Chapter 15 What is Freedom

Autonomy and Independence

Escaping white surveillance, reuniting families separated by the slave trade, establishing independent Black churches, and building community institutions.

White Southern Response

Former slaveholders viewed freedom narrowly as a legal privilege granted by victory, refusing to accept Black social or political equality. They sought to preserve a labor system as close to slavery as possible.

The Freedmen’s Bureau (1865–1870)

Established by Congress to assist former slaves and impoverished whites. Led by O. O. Howard, the Bureau achieved remarkable success in education and healthcare, establishing thousands of schools. However, its efforts at economic land redistribution failed after President Andrew Johnson ordered confiscated lands returned to original Confederate owners.

Sharecropping

In place of land redistribution, a new labor system emerged across the Cotton Belt. Sharecroppers rented a plot of land from a landowner in exchange for a share of the crop (usually half) at harvest.

Andrew Johnson

• A Southern Unionist and ardent defender of states' rights and white supremacy, Johnson offered general pardons to most white Southerners who took an oath of allegiance.

• Johnson allowed former Confederate leaders to establish new state governments in 1865–1866.

The Black Codes

Southern state governments passed laws designed to restrict the freedom of Black Americans and compel them into low-wage agricultural labor. Black Codes banned Black people from owning firearms, buying land in certain areas, or testifying against whites, and imposed harsh "vagrancy" laws that allowed authorities to arrest unemployed Black individuals and lease them out for labor.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

• Declared all persons born in the United States to be national citizens with equal legal rights, regardless of race (overriding Johnson's presidential veto).

Fourteenth Amendment (1868)

Embedded citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws into the Constitution

Reconstruction Acts of 1867

Congress divided the South into five military districts governed by Union generals, requiring states to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and draft new state constitutions granting Black men the right to vote before rejoining the Union.

Impeachment of Andrew Johnson (1868)

After Johnson violated the Tenure of Office Act by firing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, the House impeached him. He escaped removal from office by a single vote in the Senate, but his political influence was shattered.

Fifteenth Amendment (1870)

Prohibited federal and state governments from denying any citizen the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA)

Led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, opposed the Fifteenth Amendment because it excluded women.

American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA)

Led by Lucy Stone, supported the amendment as a vital step forward for racial justice, trusting women's suffrage would follow.

Black Voters

Formed the numerical majority of Republican voters in several states.

"Scalawags"

Southern-born white Republicans (often non-slaveholding yeoman farmers) who supported economic development and public education.

"Carpetbaggers"

Northern-born transplants who moved South after the war (including veterans, teachers, and investors) whom Southern Democrats accused of opportunism.

Achievements of Reconstruction Governments

Established the South’s first public school systems, rebuilt shattered infrastructure, expanded civil rights protections, and modernized state tax and judicial systems.

Enforcement Acts (1870–1871)

President Ulysses S. Grant dispatched federal troops and marshals to dismantle the Klan, arresting hundreds and temporarily curbing organized political violence.

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

Founded in Tennessee in 1866, the KKK operated as a terrorist wing of the Southern Democratic Party. Through night rides, lynchings, arson, and beatings, the Klan targeted Black politicians, teachers, landowners, and white Republicans to suppress Black voting and restore white supremacy.

Liberal Republican Revolt (1872)

• A faction of Northern Republicans argued that the South should be left to govern itself and that the federal government was interfering too much in local affairs.

Economic Depression (Panic of 1873)

Shifted Northern focus away from Southern civil rights toward economic issues, job loss, and industrial tensions.

The "Redeemers"

Southern Democratic politicians who waged a campaign to "redeem" the South from Republican rule through electoral fraud, racial violence, and intimidation (such as the Mississippi Plan of 1875).

Bargain of 1877 (Election of 1876)

Republican Rutherford B. Hayes contested the election results against Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. To resolve disputed electoral votes in South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, a political compromise was struck