Reconstruction

wartime reconstruction

radical republicans: 4 goals

1. resettlement program → land
   

• "40 acres and a mule"

• sherman's land in georgia + south carolina

• sc in particular → many northerners blamed for the war

2. HOWEVER,
   

• president Johnson's plan:

• returned land to the ex-confederate planters

• black people resisted being removed from land, federal troops were used against them

3. freedmen's bureau
   

• "bureau of refugees, freedmen, and abandoned lands"

• food, clothing, health care, etc.

• education, jobs

• many former northern abolitionists + teachers risked their lives to help freedman

• "plenty to eat and nothing to do"

• image of black people → lazy, shiftless

• image of northern whites → using black people for their political + financial gain

• Southern whites who supported republican goals were called scalawags

• called "carpetbaggers" by white southern democrats; seen as intruders → Southerners viewed them as corrupt, "only wanted $"

• southerners hated the bureau (interference) and president johnson tried to kill it (vetoed refunding)

4. new labor system
   

• labor contracts (freedmen's bureau)

• southern planters lost their labor force; most freedmen didn't want to be part of "gang labor" anymore

• with labor contracts, one was given an actual wage

• wage system

• sharecropping

• one planter controls actual farmers to own money

• rather than paying rent in money, it is paid in product

• caused loans, debt and entrapment for black people

• in debt to general stores, planters

• sounds good on paper, less successful in practice

5. civil equality of freed black people
   

• voting rights - participation

• 13th amendment guaranteed freedom, but it didn't guarantee rights

• 14th: if you are born in the US, you are a citizen → Southern whites couldn't deny rights to black people or their ancestors

• you now have protection under the law + [voting] rights

• 15th: guarantee voting rights of all men

• aristocracy of sex: gender was deliberately excluded from the 15th amendment - men could vote regardless of their intellectual ability just because they were men

• eg. aristocracy of sex in the catholic church

• in response to these, Southerners passed a ton of laws regarding registration + polling places (voter suppression against black communities)

presidential reconstruction

president lincoln's plan

• 10% plan

• replace majority rule with "royal rule" in the south

• pardon/"general amnesty" to all but the highest ranking military and civilian confederate officers

• southern states needed to ratify the 13th amendment

• lincoln did not consult congress → right of the president

• lost support of radical + many moderate republicans

• 1864 → "lincoln governments"

• formed in louisiana, tennessee, arkansas

• loyal rule

• created state assemblies

• wrote new state constitutions; ratified 13th amendment

• governments were weak and dependent on the northern army for their survival

wade-davis bill (1864)

• required 50% of the number of 1860 voters to take + swear they never voluntarily aided the rebellion

• required a "state constitutional convention" before the election of state officials (loyal to Union)

• new constitutions

1. included specific safeguards of freedmen's liberties

• senator benjamin wade (R-OH)

• congressman henry w. davis (R-MD)

1. federal government would not pay confederate war debts

• reasons

1. "iron-clad" oath of loyalty

2. "state suicide" theory (MA senator charles sumner)

3. "conquered provinces" position (PA representative thaddeus stevens)

• president lincoln → pocket veto ← wade-davis bill

assassination of president lincoln

• ford's theater

• john wilkes booth

• april 14-april 15

• funeral train

• president andrew johnson

• "jacksonian" democrat

• leader of common man

• tennessee

• anti-aristocrat

• hated wealthy planters

• cause of the civil war

• white supremacist

• only southern democrat to remain loyal to the union

• agreed with lincoln that states had never legally left the union

president johnson's plan

• offered amnesty upon "simple oath" to all except confederate civil + military officers (10% plan)

• leaders + officers → disenfranchised (vote + office)

• those with property over $20,000 could apply directly to johnson for a "personal pardon"

• in new constituents → minimum conditions - passage of 13th amendment, repudiate secession and pay state debts

• president johnson v radical republicans

• growing division

• february 1866 → president vetoed the freedmen's bureau bill

• march 1866 → vetoed the 1866 civil rights act

• congress passed both bills over johnson's vetoes

• 1st in us history: overriding a veto

• passage of 14th amendment - citizenship for freedmen

• johnson's response: told southern states to oppose amendment

growing radical republican + northern alarm

• many southern state constitutions fell short of minimum requirements

• johnson granted 13,500 special pardons (land returned to planters)

• ended any hope for "40 acres and a mule"

• revival of southern defiance

• southern states passed "black codes"

black codes

• black people could not __ (similar to slave codes)

• black people were restricted to jobs in agriculture + domestic service

• if "vagrants" - fined $50 → work contracts

• curfews established

• worker's passes issued

• travel restricted

• meetings of black people regulated

radical (congressional) reconstruction

the 1866 congressional election senate + house of representatives

• a referendum on radical reconstruction

• republicans won a 3-1 majority in both houses and gained control of every northern state → veto proof

• radical republicans: reconstruction act of 1867

• "military reconstruction act"

• restart reconstruction in the 10 southern states that refused to ratify the 14th amendment

• divide the 10 "unreconstructed states" into 5 military districts AND disenfranchise thousands of former confederates

• state conventions → write new constitutions

• ratify the 14th amendment

• guarantee full suffrage for male slaves

• 15th amendment - passed in 1870

• guaranteed black suffrage

• reaction of the feminist movement → aristocracy of sex

• southern "reconstruction governments" were condemned + ridiculed by southern whites

• positive achievements + actions:

• rebuilt south

• opposition + actions:

• carpetbaggers

• scalawags

• black rule in the south + participation of black people; negative stereotypes

impeachment of president johnson

• constitution: "high crimes and misdemeanors"

• command of the army act

• tenure of office act

• designed to protect radical members of lincoln's government

• a question of the constitutionality of this law

• edwin stanton

• johnson removed stanton in february of 1868

• johnson replaced generals in the field who supported radical reconstruction

• impeached by the house of representatives on february 24

• even before drawing up charges

• real reasons?

• the senate trial

• 11-week trial

• johnson acquitted 35-19 (one short of 2/3 required vote)

• edmund ross

black reconstruction

black reconstruction: the actions and activities of both black and white americans in the period immediately after the civil war (1865-1877) regarding the rights of black people

• involved the transformation of southern political, economic, and social institutions in a manner consistent with the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments

black people in southern politics

• core voters were black veterans

• black people were politically unprepared - most illiterate

• black people could register + vote in states beginning in 1867 (army aided registration of new voters)

• 15th amendment guaranteed federal voting

• black senate + house delegates

• hiram revels + blanche bruce

• establishment of historically black colleges in the south

• sharecropping