Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution — Quick Notes

End of the war: $1865$ ; South in ruins; Emancipation Proclamation in effect; freedmen seek freedom; Sea Islands experiment; Confederate money worthless.
Reconstruction questions (essential):
1) How should Southern states be readmitted to the Union?
2) Who has the power to set readmission conditions, the President or Congress?
3) Should former Confederate leaders be punished or excluded?
4) What is the status of the freedmen (former slaves) in Southern society?
5) How should the Southern economy be rebuilt?
Eric Foner’s view: Reconstruction offered promise but was an “Unfinished Revolution.”

Freedmen's Bureau established by Congress in $March\, 1865$ to aid former slaves.
Lincoln’s plans:
- Ten-Percent Plan proposed in $Nov\, 1863$ for readmission after 10% pledge allegiance and Emancipation acceptance.
- Wade–Davis Bill ( $July\, 1864$ ) was rejected by Lincoln.
Slavery abolished nationally: the $Thirteenth<br /> m{-}Amendment$ ratified by end of $1865$ .
Lincoln assassinated in $April\, 1865$ , just after surrender.

Andrew Johnson (from the former Confederacy) becomes President.
Initially pardons many former Confederates; later issues thousands of individual pardons.
Seeks quick reconciliation, minimal changes in the South; recognizes new state governments largely led by former Confederates.
Seen as too sympathetic to the South by Northerners.
Black Codes emerge to restrict freedmen.

State laws to preserve white supremacy; restrict voting, jury service, court testimony, office holding, and militia service for freedmen.
Regulated marriages and labor contracts; forced freedmen to stay on plantations; could whip for disrespect; apprenticing children to white employers; convict labor to white employers.

Northern outrage at former rebels’ elections and Black Codes; Congress refuses to seat Southern representatives.
Radical Republicans advocate punishment of the South and full civil and political equality for African Americans.
Civil Rights Act of $1866$ overturns Black Codes; grants citizenship and equal rights regardless of race.
Fourteenth Amendment (amending the Civil Rights Act) guarantees due process and equal protection; applies to states and federal government.
Readmission requires ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment; Confederate leaders barred from elected office.
Impeachment of President Johnson begins due to conflicts over Reconstruction.

The Tenure of Office Act limits the President’s power to dismiss cabinet members.
Johnson dismisses the Secretary of War; impeached by the House in $1868$ but acquitted in the Senate by one vote.
Ulysses S. Grant elected in $1868/1869$ era.
The Fifteenth Amendment ratified in $1870$ ; prevents denial of right to vote based on race or previous servitude.

New Southern governments include carpetbaggers (Northern arrivals) and scalawags (Southern whites).
African Americans participate in politics; e.g., over $600$ African Americans served as state legislators; notable figures include Hiram Rhodes Revels (Mississippi) and other Black officeholders.
Major accomplishments: public schools, anti-discrimination laws, railroad investment; corruption and Northern interference provoke Southern resentment.
End of Reconstruction threatened by white opposition; without Northern support, policies fail to take root.

Migration: thousands move North or West; by 2¢$ imes$10^6$ Africans Americans move to Northern cities in the following decades (roughly $1910 o 1930$ ).
Community and church networks grow stronger in the face of resistance.

Slavery ends; plantations struggle; sharecropping becomes dominant.
Sharecroppers get housing, land, and tools from landowners but give a large share of crops as rent; debt peonage ties freedpeople to landowners.
Diversification: new crops (fruits, vegetables) alongside cotton; growth in railroads, mills, and urban areas; limited Southern industrialization.

1876–1877: Hayes–Tilden presidential dispute; Compromise of $1877$ resolves electoral votes: Hayes withdraws federal troops from the South.
Result: white Southern control reestablished; African American political rights curtailed; voting rights suppressed.
Reasons for failure to achieve lasting equality:
- Legacy of racism;
- Economic dependence on former masters;
- Limited education and political experience for freedmen;
- White terrorism (Ku Klux Klan, etc.);
- Waning Northern interest and economic depression in $1873$ .

Post-Reconstruction laws enforce racial segregation (schools, transport, public facilities).
Plessy v. Ferguson ( $1896$ ) upholds “separate but equal” as constitutional.
Northern segregation appears in practice in some places, e.g., Chicago riots (1919).

Florida Reconstruction: 1868 legislature had $19/$ 53$ African American members; Josiah T. Walls, first Black Floridian in the U.S. House; Jonathan C. Gibbs, Florida’s Secretary of State.
By 1877, white Democrats regain control; Jim Crow laws established (poll taxes, literacy tests, residency requirements, etc. by 1885; 1889 ballot-box methods to deter Black voters).
Debt peonage in pine forests (turpentine camps) traps workers; some individuals like Joseph H. Lee serve in state government (1880–1913).

Freedmen’s Bureau established; 13th Amendment abolished slavery.
Presidential Reconstruction: Lincoln’s 10% plan vs Johnson’s leniency vs punishment of former Confederates.
Black Codes and Congress’ Civil Rights Act ( $1866$ ) → 14th Amendment.
Reconstruction Act ( $1867$ ): five military districts; martial law to enforce Reconstruction.
Johnson impeached ( $1868$ ); not removed.
15th Amendment ( $1870$ ) forbids race-based voting denial.
End of Reconstruction ( $1877$ ) and the rise of Jim Crow; Plessy v. Ferguson ( $1896$ ).
The New South sought economic diversification but failed to empower freedpeople sufficiently.