Reconstruction Era Notes

The End of the War and Reconstruction

Lincoln's Reconstruction Plan

• Lincoln and moderate Republicans advocated for a swift reintegration of Southern states into the Union.
• Learning Objectives: Evaluate Republican Reconstruction policies after the Civil War.
• Key Points:
  • Lincoln favored a straightforward reintegration.
  • After Lincoln's assassination, Andrew Johnson sided with Democrats, advocating for better treatment of the South.
  • Congress debated voting rights for former Confederate soldiers and newly freed slaves.
  • Republicans aimed to empower men through voting and political participation, allowing all male freedmen to vote.
  • Radical Republicans favored strict policies for Southern states' re-entry, opposed by Lincoln and Johnson.

Key Terms

• Radical Republicans: A faction within the Republican Party (1854-1877) strongly opposing slavery and distrusting ex-Confederates. They demanded harsh policies for former rebels and emphasized civil rights and voting rights for freedmen.
• Reconstruction: The period (1865-1877) focused on resolving the status of ex-Confederate states, leaders, and freedmen after the Civil War.
• Suffrage: The right to vote and participate in decisions.

Differing Views on Reincorporation

• Union leaders discussed the best way to reincorporate Southern states as the Civil War neared its end.
• Radical Republicans:
  • Advocated for the permanent destruction of slavery and suppression of Confederate nationalism.
• Moderates:
  • Believed these goals could be achieved once Confederate armies surrendered, and Southern states repealed secession and accepted the Thirteenth Amendment (most of which occurred by December 1865).

Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan

• Lincoln, the leader of the moderate Republicans, aimed to expedite Reconstruction and reunite the nation quickly.
• In late 1863, Lincoln initiated Reconstruction with his Ten Percent Plan:
  • A state could rejoin the Union when 10 percent of its 1860 voters swore allegiance to the U.S. and pledged to abide by Emancipation.
• Radical Republicans opposed Lincoln's plan, deeming it too lenient.
• Lincoln vetoed the Wade-Davis Bill of 1864, the Radical Republicans' stricter plan, which required a majority of a state's population to take a loyalty oath.

Lincoln's Final Public Speech

• Three days before his assassination, Lincoln defended his Reconstruction vision.
  • He argued for full suffrage for freed black men and supported Louisiana's new state constitution.
  • Louisiana was intended as a model for reintegrating Southern states.
• Lincoln argued for working with each state to align itself with the Union, rather than imposing stringent standards.
• Lincoln feared that rejecting Louisiana's government would hinder Reconstruction and harm newly freed black men.
  • He worried it would dash the "cup of liberty" from their lips, leaving them to uncertain fates.

Johnson's Succession

• Lincoln's speech infuriated John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated him three days later.
• Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, Lincoln's vice president, became president in April 1865.
• Johnson, like Lincoln, opposed the Radical Republicans' harsh Reconstruction program.
  • He appointed his own governors in Southern states to complete Reconstruction by the end of 1865.
• The Republican Congress established military districts in the South.
  • They used army personnel to administer the region until new Union-loyal governments were established.
  • Congress temporarily suspended the voting rights of approximately 10,000 to 15,000 white men who had been Confederate officials or senior officers.
  • New constitutional amendments granted full citizenship and suffrage to former black slaves.

Congressional Considerations

• Congress had to address the restoration of Southern states and their representation in the Union.
• Two main concerns:
  • Suffrage for former Confederates:
    • Moderates favored allowing virtually all Confederates to vote, while Radicals resisted.
    • The "ironclad oath" was proposed to prevent former Confederates from voting.
    • Thaddeus Stevens proposed, unsuccessfully, to disenfranchise all former Confederates for five years.
    • The compromise disfranchised many former Confederate civil and military leaders (estimated 10,000 to 15,000).
  • Suffrage for freedmen:
    • The issue was how to integrate four million former slaves as citizens.
    • Counting freedmen fully would increase the South's representation in Congress.
    • Denying blacks the vote would mean only whites would represent them.

Views on Black Voting

• Many conservatives opposed black voting, including white Southerners, Northern Democrats, and some Northern Republicans.
• Some Northern states limited black voting through referendums.
• Lincoln supported allowing some black men to vote, especially army veterans.
• Johnson also believed military service should be rewarded with citizenship.
• Radical Republicans like Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens were initially hesitant to enfranchise the largely illiterate former slave population.
• Sumner initially preferred impartial requirements, such as literacy restrictions, for both blacks and whites.
  • He believed it would be difficult to disfranchise illiterate whites who already had the vote.

Enfranchisement of All Freedmen

• The Republicans believed that the best way for men to gain political experience was to participate in the political system.
• They passed laws allowing all male freedmen to vote.
• In 1867, black men voted for the first time.
• Over Reconstruction, more than 1,500 African Americans held public office in the South.
  • Some had escaped to the North for education and returned South.
  • They often elected whites to represent them, despite not holding office in proportion to their population.
• The question of women's suffrage was debated but rejected.

Disenfranchisement after Reconstruction

• From 1890 to 1908, Southern states passed new constitutions and laws that disenfranchised most blacks and tens of thousands of poor whites.
• These laws included new voter registration and electoral rules, such as subjectively administered literacy tests.
• Some states used "grandfather clauses" to enable illiterate whites to vote.

Economic Development in the North

• Learning Objectives: Differentiate between the economies of the North and South during the Civil War.
• Key Points:
  • In 1861, the Union population was 22 million, while the South had 9 million (more than 3.5 million slaves and about 5.5 million whites).
  • The North's extensive railroad network facilitated troop and supply movement.
  • The South believed cotton would compel foreign support.
  • The Northern economy strengthened during and after the war, while the Southern economy was devastated.
• Key Terms:
  • King Cotton: A slogan used by Southerners (1860–1861) to argue that cotton exports would make the Confederacy prosperous and force foreign support.
  • Second Industrial Revolution: A phase of rapid industrialization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, building on changes brought about by the Union during the Civil War.

Economic Advantages of the North

• The North's industrialized economy aided in producing arms, supplies, financial stability, and ease of transportation.
• These advantages increased during the war as the Northern economy grew, and the Confederate territory shrank and its economy weakened.
• In 1861, the Union population was 22 million, while the South had 9 million, including 3.5 million slaves.
  • The South's white population was outnumbered by more than four to one.
• The Union controlled more than 80 percent of the shipyards, steamships, riverboats, and the navy.
• The Union gained increasing control of Southern territory, river systems, and the Southern coastline.
• Excellent railroad links between Union cities allowed for quick and cheap movement of troops and supplies.
• Transportation was much slower and more difficult in the South, which was unable to augment its rail system or maintain it.
• Jefferson Davis' failure to maintain positive relationships with state governors damaged his ability to draw on regional resources.

King Cotton's Failure

• Confederate leaders used the slogan "King Cotton" to argue for secession, believing cotton exports would ensure economic prosperity and foreign support.
• The British never believed in "King Cotton" and did not intervene.
• The strategy failed, and the spontaneous blockade caused the loss of desperately needed gold.
• The Confederacy's gamble on cotton was disastrous for its war efforts and economic stability.

Economic Transformation

• The Union grew rich during the war, while the Confederate economy was destroyed.
• Republicans in Washington envisioned an industrial nation with great cities, factories, farms, banks, and rail links.
• The South had resisted policies such as tariffs and homestead laws because slavery would not benefit.
• With the South gone, Republicans enacted their legislation, passed new taxes, and issued large amounts of bonds.

Post-War Devastation in the South

• The Republicans enacted an elaborate program of economic modernization to win the war and permanently transform the economy.

• The industrial economy of the North continued to prosper after the war.

• The greatly expanded railroad network, using inexpensive steel rails dramatically lowered transportation costs to areas without access to navigable waterways.

  • Low freight rates allowed large manufacturing facilities to grow large and prosperous with relative ease.
  • Machinery became a major industry, and many types of machines were developed.
  • Businesses began to operate over wide areas, and chain stores and mail-order companies developed.

• The "Second Industrial Revolution," started in 1870, five years after the end of the Civil War.

  • The electric light, telephone, steam turbine, internal-combustion engine, automobile, phonograph, typewriter, and tabulating machine were some of the many inventions of the period.
  • All of these inventions contributed to the rapid expansion of the economy, especially in the North.

• Many of the South's largest cities, and much of its human and material resources, were destroyed during the Civil War by the Union armies.

  • Learning Objectives: Describe the devastation wreaked on the South by the Civil War
  • Key Takeaways:
    • Much of the livestock and farming supplies of the South were destroyed.
    • The South transformed from a prosperous minority of landholders to a tenant agriculture system.
    • Many of the recently freed slaves only could find jobs in unskilled and service industries.
    • One in four white Southern men of military age was killed during the war.
    • After emancipation, the entire economy of the South had to be rebuilt on a different basis.
  • Key Terms:
    • freedmen: Former slaves who have been released from slavery, usually by legal means.
    • sharecropping: The act of being a tenant farmer, especially in the Southern United States, who farms the land in exchange for a portion of the crops.
    • livestock: Farm animals; animals domesticated for cultivation.

Post-War South

• Reconstruction played out against a backdrop of a once prosperous economy in ruins.
• Most of the Civil War was fought in Virginia and Tennessee, but every Confederate state was affected, as were Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Indian Territory.
• Pennsylvania was the only Northern state to be the scene of major action, during the Gettysburg Campaign.

Aftermath of the War

• One historian, William Hesseltine, wrote in 1936 the following about the devastation:
  • Throughout the South, fences were down, weeds had overrun the fields, windows were broken, live stock had disappeared.
  • The assessed valuation of property declined from 30 to 60 percent in the decade after 1860.
  • In Mobile, business was stagnant; Chattanooga and Nashville were ruined; and Atlanta's industrial sections were in ashes.
  • Farms were in disrepair, and the prewar stock of horses, mules, and cattle was much depleted, with two-fifths of the South's livestock killed.
  • The South's farms were not highly mechanized, but the value of farm implements and machinery in the 1860 Census was $81 million$ and was reduced by 40 percent by 1870.

Infrastructure in Ruins

• The transportation infrastructure lay in ruins, with little railroad or riverboat service available to move crops and animals to market.
• Railroad mileage was located mostly in rural areas, and more than two-thirds of the South's rails, bridges, rail yards, repair shops, and rolling stock were in areas reached by Union armies, who systematically destroyed what they could.
• Even in untouched areas, the lack of maintenance and repair, the absence of new equipment, the heavy overuse, and the deliberate relocation of equipment by the Confederates from remote areas to the war zone ensured the system would be ruined at war's end.
• Restoring the infrastructure—especially the railroad system—became a high priority for Reconstruction state governments.