Reconstruction and the New South

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Thirteenth Amendment

• 1st of several amendments passed following the Civil War to deal with the post-war socio-political atmosphere

• This amendment abolished slavery within the U.S. & all territories under U.S. Control

• Under Johnson’s plan, Southern states were theoretically required to ratify the amendment before re-admittance

  (Ratified in September, war ended in April)

Freedmen’s Bureau

• Established 6 weeks before Lincoln’s assassination as “the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, & Abandoned Lands.“

• Helped war refugees get farms working, providing meals, build hospitals & schools, treat illnesses, find work, etc…

• The approximately 10,000 families settled on half a million acres of “Sherman“ land would later be displaced

Reconstruction Plans

Restoration:

• Moderate Republican plan to rebuild the South by nurturing pro-Union gov’ts & restoring Southern Congressional representation

• Barely happened and stopped being followed after Lincoln’s assassination

Reconstruction:

• Radical Republican plan to rebuild in steps that would ensure political & economic equality for freedmen while restricting ex-Confederates from acquiring power

• Adopted after Johnston took office for a brief period of about 9 years

Redemption

• ex-Confederate/Democratic plan in which Southerners would rebuild their own economies, societies, & political institutions while reclaiming power over their own affairs

• Overall mainly followed for about 80-90 years

Radical Republicans

• Legislators most critical of Lincoln & Johnston’s plans, believing the North should be avenged & South reformed

• Argued the South had renounced statehood & therefore had no Constitutional rights; they were conquered territories

• Three Key issues

  1. Ex-Confederate leaders should be kept from power

  2. The Republican party should become dominant in the South

  3. The gov’t should ensure civil equality & suffrage for blacks

Senator Charles Sumner

• Mass. Senator and Radical Republican who started fighting for African-American rights as early as 1862

• Never fully recovered from the brooks attack, Sumner was bitter over the Southern secessionist campaign

Rep. Thaddeus Stevens

• Penn. Congressman & Radical Republican who had taken up the abolitionist cause early in life

• Bitter over the Confederate destruction of his ironworks industry &

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Peonage

• Forced servitude due to debt

• Financial Exploitation

Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty & Reconstruction

• Restoration plan announced in Dec. 1863; including:

  1. General amnesty to Confederate citizens except high-ranking civil & military officials

  2. A required citizen oath of future loyalty to the Union & acceptance of wartime legislation & proclamations

  3. 10% of 1860 voters must take the oath before southern state governments will be recognized

• Lincoln hoped southern Whigs would implement this plan; which did occur in Louisiana, Arkansas, & Tennessee

• Radicals & some moderates in the Republican party opposed Lincoln’s plan because they believed it was too lenient

Wade-Davis Bill

• 1864 legislative reconstruction plan passed by radical & moderate Republicans as an alternate to Lincoln’s plan

• Required:

  1. Each southern state to compile a list of adult white males

  2. A majority of adult white men would need to swear allegiance to the Union

  3. A state constitutional convention could be called when thus was achieved

  4. Those voting for convention delegates, or wishing to serve, would need to make an added “ironclad oath“ of past purity

• The bill also called for legal prohibition of slavery & permanent disenfranchisement of all ex-Confederate leaders

• Would leave white southerners opposed to the Confederacy and freedmen to construct new constitutions

John Wilker Booth

• Actor & Confederate patriot who became President Lincoln’s assassin on April 14, 1865

• Wanted revenge for the Confederacy’s defeat & end of slavery

• Many were involved in the plot, originally to kidnap the president to force Union recognition of the Confederacy

• Following Lee’s surrender, however, Booth changed his plan to kill Lincoln, VP Johnson, & Sec. State Seward

• At Ford’s Theater in Washington, Booth walked into the President’s box, shot him, stabbed another, and leapt to the stage to escape

• Co-conspirators wounded Seward but the attack on Johnson never took place

• Eight of Booth’s gang were convicted; four were hanged

“possessory titles“

* Land confiscated form southern landowners & redistributed to nearly 50,000 freed slaves under Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15 (40 acres)

Andrew Johnson

• Lincoln’s VP & 17th president following Lincoln’s assassination

• Former slaveholding Tennessee Democrat who stood against secession & blamed Southern planters for the war

• Military governor of Tennessee selected as VP in 1864 to promote unity

• When Lincoln died Johnson vowed to follow his reconstruction plans

Johnson’s Reconstruction Proclamation (1865)

• Similar to Lincoln’s plan, though executed very differently

  1. Demanded that Southern states revoke ordinances of secession & ratify the 13th Amendment

  2. Offered amnesty & return of property to southerners who took an oath of loyalty to the U.S.

  3. Confederate officials & those holding more than $20,000 in taxable property were excluded from amnesty but could petition Johnson for an individual pardon

• Proving lenient with his pardoning power, Johnon allowed many ex-Confederate leaders to regain political control

Black Codes

• Legislation passed in southern states starting in 1865, designed to keep blacks oppressed

• Typically based on old slave codes that limited the movement and rights of African-Americans

• Specifics:

  • Unemployed arrested for vagrancy & placed in labor contracts

  • Limited blacks to agricultural jobs unless issued a skill license

  • Curfews limited movement

  • Restricted certain places they could live

  • Prohibited African-American meetings

  • Denied suffrage, interracial marriage, right to be a witness

• Northern outrage over Black Codes led them to refuse to seat Congressmen elected from the South

Civil Rights Act (1866)

• Legislation defining citizen rights for freedmen, including property rights, contract rights, & access to the court system

• Authorized the gov’t to intervene in state affairs to protect the rights of all U.S. citizens

• Passed by a large majority but vetoed by Jonson on the grounds that southern states lacked representation

• Johnson also claimed it discriminated against immigrants who had to wait 5 years before becoming citizens

• Johnson’s veto made moderate Republicans turn radical

• Republicans would override Johnson’s veto as well as his second veto of the Freedman’s Bureau bill

Fourteenth Amendment

The ____________________ gave full rights of citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States, except for American Indians.

Reconstruction Act of 1867

US Congress passed a law dividing the South into 5 military districts. The law required Southern states to create new constitutions ensuring Black suffrage and ratify the 14th Amendment. This aimed to rebuild the South after the Civil War and ensure equal rights for African Americans.

Reconstruction Act of 1867

The ____________ divided the South into five military districts and mandated that each state form a new constitution with voting rights for African Americans.

Fifteenth Amendment

The _________, ratified in 1870, forbids denying a citizen's right to vote based on race, color, or past servitude.

Tenure of Office Act

The _______ was a law passed by Congress in 1867 that required Senate approval for the President to remove certain officeholders, including Cabinet members, without the Senate's consent.

Johnson's impeachment

• Congressional process carried out in the House, in which a federal official is charged with “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors“

• After Johnson dismissed Stanton the House brought 11 charges of criminal misconduct against him in a 128 to 47 vote

• The Tenure act was one of many to reduce presidential powers (i.e.-Command of Army Act took Johnson’s Commander in Chief powers)

• While Johnson was impeached, the Senate fell one vote short of the 2/3rds majority needed to convict & remove him

• Several moderate Republicans felt that removing Johnson would undermine future presidencies

Impeachment

Referring to the to the ________ of President Andrew Johnson by the House of Representatives in 1868. It was the first impeachment of a U.S. president and was based on his violation of the Tenure of Office Act. However, Johnson was ultimately acquitted by the Senate.

Scalawags

During the Reconstruction era, __________ were Southern whites who supported the Republican Party and its policies, including granting civil rights to African Americans.

carpetbaggers

A ___________ is a term used to describe Northern businessmen and politicians who migrated to the South after the Civil War to take advantage of economic opportunities and gain political power.

freedmen

___________ were formerly enslaved individuals who gained their freedom after the Civil War.

sharecropping

Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a tenant farmer agrees to cultivate a _______ of land in exchange for a share of the crop yield.

Election of 1868

The ___________ was the 1868 presidential election in the United States, held during the period of Reconstruction following the Civil War. Grant won & republicans retained 2/3rd majority.

Ulysses S. Grant

____________ was the 18th President of the United States, serving from 1869 to 1877. Prior to his presidency, he was a prominent Union general during the American Civil War, leading the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy.

Credit Mobilier Scandal

The ____________ Scandal was a political scandal during Ulysses S. Grant's presidency. It involved the Union Pacific Railroad and its construction company ____________. The scandal involved overcharging the government for railroad construction and bribing officials to cover it up.

Whiskey Ring

The __________ was a scandal that occurred during the Ulysses S. Grant administration in which government officials and distillers conspired to evade taxes on whiskey.

"sound money"

"______ money" refers to a monetary system where the value of the currency is stable and not subject to rapid inflation or deflation. It is typically backed by a tangible asset such as gold or silver.

Specie Resumption Act

The ___________ was a law passed by the U.S. Congress in 1875 that required the federal government to redeem paper currency in ___________ (gold or silver) upon demand.

William H. Seward

_____________ was a prominent American politician in the mid-19th century who served as Secretary of State under President Lincoln and Johnson.

"Seward's Folly"

_________ refers to the purchase of Alaska from Russia by Secretary of State William Seward in 1867, which was initially criticized as a waste of money but later proved to be a valuable acquisition for the United States.

Ku Klux Klan

The _____________ is a white supremacist hate group that originated in the southern United States after the Civil War. They use violence and intimidation to promote their racist ideology and have a long history of targeting African Americans, Jews, Catholics, and other minority groups.

Enforcement Acts

The ______________ were acts that Prohibited radical anti-black groups and protected the voting rights of African Americans

Election of 1872

The election in which Grant was up for reelection against Democrat- and Liberal Republican-nominated Horace Greeley. Greeley had gained some support from Grant's party after he was shunned by some. Greeley, however, was a poor campaigner, and as a result, Grant won the election overwhelmingly.

Election of 1876

One of the most disputed presidential elections in US history. Tilden Democrat outpolled Ohio's Rutherford B. Hayes Republican in the popular vote, and had 184 electoral votes to Hayes' 165, with 20 votes uncounted due to problems in three states (Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina). The 20 disputed electoral votes were ultimately awarded to Hayes after a bitter legal and political battle, giving him the victory on the condition that Hayes would remove remaining federal troops from the South, marking the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of Jim Crow segregation.

Rutherford B. Hayes

19th president of the united states, was famous for being part of the Hayes-Tilden election in which electoral votes were contested in 4 states, most corrupt election in US history

Samuel J. Tilden

In the presidential election of 1876, this New York reform governor was the Democrat nominee. He had gained fame for putting Boss Tweed behind bars. He collected 184 of the necessary 185 electoral votes, but was defeated by Rutherford B. Hayes, when all of the electoral votes from the contested states of South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana went to Hayes.

Electoral Commission

In 1877, Congress created a special __________ to decide the disputed outcome of the electoral vote in the 1876 presidential election. Consisting of 5 congressmen, senators, & supreme court justice. The eight Republicans and seven Democrats on the ____________ awarded all twenty disputed votes to Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes and he won the electoral vote and the presidency, 185 to 184.

Compromise of 1877

Ended Reconstruction. Republicans promise 1) Remove military from South, 2) Appoint Democrat to cabinet (David Key postmaster general), 3) Federal money for railroad construction and levees on Mississippi river

William A. Wheeler

____________ was the VP under Hayes. Born in NY and went to Franklin Academy H.S. As VP he did little but preside over the Senate and returned to Malone when his term was complete.

“Redeemers“

Largely former slave owners who were the bitterest opponents of the Republican program in the South. Staged a major counterrevolution to _________ the south by taking back southern state governments. Their foundation rested on the idea of racism and white supremacy. _____________ governments waged and aggressive assault on African Americans.

Tenant Farmer

A poor farmer who did not own land and had to live on and work the land of others, for wages is called?

Booker T. Washington

Prominent black American, born into slavery, who believed that racism would end once blacks acquired useful labor skills and proved their economic value to society, was head of the Tuskegee Institute in 1881.

Tuskegee Institute

A vocational (job/career) school created by Booker T. Washington which allowed blacks to learn how to work in a specific career so they could prove to society that they were hardworking men

Atlanta Compromise

Argument put forward by Booker T. Washington that African-Americans should not focus on civil rights or social equality but concentrate on economic self-improvement.

Plessy v. Ferguson

A 1896 Supreme Court decision which legalized state ordered segregation so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal. Creation of “separate but equal“

Jim Crow Laws

_____________ were laws passed throughout the southern states, primarily after the ‘Plessy‘ case. They were modeled after the Slave/Black Codes they required segregated rail cars, park, restaurants, etc.