks in “their place,” which culminated around the turn of the century when one state after another passed laws providing for the rigid segregation of the races and for the disfranchisement of blacks through such devices as literacy tests, poll taxes, and political primaries that were open only to whites

These devices prevented almost all Southern blacks and some poor whites from voting or choosing candidates. During the first half of the 20th century, the South became a rigidly segregated society dominated by an all-white Democratic Party.

Jim Crow Laws

were racial segregation laws enacted between 1876 and 1965 in the United States at the state and local level. They mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with, starting in 1890, a "separate but equal" status for African Americans

The separation in practice led to conditions for African Americans that tended to be inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages

cash crops

like tobacco, rice, sugar, and cotton.

the “agricultural ladder.”

According to this theory: Any poor man willing to work hard and pinch pennies could eventually become a landowner.

The end of slavery brought hopes of economic independence to newly freed slaves across the South.

The dream of economic independence rested on this theory

However, in practice, harsh realities of the post Civil War South overwhelmed and the South's best land remained in the hands of large plantation owners.

Few freedpeople or poor whites ever had enough money to acquire property- The harvest produced was rarely enough for the worker to make ends meet, let alone to pay off debts and move up the agricultural ladder.

When tenants entered the country store, they saw two prices:

a)one for cash

b)one for credit

The credit price might be as much as 60 percent higher.

Creditors justified the difference on the grounds that high interest rates protected them against unpaid loans.

 lien

As security, loan farmers put up a mortgage, or ____, on their crop.

The ___ gave the shopkeeper first claim on the crop until the debt was paid.

Merchants often insisted that indebted farmers raise a single cash crop, frequently cotton.

perpetual debt

Sharecropping and crop liens reduced many farmers to virtual slavery by placing them in ______.

Year after year, they rented or worked the land and borrowed against their future returns until they found themselves so deeply in debt that they could never escape.

This economic dependence turned the agricultural ladder into an agricultural slide, robbing small farmers of their land and sending them to the bottom rungs of tenancy, sharecropping, and migrant-farm work.

By the 1880s

three of every four African American farmers in the Black Belt states of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia were croppers.

Twenty years later a majority of southern white farmers had fallen into sharecropping.

Few moved up.

Legacy of Reconstruction

3 Constitutional Amendments were born: 13th,14th,15th

Blacks now saw some limited opportunities of education and advancement

Lincoln’s work had begun

There would be a long road ahead for equality

Economically, the South remained poor and least educated region of the U.S

Reconstruction was a noble experiment that ultimately failed in its scope and agenda

April 9, 1865

the end of the Civil War

John Willis Menard

wins election to the U.S. House of Reps and becomes the first African American to be elected to congress

Hiram Rhodes Revels

becomes the first African American to be seated in the U.S. Senate