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Reconstruction

Reconstruction. 1865-1877. Presidential Reconstruction. Presidential Initiatives Constitution does not provide for process of readmitting states that had seceded. Which branch of government will be responsible? Lincoln favored a more generous plan (10% Plan)

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Reconstruction

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  1. Reconstruction 1865-1877

  2. Presidential Reconstruction Presidential Initiatives • Constitution does not provide for process of readmitting states that had seceded. • Which branch of government will be responsible? • Lincoln favored a more generous plan (10% Plan) • General amnesty to all but high-ranking officials • When 10% of state’s voters took oath of loyalty and abolished slavery, state would be readmitted

  3. Most Southern states preferred to fight war to bitter end. • Wade-Davis Bill – stricter version of 10% Plan. • Oath of allegiance by majority of state’s adult white men • New state governments could only be formed by those who had never carried arms against the Union. • Permanent disenfranchisement for Confederate leaders. • Republicans not going to go along with President’s plan. • Lincoln uses the pocket veto • Hope for generous Reconstruction dies with Lincoln.

  4. Johnson feels Reconstruction is presidential prerogative. • Slave owner; not sympathetic to the formerly enslaved. • Had been nominated in an effort to promote unity before the war. • Offers amnesty to all southerners, including high-ranking Confederates who took oath to constitution. • Nominated provisional governors - only had to revoke secession and repudiate Confederate debts and ratify 13th Amendment. • Southerners enact Black Codes – try to reestablish slavery without the name.

  5. Congress vs. Johnson Johnson Congress Republicans block southern delegations from Congress in Dec. 1865 – don’t approve of liberal Reconstruction. Attitude that south should pay/be punished. Republicans disapprove of black codes and of southern states trying to circumvent 13th amendment. • Southerners see Johnson’s liberal amnesty as acceptance of black codes.

  6. Acting on Freedom Southern Whites Freedmen Ex-slaves demand equality and right to vote Freedmen’s Bureau takes on a variety of responsibilities – feeding, clothing, distributing land seized by Sherman, education, etc. • Planters want ex-slaves to go back to work in fields, but freedmen resist because they see this wage labor as dependency. • Racial violence grows – former slaves pushing for equality vs. white attitudes and effort to re-establish slavery without the name.

  7. Congress vs. the President Johnson Congress Congress overrides veto and enacts Civil Rights Act of 1866 and renews Freedmen’s Bureau. Fourteenth Amendment – black civil rights – Johnson urges states to reject amendment Republican reconstruction more about securing suffrage for black men and remaking southern society than readmitting states to the Union. • Johnson vetoes Freedmen’s Bureau bill and Civil Rights Bill. • Johnson replaces Edwin Stanton with Grant after Congress is adjourned.

  8. Radical Reconstruction Congress takes Command • Reconstruction Act of 1867 • Five military districts under command of Union general • Price for readmission – black suffrage and disenfranchising prewar political leaders • Override Johnson’s veto of Reconstruction Act; Tenure of Office Act – Senate consent for removal of any official whose appointment had required Senate confirmation – all orders to army through commanding general.

  9. Congress Impeaches Johnson • Impeachment for violations of Tenure of Office Act. • One vote short of two-thirds majority needed. • Johnson loses all power to direct Reconstruction.

  10. Fifteenth Amendment – supposed to ensure voting rights despite race, color or previous conditions of servitude – however, some loopholes still exist. • States required to ratify 15 before they could be readmitted. • Modern feminist movement - 15th doesn’t address sex and Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton object. • By 1871 all states have been readmitted.

  11. Short period of time when blacks can hold office. • Sharecropping – debt peonage • Preferable to working for former owners, but Southern agriculture committed to cotton, a cash crop. • Reconstruction – northerners begin to give up and southerners continue to resist. • Ku Klux Klan – Nathan Bedford Forrest • Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871

  12. Reconstruction Ends • North begins to hear propaganda that erodes support for Reconstruction. • Republican corruption – “Whiskey Ring” • Banking crisis – bankruptcy of Northern Pacific Railroad • Black depositors lose life savings – Congress refuses aid. Reconstruction is over. • Rutherford B. Hayes – “home rule”

  13. Key terms • Separation of powers • Pocket veto • Black codes • Gang-labor system • Suffrage • Impeachment • Poll taxes • Scalawags • Carpetbaggers • Sharecropping • Lien • Peonage • liberal

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