Unit 5

Andrew Johnson

• He grew up poor in the South, was a tailor before becoming a politician, and resented the rich

• Lincoln’s Vice President from the Election of 1864, was chosen despite being a Democrat because Lincoln thought he would be able to help during Reconstruction and was the only Senator who didn’t abandon the Union during Secession

• Amnesty Proclamation - if people wanted to rejoin the Union they had to swear allegiance to the Constitution, acknowledging abolition, and they would get a pardon from President Johnson

Immediate Post-Civil War

• Before the war, the Union believed the states were still in the Union, but after the war, they based policies on the belief that the states did create their own country, while the Southerners acted like they seceded during the war and then claimed they never actually did post-war

Black Codes

• Acts passed in Southern states restricting what newly freed slaves could do to keep the South what it was like before the war

• Restricted where and when Black people could travel, their ability to sign contracts, to own contracts, and other non-political rights

• Once Congress is back in session, the Republican majority is extremely annoyed about the Black Codes and refuses to read the names of Southern representatives in the attendance call because they don’t want former Confederates in the government

• Civil Rights vs. Civil Liberties - rights are things you need the government to protect and liberties are things you need the government to stay away from

Civil Rights Act of 1866

• The first act for civil rights gives the right to citizenship based only on being born in the United States and not on the history of being a slave

• overturns the Dred Scott case that Black people couldn’t ever become citizens because it was “implied” they were not included in the founding documents

• paves the way for Black people to have political rights, such as the right to vote and to hold public office while it guarantees the rights to own property, sue, enter contracts, and travel, countering the Black Codes

• Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Act because he believed civil rights should be left to the states, but Republicans had a supermajority in both houses of Congress and overturned the veto, a first in American history

The 14th Amendment

• a constitutional amendment meant to permanently repeal any Southern law infringing on the rights of former slaves

• when the 14th Amendment is passed, women’s rights groups are divided over the specification of “male”

  • some believe bringing more voters is a step closer to giving the right to women to vote

  • other feminists are upset because they’ve been asking for the right to vote for years, yet Black men can get the right so quickly after they’ve been freed

1st Section

• Birthright citizenship - settles the debate about citizenship by giving the right to everyone born on American soil

• privileges and immunities - the right to travel, sign contracts, own property, etc, not political rights like voting and holding public office

• “no state…” - no state can take away freedoms, but private citizens still have the ability so people can be violent towards others, and it’s hard for justice to be served

• due process - fair judicial process

2nd Section

• the 14th Amendment repeals the 3/5ths clause, so the South has a lot more voting power in the federal government, so the Southern states can get up to more than 20 new representatives in the House, so the 2nd Section of the 14th Amendment says if the right to vote is denied to Black males, the number of representatives in the House for that state is reduced

3rd Section

• no person who has previously taken an oath of loyalty to the United States and then supported an insurrection against the Union can hold public office unless they are pardoned by 2/3s of Congress

4th Section

• the government will pay no debts incurred for a payment supporting an insurrection against the United States or reimburse citizens for the emancipation of their former slaves

Reconstruction

• The Reconstruction Acts - the federal government tells the South that states must rewrite their state constitution, have it approved by Congress, and ratify the 14th amendment to rejoin the Union officially

• 15th Amendment - gives all men the right to vote regardless of race or previous status of servitude

Elections

• 1868 Election - Republican nominee and war general Grant wins a landslide in the electoral college, but he only won by 300,000 votes in the popular vote

• 1876 Election - after two terms of Grant, Republicans nominate Hayes and Democrats nominate Tilden, but three states have disputed votes until January with the Compromise of 1877

  • Compromise of 1877 - Republican Hayes gets to win the states of Lousiana, Florida, and South Carolina to secure the presidency, but the army has to leave former confederate states, officially ending Reconstruction

Plessy vs. Ferguson

• a Supreme Court case over the legality of racial segregation based on the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment that ruled segregation legal with the belief in “separate but equal”

  • majority opinion - the justices believed that they could only interfere politically and not socially on racial equality, because they didn’t think they could change “the hearts and minds” of the people

• Homer Plessy - an anti-segregationist who intentionally tried to break Lousiana law by trying to board a train but was not allowed to because he was 1/8th Black

• Major railroad companies were against segregation, not on moral grounds, but because it cost more to create separate cars for the two races