Reconstruction:
Rebuilding the South
What was the state of the South after the Civil War?
Postwar Recovery Period 1865 to 1877
The South had been ravaged.
Land ruined, cities leveled, railroad lines destroyed, farms and plantations devastated.
Populations perished.
Presidential Reconstruction
President Lincoln issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction in Dec. 1863, offering forgiveness to Southerners.
Southerners had to pledge loyalty to the Union, support Emancipation.
The state could organize a new state government when 10 percent of the state’s voters took a pledge.
*Radical Republicans advocated tougher standards for re-establishing southern state governments.
Lincoln’s plan was controversial. Congress responded with Wade-Davis Bill.
Lincoln ignored the bill.
When Lincoln was assassinated in April of 1865, Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency.
Johnson was a Democrat, hated wealthy southern planter class.
*Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction plan required wealthy southern men to apply for a presidential pardon.
Johnson’s reconstruction plan was similar to Lincoln’s, but did not provide any role for those freed from slavery.
Congressional Reconstruction
The Southern leaders could not restore slavery, so they passed Black Codes, which attempted to keep former slaves dependent.
*Concerns about the Black Codes led Congress to take a more active role in Reconstruction.
Most former slaves had to sign year-long work contracts as plantation workers.
Former slaves could not own guns.
Local sheriffs invaded black homes and seized property.
*The Ku Klux Klan formed in 1866, terrorized African Americans and supportive whites.
Attempts for Congress and the President to work together failed.
Johnson did not sign the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The Civil Rights Act gave African Americans citizenship and guaranteed them the same legal rights as white Americans.
*Radical Republicans passed the 14th Amendment, which required states to grant citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” and promised “equal protection of the laws.”
In effect, the 14th Amendment wrote the Civil Rights Act of 1866 into the Constitution.
The Radical Republicans were able to pass four Reconstruction Acts, despite Johnson’s veto.
The House of Representatives voted to impeach Johnson, but the Senate was short one vote.
Republicans in Charge
Ulysses S. Grant, the hero of the Civil War, was elected president in 1868.
The Fifteenth Amendment was passed in 1869, protecting voting rights for African American males.
Amendment 13 - Ended Slavery
Amendment 14 - Granted Citizenship to all born or naturalized in U.S., equal protection of laws
Amendment 15 - African Americans win voting rights. Voting not denied based on race, color or servitude.
New Southern Governments:
*Whites who supported Reconstruction changes were labeled scalawags, or scoundrels.
*Northerners who came south to participate in the southern rebirth were called carpetbaggers.
Scalawags and carpetbaggers were joined by freedmen to make changes to southern legislatures.
Public schools, laws eliminating property requirements for voting and public office, and discrimination laws all were enacted.
Black Codes were repealed.
Freedom meant different things to formerly enslaved African Americans.
Many searched for relatives, bought land, applied for jobs.
Some moved to urban areas. The southern freedmen faced prejudice, low pay.
Those though went west tried various jobs.
Most African Americans stayed in the south.
They eagerly sought education, Freedmen’s Bureau founding over 4,000 schools.
Churches were established and became centers of community life.
Because many landowners would not sell to freedmen, a new labor system arose, called sharecropping.
*Sharecropping was a system in which an employer provided land, tools, a mule, and a cabin in return for farm labor.
The freedmen would work for a share of the landowners crop instead of wages.
Tenant farmers rented land from white owners.
Climbing out of poverty in these systems was nearly impossible.
Southern cities grew, but industrial growth did not benefit freedmen.
Reconstruction ends
African American leaders were victims of violence in the southern reconstruction era.
*The Ku Klux Klan and other groups terrorized freedmen and sympathizers with house burnings, beatings and murder.
State governments were unable to control the violence.
Congress passed 3 Enforcement Acts setting penalties for preventing voting and giving courts the power to punish the Klan.
Discontent with Reconstruction - the army was needed to keep peace in the South.
Republican governments ineffective.
Africans Americans were impoverished, discouraged there was no land reform.
South was in poor economic conditions, and governments were corrupt.
Impact of Reconstruction- in decline by 1870’s
In the Slaughterhouse Case, The Supreme Court said that civil rights were under state control and not protected by 14th Amendment.
Lawlessness increased.
Terrorists threatened and murdered some Republican candidates.
Tilden lost the election of 1876 in a compromise to pull troops out of the South.
Reconstruction did affect the nation’s future development-
It paved the way for civil rights for African Americans and women’s suffrage.
http://www.ecusd7.org/ehs/ehsstaff/jparkin/Academics/American_History/Fall_Semester/VIII-Reconstruction-1865_to_1877/13-Reconstruction/13-Reconstruction_files/frame.htm#slide0009.htm