American History I
Museum of Key Reconstruction Players
1. Abraham Lincoln
Slogan –
A. Describe Lincoln’s approach to reconstruction of the South. What was his plan of action?
B. According to the excerpt from his Second Inaugural Speech, what was his goal for Reconstruction?
C. How does his slogan reflect his method of Reconstruction?
2. The Radical Republicans
Slogan –
A. Describe the Radical Republicans approach to reconstruction of the South. What was their plan of action?
B. How did their view of African Americans differ from the South?
C. How does their slogan reflect their method of Reconstruction?
3. “Johnsonians”
Slogan -
A. Describe Andrew Johnson’s approach to reconstruction of the South.
B. Did Johnson’s slogan reflect his method of Reconstruction? Why or why not? Explain your answer.
4. “Freedmen:” Former Slaves
Slogan –
A. Describe the problem these former slaves were now faced with. What were their options?
B. Why did these former slaves not feel free?
C. How does their slogan reflect their approach to freedom?
5. “Damn Yankees:” Northern Citizens
Slogan –
A. Describe the Yankees approach to reconstruction of the South.
B. Define Carpetbagger and describe the origin of this nickname.
C. Did their slogan reflect their method of Reconstruction? Why or Why not? Explain your answer.
6. “The White League:” Southern Citizens
Slogan -
A. Explain the why this slogan reflected the views of the Southern Citizens.
B. Explain what the former slave meant when he said “Bottom rung on top now, Boss.”
C. As a result of the Civil War, where did some Southerners go?
1. “Lincolnites:” Followers of Abraham Lincoln
Slogan: “With Malice Towards None.”
President Lincoln had actually tried to start the reconstruction process during the Civil War. Following Union victories at Gettysburg, Vicksburg and Chattanooga, Lincoln hoped that at least some Confederate states might see the handwriting on the wall and be willing to rejoin the Union if generous terms were offered.
Thus in December 1863 Lincoln issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, which stated that those states where 10% of the 1860 electorate would take an oath of loyalty to the Union and agree to emancipation might be readmitted.
Lincoln did not back off from his intention to treat the South generously. In his famous Second Inaugural Address, which is inscribed on the wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, he closed with the words:
“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations…”
Following Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, President Lincoln again outlined a generous plan for reconstruction. Sadly, the President did not live to see his ideas realized. On April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to Fords theater to attend a play with his wife. John Wilkes Booth, a Virginia actor enraged by the South’s defeat, made his way to the presidential box and shot the president in the head. Lincoln was carried across the street and placed in a bedroom, where he died the next morning. Lincoln‟s assassination dealt a fatal blow to hopes for a more lenient reconstruction effort than what actually occurred. His death also had a chilling effect on potential sympathy for the South.
2. “Radicals:” “The Radical Republicans
Slogan: “The South is defeated but they are NOT loyal!”
Congress refused to recognize Lincoln's plan and countered with the Wade-Davis Bill, a much harsher approach, which the president vetoed with a “pocket veto.” (A pocket veto occurs when a bill is sent to the president, who does not sign it, but Congress adjourns within the 10-day period allowed for the president to return the bill.)
In contrast to the relatively lenient and passive approach of Lincoln and Johnson, the radical Republicans, the liberal wing of the Republican Party, had a much tougher approach. They were idealists, many of them driven by an almost religious fervor. They did not accept the commonly held notion that blacks were inferior and therefore insisted on full political, social and civil rights for the former slaves. In this sense they were true reformers, in many ways far ahead of their time, and they had very different ideas about reconstruction from those of Lincoln and Johnson. (How Lincoln‟s thinking on reconstruction might have evolved over time can, of course, never be known.)
The radicals thought Lincoln was “too soft” on the South and wanted to “revolutionize Southern habits, institutions and manners”; they wanted to see the South rebuilt according to a new order. Northern Republican newspapers such as the New York Tribune agreed. Radicals believed that the South should be treated as “conquered provinces,” and that the rebel states had committed “political suicide.” They claimed that no state governments could exist in the South until Congress restored them under any conditions it deemed necessary.
3. “Johnsonians:” Followers of Andrew Johnson
Slogan: “Treason must be made odious (hateful)!”
Vice President Andrew Johnson succeeded to the presidency upon Lincoln's death. A non-slave-holding Senator from Tennessee who had remained loyal to the north, he ran with Lincoln on the Union Party ticket in 1864. Johnson carried a distinct animus toward the wealthy Southern planter class. He apparently intended to carry out Lincoln's generous reconstruction policies, but his motivations were quite different from those of Lincoln.
He was prepared to have wealthy Southerners who had betrayed their country by serving the Confederacy dance to his tune. Powerful Republican Senators and Congressmen, thirsty for revenge and wanting a proper transition to freedom for the former slaves, visited with Johnson during the months following Lincoln‟s death in order to assess his attitudes toward the defeated South. Initially, they came away satisfied that Johnson was on the right track. That assessment, however, would soon change radically.
Over the course of the summer of 1865, President Johnson dispensed pardons liberally to many former high-ranking Confederates. Johnson apparently took pleasure at the spectacle of former Southern aristocrats, some of whom had previously scorned him, having to plead their case before him. Consequently, the Radical Republicans became furious with Johnson. In the beginning, Johnson appeared to follow Lincoln‟s plans for Reconstruction but later told the Radical Republicans he was going to punish the South—a policy approved by the Radicals. But now Johnson was going back on his word, thus setting up a political and constitutional showdown between President Johnson and the Republican controlled Congress.
4. “Freedmen:” Former Slaves
Slogan: “Freedom burned in the heart long before freedom was born.”
Many slaves who had been restricted all their lives had no “where” to go. Although they were elated to be free following the “great day of jubilation,” this new state of freedom also caused confusion. Some stayed on old plantations, others wandered off in search of lost family. Many slave owners were glad to get rid of “burdensome slaves” and threw them out “just like those Yankee capitalists.” Some freedmen celebrated their freedom openly, while others, less trusting, approached their new status with caution.
As they quickly learned, there was more to being free than not being owned as a slave. When asked how it felt to be free by a member of a Congressional investigating committee, one former slave said, “I don‟t know.” When challenged to explain himself, he said, “I‟ll be free when I can do anything a white man can do.” One does not have to be a historian to know that such a degree of freedom was a long time coming.
For African Americans, the most important single result of War was freedom. The search for lost families was “awe inspiring.” Some whites claimed that blacks did not understand freedom and were to be “pitied.” But Blacks had observed a free society, and they knew it meant an end to injustices against former slaves.
Blacks in the South also had a workable society—church, family and later schools. A black culture already existed, and could be adapted, albeit with difficulty, to new conditions of freedom. Blacks also took quickly to politics. As Booker Washington put it in his autobiography, Up From Slavery, blacks watched the way their former masters voted and then did the opposite.
Remarkably, the former slaves exhibited little overt resentment against their masters, and many adopted a conciliatory attitude. When they got into the legislatures they did not push hard for reform because they recognized the reality of white power.
5. “Damn Yankees:” Northern Citizens
Slogan: “Let us have peace!”
The North was split on the question of reconstructing the South. Many Northerners, content to follow the lead of the White House, favored a speedy reconstruction with a minimum of changes in the South. Other Northerners, many of them former abolitionists, had the rights of the freedmen and women in mind. That faction favored a more rigorous, gradual reconstruction process, which would include consideration of the rights of freed African-Americans.
In the North, there was little to reconstruct; most of the fighting had occurred in the South. Northerners buried their dead, cared for the wounded and did their best to get on with their lives. It is safe to say that the majority of Northerners were happy to see slavery gone, if for no other reason than the fact that the divisiveness of the issue had poisoned the political scene for decades. It cannot be assumed, however, that all Northerners were ready to embrace the full incorporation of blacks into the national fabric. Many Northerners were not happy about prospects of millions of blacks invading the northern job market, perhaps jeopardizing their economic security.
Most white northerners wished blacks well, but weren‟t willing to do much to help them; yet many teachers, including women from New England, went South to help blacks. Other Northerners who went south included the so-called “carpetbaggers,” men who went south in order to commercially or politically exploit the situation for their own ends. (The epithet comes from the cheap suitcases they carried, which were made of pieces of carpet sewn together.) Although infamous in their time (and after), recent studies have argued that they often did much good by helping to modernize the South and promoting education.
6. “The White League:” Southern Citizens
Slogan: “I once loved that flag, but now I hate the very sight of it!”
Many Southerners were enraged at the outcome of the war. Having suffered and bled and died to get out of the Union, they now found themselves back in it. A woman in Richmond wrote in her diary after the hated Yankees raised the American flag over the former Confederate capitol, “I once loved that flag, but now I hate the very sight of it!”
Southerners recognized that they had to bow to the results of their loss, but did so with underlying hatred. Much ill feeling toward the North existed among the people who had stayed at home, especially in areas invaded by Sherman and others: wives, widows, orphans and those who had endured incredible hardships were particularly horrified to be back under federal control, ruled by their former enemies.
Many Southern whites, having convinced themselves in the prewar years that Blacks were incapable of running their own lives, were also unable to understand what freedom meant to Blacks. As one former slave expressed it, “Bottom rung on top now, Boss.” Many Southern whites were still convinced slavery had been right.
In a migration reminiscent of the departure of loyalists after the American Revolution, many southerners emigrated. Some took their slaves and went to Brazil, where the institution still flourished. Others went west to get as far away as possible from “those damn Yankees.”
Name:______
American History I
Reconstruction Date:______
Task Instructions
Now that you have had the chance to get to know your character as well as the other Reconstruction characters, try to classify which characters may or may not get along.
- Which characters will see eye-to-eye when it comes to reconstructing the nation?
- Who will not agree?
- What forces of unity and disunity will you anticipate to occur during Reconstruction?
- What would you personally recommend to the people living during this time period concerning reconstruction?
Please Note: feel free to use your multiple intelligences for this wrap-up activity. You don’t simply have to write an essay. Instead, you may wish to draw a diagram, create a chart, or other visual references that may explain your analysis.
Use the space below to draw (literally and figuratively) your own conclusions J