Chapter 15: The Era of Reconstruction

How long did Reconstruction Last?

1865-1877 (12 years)

When did the Civil War end?

1865

Did Racism persist in the South and North?

Yes racism continued in both the North and South

What was one the first things Enslaved people did when freed?

The first thing they did was try to find family members they had been separated from

Did enslavers immediately comply with emancipation?

Enslavers resisted emancipation until they literally couldn't anymore

What were the varying views of Northerners towards how Reconstruction should go?

1. Some wanted Southerners to be able to rejoin the Union as if nothing had changed

2. Some wanted Confederate leaders arrested and executed and the South remade to be more like the North

3. Some cared less about how the South was going to be rebuild and more about how they were going to promote Northen growth

What questions were at the center of Reconstruction?

Who is deserving of citizenship and what does that entail?

What rights should all Americans have?

What is the role of the Federal Government in ensuring freedom and equality?

How many of the South's males died in the Civil War?

1/5 of all Southern men died in the Civil War

What major cities in the South were decimated by the Civil War?

Richmond, Atlanta and Columbia

Between 1860-70 how much did the Northen economy grow?

Northern economy grew by %50

How much did the Southern economy dropped?

Southern Economy dropped by %60

How much of the Nation's Wealth did the South generate in 1860?

In 1860 the South generated %30 of the Nation's wealth.

How much of the Nation's Wealth did the South generate in 1870?

By 1870 it produced %12.

How did the South react to losing?

Anger and resentment about losing cause the South to become even more racist.

What issue with legality had to be handled during Reconstruction?

The legal status of the states that had seceded had to be determined.

How many phases did Reconstruction have?

Reconstruction had 3 phases: Presidential, Congressional, and Redemption.

What was Presidential Reconstruction?

In 1862 Lincoln had generals serve as temporary governors in Confederate states

By 1863 what had Lincoln created?

The Proclamation of Amnesty. A more lenient plan for Reconstruction that aimed to restore the Union. It allowed states to rejoin the Union on %10 of the people swore allegiance to the Constitution

Who wasn’t granted pardons for the Civil War?

Confederate government officials, senior officers of the confederate army and Navy, judges, congressmen and military officers who joined and those who abused African Americans soldiers

What states were immediately allowed back into the Union?

Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas

Who were Radical Republicans?

Radical Republicans wanted a radical restructuring of Southern Government that would grant freedoms to all freed people.

Wade Davis Bill

Passed in 1864, in conflict with the %10 bill, they demanded that a majority of White Voters in a Southern state pledge allegiance to the Union. It never passed

Wade Davis Manifesto

Done in retaliation the Wade Davis Bill being proposed, claiming that Lincoln extended his constitutional authority.

13th Amendment

Passed in 1865, it officially abolished slavery

The Freedmen’s Bureau

Created on March 3rd, 1865, it was created to handle issues that arose after emancipation.

What happened in May 1865?

General Oliver O. Howard declared that emancipated people should have the right to choose their own employers and be paid for their labor.

What happened by 1868?

By 1868, the Bureau had distributed over 20 million meals, helped them seek justice, managed abandoned lands, formalize marriage and help find relatives.

By 1870 how many schools did the Freedman’s Bureau preside over?

4,000, serving over 250,000 students

What was the main limitations of the Freedman’s Bureau?

They only had 900 agents across 13 states to handle over 3.5 formerly enslaved people

What was the Freedman’s Bank?

A place for formerly enslaved to invest money. Over 100,000 people deposited around $50,000,000.

What happened to the Freedman’s bank?

The white owners of it gutted the bank for their own personal gain and investors lost upwards of %80 of their investments.

When was Abraham Lincoln assassinated?

April 14th, 1865

What drastic changes did the end of the Civil War create?

The formerly enslaved were eager to enjoy the freedoms they had been denied for so long.

Was Andrew Johnson (The President after Lincoln) a good president?

Andrew Johnson was not a good president

What was Johnson’s main problem?

Johnson was an alcoholic

What did Andrew Johnson hate more than the Southern Elite?

The idea of African Americans having equality

What did Andew Johnson’s plan for reconstruction that Lincoln didnt’?

In May 1865, he passed a new Proclamation of Amnesty that not only excluded former Confederates but anyone worth more than $20,000.

What did Andrew Jackson do by 1866 that was seen as hypocritical?

He pardoned 7,000 Confederates and most of the White Aristocrats he claimed to hate.

Why did Andrew Johnson pardon the Confederates?

He thought that he could secure the South’s vote in the next election by doing so.

What did Andrew Johnson do to placate the Radicalisms who wanted all African Americans to have equal rights?

Andrew Johnson appointed a Unionist as provisional Governers and required all state conventions ratify the 13th amendment. He also encouraged giving some African American men the right to vote, specifically those who had some education or served in the military.

Freedmen’s Conventions

People who met, marched and demanded freedom, citizenship, full civil rights, land of their own and voting rights. They organized regular meetings, chose leaders, protested, learned the workings of federal bureaucracy and sought economic opportunity.

Where were Freedmen’s Conventions especially prominent?

Freedmen’s Conventions were especially prominent in large cities like New Orleans, Mobile, Wilmington, Memphis, Charlston, Nashville and Norfolk.

What petitions did Virtually all Freedmen’s Conventions draft?

They drafted petitions demanding free public education, their need for paying jobs, their own land and insistence of full civil rights-especially to vote

Who were the Radical Republicans?

Those who wanted Confederates to be punished and wanted social and political equality for African Americans.

What did the South do instead of extending the vote to African American men?

Instead, the South elected former Confederate leaders as their new US senators. Across the South, 4 Confederate generals, 8 Colonels, 6 Confederate cabinet members and several legislators were elected. People were not pleased.

The 1866 Race Riots

White mobs murdered and brutalized African Americans in New Orleans and Memphis, purely because they were upset at the reminder of the rights they had won. Over 2 days, 46 African Americans and 2 White people were killed and neighborhoods were burnt. In Memphis, no one was arrested for the riots

Who was seen as responsible for the Race Riots in 1866

Andrew Johnson and lenient policy towards White Supremacists was seen as the cause.

14 Amendment

Extended federal civil rights protections to African Americans and everyone born in the US.

The Black Codes

Restrictive laws passed by the new All White Southern state legislature in 1865 and 1866. They barred African Americans from voting, serving on juries, or tesifying in court.

How did the Black Codes differ?

In South Carolina, African Americans were stay on their old plantations and labor from dusk to dawn. They also weren’t allowed to own city property. Mississippi prohibited Black people from hunting or fishing to sustain their families (making them dependent on their white employers. They also were not allowed to own farmland. They also recognized Black marriages but prohibited interracial marriages. In Mississippi, any Black male over 18 had to be apprenticed to a someone (preferably a former slave owner) Anyone who was not would be jailed as vagrants. If they couldn’t pay the fine (and many couldn’t), they were jailed and forced to do convict labor.

Convict Leasing

People convicted of crimes (Mainly African Americans) were hired out by county and state governments to work for individuals and businesses. Coal mines, lumber camps, brickyard, railroads, quarries, mills and plantations. They received no pay for this and worked in brutal and inhumane conditions. More than %10 of convicts died on the job.

Ruffin Vs Commonwealth (1871)

Found that the language of the 13th amendment, which said that slavery was allowed as punishment for a crime meant that an incarcerated person forfeited not only his liberty but all personal rights. They are a slave of the state

When was Convict Leasing ended?

Convict leasing was abolished in 1928, gradually.

What did Andrew Johnson try to do in early 1866 that Republicans tried to veto?

Andrew Johnson vetoed a bill renewing funding for the Freedmen’s Bureau.

What happened on February 22nd 1866?

Andrew Johnson criticized Radical Republicans for promoting Black Civil Rights.

Civil Rights Act

Passed in Mid-March of 1866, this was the first federal law to define citizenship. It declared that “all persons born in the United States” which included children of immigrants but not Native Americans, were citizens that were entitled to “full and equal benefit of all laws”

How did Andrew Johnson react to the Civil Rights Act?

He was furious and claimed that discriminated against White People

Why was the Civil Rights Act so important?

It was the first time Congress had vetoed a president’s veto of a Qhbill.

What was the 14 amendment?

The 14-amendment guaranteed citizenship to anyone born in the US and gave federal government responsibility for protecting and enforcing civil rights. Ratified in 1868.

How did Andew Johnson react to the 14th amendment?

He hated it and wanted the Southern states to refuse to ratify it.

The Military Reconstruction Act

The act abolished the government’s “in the rebel states and established military control over 10 of the Confederate states (Not Tennesse as it had ratified the 14th amendment) The states were then divided into 5 “military districts.”

Congressional or Radical Reconstruction

The most sweeping peacetime reforms in American history up until that point. They sought to ensure that freedmen could participate in the creation of new state governments in the former Confederacy.

The impeachment of Andrew Johnson

Because the public hated him so much and viewed him as an obstacle to Reconstruction, they sought to impeach him. The perfect opportunity came when he suspended Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, who had refused to resign despite harsh criticism of the President’s Reconstruction plan. He was brought to trial but they did not have the 2/3rds necessary to convict him. They had 35-19, or one vote short, which people say Johnson bought.

Who replaced Edwin Stanton?

Ulyssess S. Grant

What did Grant urge Johnson to do?

He wanted Johnson to allow him to exert more federal force over the South. Johnson said it was a local issue, but Grant refused to take that answer and continued to urge the president to allow him to go with his plan.

15th Ammendment

Protected the voting rights of African American men

Why were people upset about the 15 ammendment?

It only allowed the vote for African American men. Women were still denied the right to vote.

How many Chinese Americans lived in America by 1870?

60,000. They were drawn to places like California, Oregon and Nevada because of the Gold Rush

What was People V Hall?

A case that decided that Chinese people were inferior.

Why did California and Oregon refuse to ratify the 15th amendment?

Because it would allow Chinese Americans to vote.

When were Chinese Americans granted citizenship and the right to vote?

1952

When were Indigenous people granted citizenship and allowed to vote?

1924

Why did African Americans prefer to build communities with each other and not interact with white society?

White Southerns used terror, violence and intimidation to suppress Black efforts to gain social and economic equality, so they felt unsafe around them.

What were the two most important cornerstones of Black society post-Civil War?

Church and School

What denominations were African Americans primarily?

Baptist of Methodist. Those were the biggest demonimations and they reached out to the working poor. In 1866 alone the African Methodisist Episcopal Church gained 50,000 members and by 1890, more than 1.3 million African Americans were Baptist.