Reconstruction

Teacher

PACE 7: Republic to Reconstruction

Reconstruction Notes

EQ:  How can two groups avoid conflict if their fundamental beliefs are different?

Enduring Understandings

Personal beliefs of a nation’s leader can impact a nation’s policies.

While expanding a nation has economic benefits, it causes conflict among citizens and between citizens and noncitizens.

Learning Targets

• Understand the  opposing points of view of the annexation of Texas.

TEKS

7.15C: Explain the political, economic, and social effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction in Texas.  

Reconstruction

Definition

Significance

Martial Law (Definition)

the period of rebuilding and reuniting of the United States after the Civil War (1865-1877)

The South lay in ruins, and although African Americans were free, many were starving without a roof over their heads. Texas had been spared compared to other Southern states, but there was still a lot to overcome in order to move forward. There was a continued amount of bitterness and tension between the North and South.

the law applied by government military forces in an emergency

Black Codes

Definition

Juneteenth

Jim Crow Laws

Black Codes were laws ratified throughout the South before the Civil War to restrict the freedoms of free African Americans, and after the Civil to restrict the freedoms of all African Americans.

June 19, 1865 – the day that all enslaved people in Texas were freed.

The Jim Crow Laws were legislation all across the South which discriminated against African Americans. It made segregation legal on the idea of a “separate but equal” status.

Constitutional Amendments

13^th 

14^th 

15^th 

The 13^th amendment of the United States Constitution abolished slavery and gave the national government the power to enforce the law. 

1. Citizenship:  grants citizenship to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States” 

2. Equal Protection:  “nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The 15^th amendment gave voting rights to African American men.

Freedmen’s Bureau

A federal agency was set up, called the Freedmen’s Bureau, in order to help freedmen (as well as some whites) find jobs, housing, clothing and food following the devastation of the American Civil War. They were also charged with managing Confederate land seized during the war and protecting the rights of freedmen in court when necessary.

Radical Republicans

The Radical Republicans were Congressmen who had a separate plan for Reconstruction which included strict standards for the Southern states re-entering the Union, and protecting the freedom of African Americans in the South. They generally cared about the freed slaves, and were a large part of African American men their right to vote.