The Era of Reconstruction and Gilded Age Politics Study Guide
Post-Civil War Challenges and the Problems of Peace
Total Pardon of Rebel Leaders: Following the conclusion of the Civil War, President Andrew Johnson officially pardoned all Confederate leaders.
Economic Collapse in the South: The Southern economy was entirely broken.
Infrastructure: Transportation networks were extremely limited or destroyed.
Agriculture: The agricultural system, the backbone of the Southern economy, was paralyzed. Because slavery was abolished, the labor force required for hard agricultural work essentially vanished overnight.
Financial Ruin of Aristocrats: The wealthy planter class lost their status and fortunes, as their primary investments were tied up in slaves, who were now free.
Southern Sentiment: Many Southerners maintained a deep hatred for the federal government and did not consider themselves part of the United States.
The Transition to Freedom for Freedmen
Delayed Emancipation: The implementation of freedom was inconsistent across the South. Many Black people were liberated only to be re-enslaved shortly after by locals.
Union Army Intervention: The Union army had to physically move through various Southern regions to ensure that emancipation was actually being enforced.
Diverse Reactions to Freedom:
Resistance to Leaving: Some former slaves resisted emancipation out of a sense of loyalty to their masters.
Violent Departures: Other slaves left their former masters with acts of violence.
Self-Determination: Many freed people asserted their new status by taking new surnames and demanding that white people address them with formal titles such as Mr. and Ms.
Outward Displays: Some bought nicer clothing as a physical symbol of their liberty.
Family and Community:
Large numbers of Black people took to the roads to search for relatives separated by the slave trade.
Black communities often traveled together in groups to find work.
The Rise of Black Churches: Post-emancipation, religious organizations became the center of Black community and protest.
By , the Baptist Church had reached members.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church grew from to members within the first decade after the war.
Need for Assistance: Because they were freed with no property or money, freedmen petitioned the government for aid to establish themselves.
The Freedmen's Bureau
Purpose: Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau to serve as a welfare agency. It was designed to provide food, clothing, medical care, and education to both freedmen and white refugees.
Leadership: The Bureau was headed by Oliver O. Howard, who later founded Howard University.
Accomplishments: Its most significant success was teaching Black people to read.
Failures and Expiration:
In certain areas, local Bureau administrators conspired with planters to expel Black people from towns and coerce them into signing labor contracts with former masters.
President Andrew Johnson repeatedly tried to dismantle the agency, and it eventually expired in .
Andrew Johnson: The "Tailor President"
Early Life: Born into poverty in North Carolina and orphaned early. He never attended school and was self-taught in reading; his wife later taught him mathematics.
Career: Apprenticed as a tailor at age . He entered politics at age in Tennessee.
Political Platform: He championed the cause of poor white Southerners. He was elected to Congress with Northern support because he was the only Southern senator who refused to secede with his state.
Role in War: After Tennessee was partially reclaimed by the Union, he was appointed war governor.
Ideology: He was a staunch advocate for states' rights and the Constitution. However, as a Southerner who supported the Union, he was mistrusted by the South and misunderstood by the North.
Presidential Reconstruction Plans
Lincoln’s 10 Percent Plan: Abraham Lincoln believed the Southern states had never legally left the Union. He proposed that a state could be reintegrated once of its presidential voting population took an oath of allegiance to the U.S. and pledged to abide by emancipation.
Wade-Davis Bill: Radical Republicans, fearing the return of the planter aristocracy, proposed this bill in opposition to Lincoln.
It required of a state's voters to take the oath of allegiance.
It demanded stronger safeguards for emancipation.
Lincoln used a pocket veto to kill the bill.
Political Factions:
Moderate Republicans: Aligned with Lincoln, believing states should be restored swiftly but on Congress’s terms.
Radical Republicans: A minority group that believed the South should be punished and the social structure uprooted before readmission.
Johnson’s Stance: Johnson surprised many by agreeing with Lincoln’s view that the states had never legally seceded.
Johnson’s Reconstruction Proclamation and Black Codes
Reconstruction Proclamation: Issued by Johnson, it disenfranchised leading Confederates, specifically those with taxable property worth more than , though they could petition him for a personal pardon.
Readmission Requirements: States had to hold special conventions to repeal secession ordinances, repudiate Confederate debts, and ratify the 13th Amendment.
The Black Codes: These were laws designed to regulate the affairs of emancipated Black people and maintain a subservient labor force.
Labor Contracts: Forced freedmen to sign contracts to work for an employer for a year. Wages were poor, and "Negro Catchers" could drag those who broke contracts back to work.
Penalties: Freedmen in Mississippi could be fined for "idleness" and then hired out to pay off those fines.
Rights Restrictions: Black people were denied the right to serve on juries or vote. In some areas, they were prohibited from renting or buying land.
Sharecropping: Many were forced into sharecropping, where they farmed land and gave a percentage of the crop to the owner. Some critics felt this gave Black people "too many rights" by making them partial owners of the harvest.
Congressional Reconstruction and the 14th Amendment
Political Conflict: When former Confederate leaders arrived to claim seats in Congress, Republicans were outraged.
Legislative Power: While the South was absent, Republicans passed the Morrill Tariff, the Pacific Railroad Act, and the Homestead Act.
Representation: With the end of the rule, Black people now counted as for representation, giving the South more power in Congress. Republicans feared a Democratic-controlled government would repeal Republican laws and re-enslave Black people.
The Civil Rights Bill: Republicans passed this to grant Black people citizenship and strike down Black Codes. Johnson vetoed it, but Congress overrode the veto.
The 14th Amendment (Ratified 1868):
Guaranteed civil rights and citizenship for freedmen.
Abolished the rule.
States were required to ratify this amendment to be readmitted to the Union.
Johnson actively advised Southern states to reject the amendment.
Radical Reconstruction and the Military
1866 Midterm Elections: Johnson’s "Swing ‘Round the Circle" campaign was a disaster, resulting in Republicans winning more than a majority in both houses of Congress.
Republican Leadership:
Charles Sumner: Led the Radicals in the Senate, fighting for racial equality.
Thaddeus Stevens: The most powerful Radical in the House; a defender of Black rights who chose to be buried in a Black cemetery.
Reconstruction Act (1867): Divided the South into five military districts, each commanded by a Union general and policed by Northern soldiers.
New Requirements for States: To be readmitted, states had to guarantee voting rights for adult male former slaves and ratify the 14th Amendment.
The 15th Amendment: Ratified to ensure that Black voting rights were protected in the Constitution and could not be easily removed by Southern states later.
Ex Parte Milligan: A Supreme Court ruling that military tribunals could not try civilians in areas where civil courts were open.
Impacts on Women’s Rights and Southern Politics
Disappointment for Women Suffragists: Leaders like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who had worked for Black emancipation through the Women’s Loyal League (gathering signatures), were angry that the 14th and 15th Amendments excluded women by specifically using the word "male."
Frederick Douglass: He acknowledged the concern but referred to the period as "the Negro’s hour."
Black Political Organization: Once granted the vote, Black men organized via the Union League, a pro-Union Northern organization.
Union League Goals: Educating members on civic duties, campaigning for candidates, building schools/churches, and recruiting militias.
Women’s Roles: Black women participated by attending rallies, assembling mass meetings, and holding informal votes.
Political Representation: African Americans were elected as delegates to state conventions. Two Black men from Mississippi, Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, served in the U.S. Senate.
Derogatory Terms:
Scalawags: Southern whites who supported the Union and were accused by ex-Confederates of plundering state treasuries.
Carpetbaggers: Northerners who moved South post-war to seek personal power or profit.
Radical Legacies: These regimes established public school systems, revamped tax systems, and granted property rights to women.
The Ku Klux Klan and the End of Reconstruction
The KKK: A secret organization founded in Tennessee to resist the "Invisible Empire of the South." Members used white sheets to hide their identities.
Tactics: Used psychological terror (e.g., claiming to be ghosts from the Battle of Shiloh) and physical violence to prevent Black people from voting.
Force Acts of 1870 and 1871: Federal laws passed to allow troops to stamp out the KKK’s "lash law," though much of the intimidation had already taken effect.
Disenfranchisement: White Southerners utilized literacy tests and poll taxes to circumvent the 15th Amendment.
The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
Tenure of Office Act (1867): Passed by Radicals, it required Senate approval for the president to fire any official who had been previously approved by the Senate.
The Target: Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who was secretly acting as a spy for the Radicals.
The Impeachment: When Johnson dismissed Stanton in , the House voted to impeach him for "high crimes and misdemeanors."
The Verdict: Johnson was found not guilty in the Senate by a margin of only one vote.
Reasoning: Fears of setting a dangerous precedent, concerns about the balance of powers, and the fact that his successor would have been the disliked Radical Benjamin Wade.
Seward’s Folly: The Purchase of Alaska
The Transaction: In , Secretary of State William Seward signed a treaty with Russia to purchase Alaska for .
Context: Russia wanted to sell because the territory was an economic liability and they preferred the U.S. have it as a buffer against Britain.
Reaction: Many mocked it as "Seward's Folly," but it was accepted due to friendly relations with Russia and the potential for fur, fish, and gold (and later, oil/gas).
The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant and Gilded Age Corruption
1868 Election: Grant ran on the slogan "Let us have peace." Republicans won by "waving the bloody shirt" (recalling Civil War horrors).
Monetary Debates: Democrats proposed the "Ohio Idea" to pay back bonds in greenbacks (paper money) to keep inflation low; Republicans insisted on gold.
Corruption Scandals:
Fisk and Gould: Jim Fisk and Jay Gould attempted to corner the gold market on "Black Friday," which failed when the Treasury released gold.
The Tweed Ring: "Boss" Tweed used bribery to steal from New York City. He was exposed by Thomas Nast's cartoons and prosecuted by Samuel J. Tilden.
Credit Mobilier Scandal: Union Pacific Railroad insiders formed a construction company and hired themselves at inflated prices ( dividends). They bribed Congressmen with stock.
Whiskey Ring: Robbed the Treasury of millions in excise tax revenue; Grant’s private secretary was involved.
Secretary of War William Belknap: Resigned after taking bribes from suppliers to Native American reservations.
Economic Panic and Monetary Policy
Panic of 1873: Caused by over-expansion in railroads, mines, and factories beyond market capacity. Bankers made too many unpaid loans.
Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company: Collapsed, losing over of Black depositors’ money.
Resumption Act of 1875: Pledged the government to withdraw paper money from circulation and redeem it in gold by .
The Silver Conflict: Debtors and Westerners demanded the coining of silver to promote inflation, calling the stoppage of silver coinage the "Crime of '73."
Contraction Policy: The Treasury accumulated gold to prepare for paper money redemption, which worsened the depression but improved the government's credit rating.
The Compromise of 1877 and Jim Crow
Hayes-Tilden Standoff (1876): Tilden was one vote shy of the electoral majority; three Southern states (FL, LA, SC) sent contested returns.
The Compromise: Rutherford B. Hayes would become President if federal troops were withdrawn from Louisiana and South Carolina.
Impact: This ended military Reconstruction and sacrificed Black civil rights for political peace.
Jim Crow Laws: Following the withdrawal of troops, the South implemented systematic legal segregation.
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): The Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional under the 14th Amendment.
Sharecropping and Crop-Lien Systems: Kept Black and poor white farmers in perpetual debt to merchants and landlords.
The Birth of the Populist Party and the Panic of 1893
The Populist Party (Omaha Platform): Formed by the Farmers’ Alliance, they demanded:
Free and unlimited coinage of silver at a ratio of .
Graduated income tax.
Government ownership of railroads, telegraphs, and telephones.
Direct election of U.S. Senators and one-term limit for the President.
Homestead Strike (1892): At Andrew Carnegie’s steel plant, strikers used rifles and dynamite against Pinkerton detectives; the military was called in to end the strike.
Panic of 1893: The worst economic downturn of the century. The gold reserve fell below the minimum of .
J.P. Morgan Loan: President Grover Cleveland turned to J.P. Morgan, who lent the U.S. in gold to save the gold standard, though it created a public backlash against Cleveland’s ties to Wall Street.
Wilson-Gorman Tariff: Actually did little to lower tariffs and included an income tax that the Supreme Court later ruled unconstitutional.