Chapter 16: Era of Reconstruction 1865 - 1877 (Open Stax US History)

Introduction

The Reconstruction Era was unstable, with leaders coming in and out of power, major Constitution revision with the addition of amendments, backlash against equality in the south as the uprising of the Ku Klux Klan, and the reparations of the southern economy. Much resistance against the Union’s attempts to change the south was taken.

16.2 Congress and Remaking of the South, 1865 - 1866

President Johnson’s and Congress’s views on how to go about reconstruction drifted with the continuation of Johnson in office. Congress pushed for the rights of free African Americans and more intervention in the South, and Johnson was more lenient with the south, insisting on “reintegration”

The Freedman’s Bureau

• Freed people wanted to have land, financial security, education, and participation in political affairs. Independence.

  • Southerners wanted black people to remain an oppressed lower class
  • Through this, Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands in 1865

• The Freedman’s Bureau provided Black and poor White people with *housing, labor contracts, and education

  • Many Christian organizations that supported abolition such as the American Missionary Association taught at these schools, providing jobs for women

• White populations in the south violently targeted these schools and argued that The Freedman’s Bureau and its efforts were a waste of federal funds that promoted “Black laziness”

  • Congress renewed the Bureau in 1866, but President Johnson vetoed this, believing that enough had been done in reconstructing the Union

• Radical Republicans continued to support the Bureau, highlighting the contrast between President Johnson and Congress

• Republicans believed that government intervention was necessary for Reconstruction in the South, but Johnson did not

Black Codes

• President Johnson announced the end of the Reconstruction in 1865
  • From this, southern states enacted “Black Codes”, laws that prevented black people from voting, serving on juries, owning or carrying weapons, and renting or leasing land. These laws upheld the social and economic structure of slavery
• Black codes replaced the economic benefits and stability that slavery provided, under the facade of free labor
• African American people were forced to sign contracts with their employers, preventing them from working with more than one employer, meaning that black people could not choose the employer with the best wages, and had to rely on loans, with debt binding them to their contract indefinitely
  • Black people who refused to sign labor contracts were arrested for vagrancy and made to work for no wages
• Congress extended the life of the Freedman’s Bureau in April of 1866 to combat Black codes and passed the first Civil Rights Act, establishing the citizenship of African Americans, a major decision directly contrasting the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dredd V. Scott decision
  • The law also allowed the Federal government to intervene in state affairs to protect the rights of citizens
• President Johnson continued to insist that the restoration of the United States had been accomplished, and vetoed The Civil Rights Act, which was overridden by Congress
  • Despite The Civil Rights Act, Black Codes endured, transforming into Jim Crow segregation policies that impoverished generations of African Americans

The Fourteenth Amendment

• Arguments sprung over whether or not the Civil Rights Act overruled the 1857 Supreme Court Decision
  • Radical Republicans drafted the fourteenth amendment in July 1866
• The Fourteenth Amendment stated “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside”
  • The Fourteenth Amendment eliminated the three-fifths compromise and reduced House representatives and Electoral College members for states that did not allow suffrage to Black and White men
• Johnson gave the “swing around the circle” speeches, claiming that slavery abolition was enough, but allowing for the rights of Black Americans was too much, he believed that Black people were less than White people.
  • Radical Republicans charged that Johnson was drunk during his speeches, which plummeted his reputation

16.3 Radical Reconstruction: 1867 - 1872

• Voter oppression towards President Johnson developed because of his insensitive attitude while in the White House and his actions during his 1866 speaking tour
• Congress had many Radical Republicans such as Charles Sumner (Massachusets Senator), and Thaddeus Stevens (Pennsylvania Representative) who supported integrating schools and giving Black men the right to vote
  • The South was seen as nothing more than claimed territory that the Union could do what they wanted with
• Congress wanted to ensure that freed people were given the same opportunities as White Southerners
• Violent race riots in Tenessee and Louisiana in 1866 gave greater urgency to the second phase of the Reconstruction in 1867

The Reconstruction Acts

• The 1867 Millitary Reform Act divided the 10 states that had yet to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment into five military districts
  • Martial law was imposed, and a Union general was in charge of each district. These generals and 20000 troups were in charge of ensuring the safety of African Americans
• By 1870, all southern states had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment

The Impeachment of President Johnson

• President Johnson’s white supremacy and harsh attitude drove a wedge between him and Congress
• Ratical Republicans in Congress passed the “Command of the Army Act” which prohibited the president from issuing military orders except through the commanding general of the Army, and the “Tenure of Office Act” requiring that the president gained approval from the Senate before appointing or removing government officials to prevent Johnson from interfering with Congressional Reconstruction
  • Johnson removed Secratary of War, Edwin M. Stanton without gaining Senate approval, which was grounds for impeachment from Congress
• After Johnson’s impeachment, Republicans continued with Reconstruction

The Fifteenth Amendment

• In November of 1868, Ulysses S. Grant became president with a landslide victory
• Grant did not side with the Radical Republicans, but allowed for the continuation of the Reconstruction
• The Fifteenth Amendment was created in winter of 1869 to allow for the voting rights of Black men
  • Republicans such as Charles Sumner refused to vote for the Amendment because of the loopholes regarding literacy tests and poll taxes, which commonly kept black people from voting

Women’s Sufferage

• The ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment disappointed women in the nation
• The American Equal Rights Association was non-discriminatory and helped all regardless of race, color, or sex. But the Fifteenth Amendment was only for men
• Fredrick Douglass argued that White women’s rights were important, getting black men to vote was “of most urgent neccestiy”
• This was mostly accepted by women’s rights leaders who believed that women’s suffrage needed more time to fester
  • Other leaders such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton felt aggravated that other abolitionists did not demand that women were included in language of the Amendments
  • Stanton argued that women’s vote was neccecary to counter the influence of uneducated freedmen in the South and the wives of poor European immigrants from the East
• Stanton and Anthony organized the National Womens Sufferage Association in 1869

Black Political Achievements

• Union leagues became information centers for Black people in the South
  • Leauges helped build schools and churches, and campaign for black political candidates
• Fifteen members of the House of Representatives and two Senators were Black in the 1870’s
• The South had many African American people as school board commissioners, justices of peace, constables, etc.
• Reconstruction Governments focused on railroads, public integrated schools, increased funding for hospitals, orphanages, and assylums
• White Southerners referred to this as “negro mislead”
• Democratic campaign to “redeem” status was successful and by 1876, Reconstruction was abandoned, leaving only South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida with Rebublican governments

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*This information conflicts with my flashcards, this is the information provided in this textbook, and history is told through many different sources