Chapter 15: Reconstruction

Unit IV

John Wilkes Booth

Southern sympathizer responsible for the assassination for Abraham Lincoln

Wade-Davis Bill

Revision of Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan, where amnesty would only be granted to the Southerners if the dominant, white men of the states took an oath of loyalty, Confederate leaders were disenfranchised, and new governments could only be created or upheld by men that had not taken up arms against the Union; Pocket veto by Lincoln, but he aimed to compromise with Congress with this plan → unable to as a result of his assassination by Wilkes Booth

Andrew Johnson

Lincoln’s Successor; Tailor from Tennessee that stayed loyal to the Union and did not give up his position in the US Senate following the Confederates’ succession; appointed by Lincoln as Tennessee’s military governor; working with Lincoln to show unity, but once elected into office, wreaked political havoc by clashing with the Republican party

Black Codes

Used by the South to reinforce slavery by trapping freed Black people in plantation labor; penalized the workers who didn’t fulfill their year-long labor contracts, and developed ways to separate kids from their families

Freedmen’s Bureau

Government program created by the Republican majority in Congress to provide aid for misplaced Blacks and other war refugees in March of 1865; extended with official funding in 1866

Trumbull’s Bill

Civil Rights Act of 1866: formerly enslaved people were recognized as citizens and possessed all rights and freedoms under contract (excluding Native Americans); meant to overturn the Black codes; created by Lyman Trumbull from Illinois

Fourteenth Amendment

Passed by Congress to protect civil rights → granted birthright citizenship and equal protection under law

Radical Republicans

After Congress’s clashes with Johnson, power shifted to the Radical Republicans by a 3-to-1 majority; Congress led by Charles Sumner from Massachusetts, and House led by Thaddeus Stevens from Pennsylvania

The Reconstruction Act of 1867

Took place in March that divided the Confederate south in 5 different districts each led by a military general; each state could readmit into the union if suffrage was granted to freedmen and taken away from leading Confederates; each military commander in charge of of registering ALL men for voting, supervise state conventions, and ensure new constitutions for guaranteed black suffrage; Confederates could only join the Union again if they ratified this act and the 14th Amendment; vetoed by Johnson, but his veto was outvetoed by Congress

The Tenure of Office Act

An act passed to limit Andrew Johnson’s power, and preventing his interference; mainly stated that the president could not remove federal officeholders without Senate approval; mainly to cabinet members and others whose appointment required Senate confirmation; Protect people that the Senate wanted to keep in office, like Edwin M. Stanton

Edwin M. Stanton

Suspended, then dismissed by president Johnson as Secretary of War; Threw a tantrum in his office which paved the way for Johnson’s potential impeachment

Fifteenth Amendment

Granted all male citizens suffrage regardless of race, color, and ethnicity; Final amendment during the Reconstruction era; Did not prevent states from disenfranchising citizens based on literacy and economic standing

Carpetbaggers

Northerners who relocated to the South during the Reconstruction era often to take up on economic and political opportunities

Southern Homestead Act of 1866

Aimed to give land to freedpeople during Reconstruction → failed due to poor land, lack of resources, and opposition, which led most African Americans into sharecropping instead

Sharecropping

An agricultural system (primarily in the South following the Civil War) where a landowner allowed a tenant to use a portion of their land in exchange for a share of crops produced → these plants ended up becoming a form of currency for the United States during the Reconstruction Era

Peonage

System where a person is forced to work to pay off a debt, where the debt was often rigged that the person could never be fully able to pay it; trapped into a form of slavery; Typical features included: owing money (sometimes for made up fees for housing, food, and tools); employer/creditor controlled the job, movement and pay; debt kept growing, trapping the worker indefinitely; This process showed up following the Civil War where employers used debt and law enforcement to keep mostly Black workers and some poor whites/immigrants tied to plantations, mines, or railroads

Nathan Bedford Forrest

Ex-Confederate general who rose from poverty to a slave trader and Mississippi planter; War hero during the Civil War who created the Tennessee Confederate Cavalry Regiment and fought at the Battle of Shiloh; Led troops at the April 12th, 1864 massacre of Black Union Troops of Black Union soldiers; Inspired KKK, joined formally in 1866 → white supremacist views altered Reconstruction

U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876)

Case for justices argued that the 14th amendment only offered citizens a few, trivial protections; Emerged from a gruesome killing of African America farmers by ex-Confederates in Colfax, Louisiana, and a Democratic political coup; ruling: voting rights remained a state matter unless state itself violated those rights → if former slaves had their rights violated by individuals or private groups like the KKK, that was beyond federal jurisdiction

The Prostrate State

A book written by James Shepherd Pike in 1873 with a one-sided racist perspective against black people and Republican-aided Reconstruction; talked about the widespread corruption and misrule during the period, especially South Carolina which was “suffering under ‘black barbarianism’”

The Whiskey Ring

A network of liquor distillers and treasury agents who defrauded the government of millions of dollars of excise taxes on whiskey; led by Grant’s private secretary Orville Babcock who was defended by Grant while others went to jail

Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company

Private bank founded in 1865 in the South to help Black People which was associated with Lincoln; failed during the economic depression followed Sumner’s death when leading bank directors sunk the deposits and money of the many Black people had in their accounts

Home Rule

Local self-government and the idea that a state or local area should run its own political affairs (make and enforce its own laws) with minimal interference from the national/federal government; In Reconstruction context specifically, this usually meant Southern state governments governing themselves again without federal troops or federal oversight