APUSH Chapter 15: Reconstruction (1863-1877)

Presidential Reconstruction

Andrew Johnson attempted to carry out Lincoln's plan for the political Reconstruction of the 11 former states of the Confederacy

Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (1863)

Lincoln set up a process for political Reconstruction, as in reconstructing the state governments in the South so that Unionists were in charge rather than secessionists; full presidential pardons for most southerners who either took an oath of allegiance to the Union and the Constitution, a state government could be reestablished and accepted as legitimate by the US president as soon as at least 10 percent of the voters in the state took the loyalty oath, each southern state needed to rewrite Constitution to eliminate existence of slavery

Wade-Davis Bill (1864)

required 50 percent of the voters in a state to take a loyalty oath and permitted only non-Confederates to vote for a new state constitution; Lincoln pocket vetoed the bill

Andrew Johnson

only senator from a southern state who remained loyal to the Union; southern Democrat picked to be Lincoln's VP; white supremacist

Freedmen's Bureau

1865, Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (Freedmen's Bureau); acted as an early welfare agency of sorts, providing food, shelter, and medical aid for those made destitute by the war, both blacks and homeless whites; led by General Oliver O. Howard

Black Codes

southern legislatures adopted these that restricted the rights and movements of newly freed African Americans; prohibited blacks from renting land or borrowing money, placed freedmen into a form of semi bondage by forcing them to sign work contracts, and it prohibited backs from testifying against whites in court

Election of 1866

Johnson took to the road and used his infamous, "swing around the circle" speeches to attack Congressional opponents; appealed to racial prejudices of whites; Republicans accused Johnson of being a drunkard and a traitor and used antisouthern prejudices by employing a campaign tactic known as "waving the bloody shirt"-inflaming the hatreds of northern voters by reminding them of the hardships of war; Johnson won but Republicans owned both House and Senate

Radical Republicans

championed rights of Blacks; became radical out of fear that a reunified Democratic party might again be dominant

Charles Sumner

leading Radical Republican in the Senate

Thaddeus Stephens

PA Congressman who hoped to revolutionize southern society through an extended period of military rule in which blacks would be free to exercise their civil rights, receive education, and receive lands from planter class

Benjamin Wade

radical republican who endorsed woman's suffrage, rights for labor unions, and civil rights for northern blacks

Civil Rights Act of 1866

pronounced all African Americans to be US citizens (repudiated the Dred Scott decision), and also attempted to provide a legal shield against the operation of the southern states' Black Codes

Fourteenth Amendment

1868, declared all persons born or naturalized in the US were citizens, and obligated the states to respect the rights of US citizens and provide them with equal protection of the laws and due process of law; states required to uphold the rights of citizens for first time; disqualified former Confederate political leaders from holding either state or federal offices, repudiated the debts of the defeated governments of the Confederacy, penalized a state if it kept any eligible person from voting by reducing that state's proportional representation in Congress and the electoral college

Reconstruction Acts (1867)

divided the former Confederate states into five military districts, each under the control of the Union army; acts also increased the requirements for gaining readmission to the Union and to do so, an ex-Confederate state had to ratify the 14th Amendment and place guarantees in its constitution for granting the franchise (right to vote) to all adult males regardless of race

Tenure of Office Act (1867)

passed by Congress to prohibit the president from removing a federal official or military commander without the approval of the Senate; political move to protect Radical Republicans in Johnson's cabinet, such as secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who was in charge of southern military governments; Johnson dismissed Stanton and the House responded by impeaching Johnson, charging him with 11 "high crimes and misdemeanors"; first president to be impeached; was not convicted in the Senate in order to not set a precedent

Election of 1868

the Republicans nominated Ulysses S. Grant; beat Horatio Seymour (Democratic nominee)

15th Amendment

1869, adding a 3rd Reconstruction Amendment to the 13th and 14th, prohibited any state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote on account of race, or previous condition of servitude

Civil Rights Act of 1875

law guaranteed equal accommodation in public places and prohibited courts from excluding African-Americans from juries (poorly enforced)

Scalawags

Democratic nickname for southern Republicans; former Whigs who were interested in economic development for their state and peace between the sections

Carpetbaggers

Democratic nickname for northern newcomers to the south; investors, missionaries and teachers

Blanche K. Bruce

a black Senator from the south

Hiram Revels

1870, elected to take Mississippi Senate seat from Jefferson Davis

Sharecropping

Black insistence on autonomy, combined with changes in the postwar economy, led white landowners to adopt a system based on tenancy and sharecropping; landlord provided the seed and other needed farm supplies in return for a share of the harvest; became form of servitude

Spoilsmen

1870s, leadership of the Republican party passed from the reformers (Stevens, Sumner, Wade) to political manipulators such as Senator Roscoe Conklin of NY and James Blaine of Maine

Patronage

giving jobs and government favors (spoils) to their supporters

Jay Gould

Wall Street financier who obtained the help of President Grant's brother in law to corner the gold market; Treasury broke the scheme but first, Gould made a huge profit

Credit Mobilier

insiders gave stock to influential members of Congress to avoid investigation of their profits they were making-as high as 348 percent-from government subsidies for building the transcontinental railroad

William (Boss) Tweed

boss of the local Democratic party, masterminded dozens of schemes for helping himself and cronies to large chunks of graft; Tweed Ring took 200 million from NY taxpayers

Thomas Nast

cartoonist who exposed Boss Tweed, and brought about his arrest and imprisonment in 1871

Liberal Republicans

advocated civil service reform, end of railroad subsidies, withdrawal of troops from the South, reduced tarrifs, and free trade

Horace Greeley

Democratic Presidential Nominee in 1872, editor of NY Tribune; Grant "waved the bloody shirt" and won as the Republican Nominee a second term

Panic of 1873

overspeculation by financiers and overbuilding by industry and railroads led to widespread business failures and depression

Greenbacks

debtors on farms and in cities sought an inflationary, easy-money solution by demanding Greenback paper money that was not supported by gold

Redeemers

southern conservatives who took control of one state govt after another; states rights, reduced taxes, reduced spending on social programs, and white supremacy

Ku Klux Klan

founded in 1867 by an ex-Confederate general, Nathaniel Forrest; burned black-owned buildings and flogged and murdered freedmen to keep them from exercising their voting rights

Force Acts (1870, 1871)

gave power to federal authorities to stop KKK violence and to protect civil rights of citizens in the South

Amnesty Act of 1872

Congress passed act that removed the last of the restrictions on ex-Confederates, except the top leaders

Election of 1876

federal troops out of all but 3 southern states-SC, FL, LA; Republicans nominated Rutherford B. Hayes, governor of Ohio untouched by corruption scandals of Grant's administration; Democrats chose Samuel J. Tilden, fighter of graft corruption in NY by the Tweed Ring

Compromise of 1877

Dems won a clear majority and Tilden was going to be President but in 3 southern states, the returns were contested and to win, Tilden needed only one electoral vote from SC, FL, and LA; electoral commission created to determine who would get the 3 states votes; 8-7 Hayes won; immediately ended federal support for Southern Republicans, supported the building of a southern transcontinental railroad, withdrew last of federal troops protecting Blacks and Republicans