Evaluating the Reconstruction Era

Lincoln’s Plan * @@Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction@@ (1863) * 10% allegiance oath * Acceptance of the 13th amendment * Freedmen’s Bureau * Created by Congress to provide food, shelter, medical aid, and education for freed slaves and homeless whites * Lincoln also supported extending the vote to black soldiers and other freedmen who were “very intelligent”
Johnson’s Plan * Continuance of Lincoln’s 10% plan * Wealthy confederates and former confederate leaders lose the right to vote and hold public office * Acceptance of the @@13th amendment@@
Text of the 13th Amendment * Section 1 * Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction * Section 2 * Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation
Black Codes * Southern states began adopting laws that restricted the rights and movements of former slaves * Prohibited blacks from renting land or borrowing money to buy land * Forced freedmen to work in various ways * Prohibited blacks from testifying against whites in court and from serving on juries
Radical Republicans * A faction withing the Republican Party who called themselves @@“Radicals”@@ and were opposed by the Moderate Republicans (led by Abraham Lincoln), the Conservative Republicans, and the pro-slavery Democrat Party * Radicals strongly opposed slavery during the war and after the war distrusted ex-Confederates, demanding harsh policies for the former rebels, and emphasizing civil rights and voting rights for freedmen (recently freed slaves)
Congressional Reconstruction * @@Civil Rights Act of 1866@@ * Written in reaction to Black Codes of Southern states * ^^14th Amendment^^ * Created statute of “birthright citizenship” and “equal protection of the laws” * ^^Reconstruction Acts of 1867^^ * Placed the South under military occupation * ^^15th Amendment^^ * Protected the right to vote for all men * @@Civil Rights Act of 1875@@ * Prohibited discrimination in public places and allowed blacks to serve on juries
End of Reconstruction * By the 1870s, Radical Republicans lost its popularity and Southern conservatism (redeemers) was on the rise * White supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan * White terrorist groups use violence to intimidate black voters and white reformers, carpetbaggers, and scalawags * Amnesty Act of 1872 * Gives the vote back to ex-confederates
Election of 1876 and Compromise of 1877 * Democrat Samuel Tilden versus Republican Rutherford B. Hayes * Tilden won popular vote and was one electoral vote shy of a winning majority * Compromise of 1877 * Hayes becomes President in return for the removal of all federal troops from southern states
Black Disenfranchisement * Poll tax * Pay to vote * Literacy test * Rigged, fake tests * Grandfather clause * If your grandfather could vote, you were excused from tax and test * Ku Klux Klan * Threats and terror
@@Plessy v. Ferguson - 1896@@ * Protected the constitutionality of state segregation laws * “Separate but Equal” * Segregation remained legal until the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision * Only one dissenting justice, John Marshall Harlan, wrote: * “In the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens”