Reconstruction Outline KEY

Reconstruction: Rebuilding of the South after the Civil War

I.Federal Government-Reconstruction Plans

  1. Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan – Lincoln’s Plan that when 10% of the voters in a state took an oath of loyalty to the Union, the state could form a new government and adopt a new constitution (banning slavery)
  2. Civil Rights Act of 1866-- Act that granted full citizenship to African Americans and gave the federal government the power to intervene in state affairs to protect their rights. U.S. federal troops (army) was sent to enforce the law. The law overturned the black codes.
  3. Reconstruction Act of 1867– Called for creation of new governments in 10 Southern states and placed them under authority of a military commander until new governments were formed. Military commanders were to begin registering voters and to prepare for the new state constitutional conventions
  4. Amnesty Act of 1872– Act passed in 1872 that pardoned most former Confederates, including ROBERT E. LEE, who became President of Washington College, which became Washington and Lee University. Lee also urged the South to reunite as Americans
  1. Toward Equality
  2. Freedman’s Bureau – government agency that helped African Americans make the transition to freedom, also set up schools to help freed slaves
  3. The 13th Amendment – 1865 - abolished slavery in all parts of the United States
  4. The 14th Amendment – 1866 - granted full citizenship to all individuals born in the United States. Since most African Americans had been born here, they were given full citizenship
  5. The 15th Amendment – 1869 - Prohibited state and federal governments from denying the right to vote to any male citizen because of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”
  1. A Segregated Society
  2. Black Codes – laws passed by Southern states in 1865 and 1866 to control freed men and women and allow plantation owners to exploit African American workers, to keep freedmen from having full rights
  3. Ku Klux Klan – a secretsociety, formed in 1866, which often used violence toward African Americans
  4. Jim Crow Laws – Southern laws that required the separation of white and African Americans in almost every public place where they might come into contact with each other
  5. Voting Restrictions – restrictions used by Southern states to keep African Americans from voting (literacy test and poll tax)
  6. Election of 1876 – Reconstruction ends, when Federal Troops are moved from the South. The rights that African Americans gained were lost through “JimCrow” laws.
  1. Southern Economy
  2. Southern Industry – advances were made in southern industries of textiles, tobacco, and lumbering
  3. Sharecropping – system where a landownerrented a plot of land to a farmer with a shack, some seeds and tools, and maybe a mule. In return, sharecroppers shared a percent of their crop with the landowner. Began because most freedmen had very little money to rent farmland. Most common work for freedmen.
  4. Cash Crops – crops that could be sold for money, such as cotton
  5. The Redeemers (Democrats) – By 1874, the Democrats had gained seats in the Senate and had control of the House of Representatives. They were viewed as “Redeemers” because they had saved the South from Republican rule
  1. Important People
  2. Robert E. Lee-Urged Southerners to reconcile at the end of the war and reunite as Americans when some wanted to fight on, Became president of Washington College which is now known as Washington and Lee University.
  3. Frederick Douglas – Former slave, spokesperson for the rights and freedom of African Americans, wanted constitutional amendments that guaranteed full voting rights for freedmen
  4. Booker T. Washington- Believed equality could be achieved through vocational education; he accepted social segregation for the time being
  5. W.E.B. Dubois – Believed in full political, civil, and social rights for African Americans; he did not accept segregation
  1. The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
  2. The Tenure of Office Act – March of 1867 - prohibited the President from removing government official, even from his own cabinet, without the approval of the Senate
  3. The House of Representatives impeachment – In August 1867, Johnson removed is Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, without the Senate’s approval. The House of Representatives impeached him (“officially charged him with wrongdoing”)
  4. The trial – the trial in the Senate began in March 1868 and lasted almost 3 months
  5. The vote – the senators voted twice and each time the vote was 35-19, one vote shy of the 2/3 majority required by the Constitution for conviction
  1. Supreme Court Decisions
  2. Dred Scott Decision (1857) – Slave taken to Illinois (a free state) and later back to Missouri (a slave state). Sued under Missouri’s “once free, always free” principle. However, the Supreme Court found that Dred Scott was an enslaved person and considered “property”, so he had no right under the Constitution, since he was not a citizen.
  3. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) – Homer Plessy was part African American and part white. He tried to board a “white-only” train car, but was kicked off for being “African American”. The Supreme Court found that it was ok for whites and African Americans to have separate facilities, as long as they were equal (“Separate but equal”)