The Problems of Peacemaking

The Aftermath of War and Emancipation

The South post-Civil War had been decimated. Many white Southerners were in poverty, and faced starvation and homelessness. 3.5 million Black men and women were freed, with hundreds of thousands of them leaving to search for a new life of freedom.

Competing Notions of Freedom

Black and white people in the South had different definitions of freedom for themselves and others. White southerners wanted to live without interference from the North or the federal government. For African Americans, freedom meant independence from white control and white supremacy. Many Black people started to work on and purchase their own land to attain this freedom.

• Freedmen’s Bureau: the federal government’s attempt to help ex-slaves forge independent lives in the Civil War’s immediate aftermath, establishing the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands

Plans for Reconstruction

Republicans were deeply divided in their approach to the issue of reconstruction after the Civil War. The three major groups of this political party were Conservatives, Radicals, and Moderates. Among the plans proposed were disenfranchising large numbers of white southerners, protecting Black civil rights, confiscating the property of wealthy whites who had aided the Confederacy, and distributing the land among the freedmen. Lincoln introduced more lenient policy, giving amnesty to all southerners aside from high ranking officials and leaders of the Confederacy.

• Reconstruction: the period after war where politicians attempted to rebuild and rejoin the South into the Union

• Radicals: extreme Republicans who favored rights for African Americans, industrialization, and forward-thinking values, often pushing away from tradition

• Thaddeus Stevens: rep of Pennsylvania, Radical who advocated for African American rights

• Charles Sumner: sen of Massachusetts, Radical who advocated for African American rights

• Wade-Davis Bill: named for sen Benjamin Wade of Ohio and rep Henry Davis of Maryland, a Radical bill that called fro the president to appoint a provisional governor for each conquered state

The Death of Lincoln

On April 14, 1865, Lincoln and his wife went to see a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington. John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in the head from a theaters booth, killing the president. Many Northerners were outraged, and saw this as the South rebelling in an extremely dangerous nature.

• William H. Seward: considered one of the best secretaries of state, oversaw the purchase of Russian offer to buy Alaska

Johnson and “Restoration”

Andrew Johnson was more favorable towards Moderates and Conservatives, and quickly set his plans in place for “Restoration” in the summer of 1865. He offered some form of amnesty to Southerners while adopting many of the terms from the Wade-Davis Bill.

• Andrew Johnson: Vice President to Lincoln, ascended to the presidency after Lincoln’s assassination, impeached for

Radical Reconstruction

The Black Codes

In the South, white people were scrambling to find some sense of normal society that they had lost in the antebellum period. One notable policy made were the Black Codes, which were so discriminatory that they attempted to oppress Black people to the point they were when enslaved. In response, Congress passed the first Civil Rights Act in April of 1866, which declared Black people to be fully fledged citizens of the U.S.

• Black Codes: laws enacted in southern states legislatures in 1865-66, which authorized local officials to apprehend unemployed Black people, fine them for vagrancy, hire them out of private employers, and in some extreme cases forbidding them to own or lease farms or take any jobs not formerly held by enslaved people

The Fourteenth Amendment

The Join Committee on Reconstruction proposed the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution in April 1866. It was the first legal action taken to establish rights for citizenship without any caveats for race.

• Fourteenth Amendment: ratified in 1866, it states that no state shall make or enforce any law which deprives 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 (doesn’t discriminate on the basis of race or sex for citizenship, any person born is automatically a citizen)

The Congressional Plan

With the Radical Republicans greatly outnumbering the other parties in Congress and even holding voting power over the President, they swiftly passed concrete plans for Reconstruction. By 1870, all the Southern states had been readmitted to the Union.

• Fifteenth Amendment: forbade the states and federal government to deny suffrage on account of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” which opened the ballot box to all male citizens regardless of color, but kept it shut to all women

The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

President Johnson had been seen as an obstacle by Radical Republicans in Congress, and by 1867 they began looking for reasons to begin formal efforts that would impeach him. While they gained a lot of support, Moderates were too indecisive to give them the necessary two thirds to formally impeach Johnson and remove him from office.

• impeachment: a charge of misconduct made against the holder of a public office, can lead to their removal from office

The South in Reconstruction

The Reconstruction Government

Many critics in the South called white Republicans scalawags and carpetbaggers, mocking them for their professions, positions, and social statuses. However, the most numerous Republicans in the South were Black freedmen. African Americans played significant roles in politics during the Reconstruction of the South. They served in state legislatures, created conventions, and defined a separate religion from white congregations.

• scalawags: a slang term for “scoundrels,” gave to former Whigs who had never felt comfortable in the Democratic Party or farmers who lived in remote areas where there had been little to no slavery

• carpetbaggers: white men originally from the North, most were veterans of the Union army, looked on the South as a more promising frontier than the West and traveled there at the end of the war to become planters, businessmen, or professionals

Education

One of the biggest accomplishments of the Reconstruction governments was the dramatic improvement of Southern education. They began to build a comprehensive public school system. By 1876, more than half of all white children and about 40 percent of all black children were attending schools in the South.

Landownership and Tenancy

Struggles over land between previous plantation owners and freed Black people occurred. More often than not, President Johnson supported Southern plantation owners demands by returning most of the confiscated lands to their original white owners. However, during the time the proportion of Black landowners rose from virtually none to more than 20 percent.

• sharecropping: where (predominantly Black) people would work their own plots of land and pay their landlords either a fixed rent or a share of their crops

Incomes and Credit

The per capita income of Black people rose 46 percent between 1857 and 1879, while the income of white people declined 35 percent. However, many Black people were not able to get out of poverty, as the total profit of Southern agriculture was declining. Poor Black and white people alike found themselves virtually imprisoned by the crop-lien system, and always in debt or unable to pay back credit.

• crop-lien system: a new credit system widely used by cotton farmers in the South from the 1860s to 1940s, used their crops as collateral for loans

The African American Family in Freedom

Many previously enslaved people were eager to find lost relatives and reunite their families split apart by slavery before the Civil War. Gender roles for families resembled that of white families, however by the end of Reconstruction, half of all Black women over the age of 16 were working for wages.

The Grant Administration

The Soldier President

Voters in the 1868 presidential election were looking for a strong, stable, and decisive figure to lead them through the Reconstruction, eventually electing Ulysses S. Grant. Under the Republican party, he increasingly instituted policies that defended former slaves and supported that of Radical Reconstruction ideals.

• Ulysses S. Grant: General from 1863-1865 during the Civil War, known for his decisive military tactics, elected as the 18th president and serving from 1869-1877

The Grant Scandals

Grant’s choice of cabinet members and his administration would come back to haunt him in his second term. A blatant use of the spoils system led to scandals of wealthy politicians making fraudulent deals, adding to the growing impression that “Grantism” had brought rampant corruption to the government.

The Greenback Question

During Grant’s second term, a financial crisis known as the “Panic of 1873” began with the failure fo a leading investment banking firm, the start of the worst economic depression yet. Debtors were pressuring the government to redeem federal war bonds with greenbacks, which would increase the amount of money in circulation and induce inflation.

Republican Diplomacy

Both the Johnson and Grant administrations had huge successes in foreign affairs, largely due to their outstanding secretaries of state. William H. Seward was an ardent expansionist who purchased Alaska from Russia, while Hamilton Fish tried to secure England’s promise to pay for the damage their vessels had caused during the Civil War. He instead forged an agreement known as the Treaty of Washington that provided for international arbitration.

The Abandonment of Reconstruction

The Southern States “Redeemed”

Democrats were taking increasing control of the political atmosphere in the South as they regained their position in the Union. By 1872, all but a handful of Southern whites had regained suffrage. Terrorist secret societies built on white supremacy formed to psychologically and physically intimidate Black people from voting.

• Ku Klux Klan (KKK): a secret society that used terrorism to frighten or physically bar Black people from voting

• Enforcement Acts: Republican Congress created Acts during 1870-1871, which prohibited states from discriminating against voters on the basis of race and gave the national government ability to prosecute crimes by individuals under federal law

Waning Northern Commitment

While many white people championed Black people’s civil rights and freedoms, waning support left Black people with a whole lot of issues left to face on their own. In the South, many white Republicans moved to the Democratic Party as they denounced politicians who they blamed for the financial crisis.

The Compromise of 1877

In the presidential election of 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes was elected by the Republicans while Samuel J. Tilden was nominated by Democrats. This produced a deadlock, as support was split between the two candidates. The Compromise of 1877 finally gave Hayes the victory, with agreements for other policies to be enacted for the favor of the other party.

• Compromise of 1877: several pledges made by the Republicans during the election, included the appointment of at least one Southerner to the Hayes cabinet, control of federal patronage in their areas, generous internal improvements, federal aid for the Texas and Pacific Railroad, and withdrawal of the remaining federal troops from the South

The Legacy of Reconstruction

Reconstruction brought a time when the promise of democracy for all Americans, regardless of race, made great strides. Many civil rights were gained, by Black people especially. However, Reconstruction did not bring permanent equality. The white South had regained control of its own institutions in the decade after the war, and to a great extent, restored its ruling class back to power. White supremacy would take root and the problem of racial injustice would continue to haunt the South, in some ways up until present day.

The New South

The “Redeemers”

Once again, the South fell under the control of a powerful, conservative ruling class, whose members were known as the “Redeemers” or “Bourbons.” It heavily resembled the planter class of the antebellum period. However, a new ruling class of merchants, industrialists, railroad developers, and financiers were included in this.

• “Redeemers”: coalition of white southern landowners, business interests, and professionals who sought to "redeem" the South after the Civil War by limiting the influence of the Republican Party and violently overthrowing federal reconstruction policies and African American citizenship rights

Industrialization and the New South

Many white southern leaders seldom challenged white supremacy, while promoting virtues of thrift, industry, and progress, characterizing a different South than before the Civil War. Textile manufacturing significantly boomed, the iron and steel industries grew rapidly, and railroad development increased substantially. A significant women-populated workforce in Southern factories presented itself as a result in the decimated male population after the war. Hours were long and wages were far below the northern equivalent, creating worse conditions than those in the North.

• “New South”: the post-Reconstruction era ideal of developing a vigorous industrial and social economy in the South

Tenants and Sharecroppers

The impoverished state of agriculture in the post-Reconstruction South proved to be one of the most important economic problems. There was an increasing reliance on a select few cash crops rather than a diversified agricultural system, and increasing absentee ownership of valuable farmlands. The number of tenants as opposed to landowners skyrocketed by 1900.

African Americans and the New South

Many former enslaved people managed to elevate themselves into the middle class by acquiring property, establishing small businesses, or entering professions. They also expanded Black colleges and institutes to support a strong educational system for Black people.

• Booker T. Washington: a key spokesman for the commitment to the education of Black people, born into slavery, worked his way our of poverty, and urged other Black people to follow the road to self-improvement

• Atlanta Compromise: a controversial philosophy of race relations introduced by Booker T. Washington, stated that Black people should forgo agitation for political rights and concentrate on self-improvement and preparation for equality

The Birth of Jim Crow

Few white southerners ever accepted the idea of racial quality. As a result, a growing popular culture reflected frightening white supremacist ideals in Southern life. Minstrel shows, segregation (later known as Jim Crow laws) and other forms of discriminatory legislation and movements cemented inequality and discrimination for Black people in the U.S. for years to follow.

• minstrel shows: dramatic and extremely racist and derogatory representations of black culture, used for white entertainment and to uphold white supremacist ideals

• Plessy v. Ferguson: a Supreme Court case, validated state legislation that institutionalized the separation of races on the basis that separate accommodations did not deprive Black people of equal rights if they had equal conditions to those of white people

• Jim Crow laws: laws restricting Black people the right to vote, segregating schools, public spaces and transportation, and further institutionalizing an elaborate system of racial hierarchy reaching almost every area of southern life

• Ida B. Wells: a committed Black journalist who, during the rise of lynchings in the 1890s, published a series of impassioned articles after the lynching of three of her hometown friends in Memphis, Tennessee

Conclusion

Comprehension Questions

1. What were the principal questions facing the nation at the end of the Civil War?

2. What were the achievements of Reconstruction? Where did it fail and why?

3. What new problems arose in the South as the North’s interest in Reconstruction waned?

4. What was the Compromise of 1877, and how did it affect Reconstruction?

5. How did the “New” South differ from the South before the Civil War?