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Reconstruction: 1865-1877. The Aftermath Problems President Andrew Johnson Power Struggle: Johnson v. Congress. Reconstruction Introduction. Human toll of the Civil War: The North lost 364,000 soldiers. The South lost 260,000 soldiers.
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Reconstruction: 1865-1877 The Aftermath Problems President Andrew Johnson Power Struggle: Johnson v. Congress
Reconstruction Introduction • Human toll of the Civil War: • The North lost 364,000 soldiers. • The South lost 260,000 soldiers. • 1865-1877: the federal government carried out a program to repair the damage to the South and restore the southern states to the Union. This program was known asReconstruction. • Freedmen (freed slaves) were starting out their new lives in a poor region with slow economic activity. • Plantation owners lost slave labor worth $3 billion. • Poor white Southerners could not find work because of new job competition fromFreedmen. • The war had destroyed two thirds of the South’s shipping industry and about 9,000 miles of railroad
Lincoln’s Second Inauguration Speech “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 do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
President Andrew Johnson • Remained loyal to Union during Civil War • Chosen VP to help with Reconstruction after war • Engaged in power struggle w/ Congress as to who would lead Reconstructive efforts • Did not favor Southern elite, but pardoned many after war • Land given back to plantation owners
Presidential Reconstruction • Considered too gentle- soft on Confederate ‘traitors’ • Proclamation of Amnesty & Reconstruction: 1863 • Amnesty: Presidential Pardon • Rebels sign an oath of allegiance • 10% of population • Even high-ranking Confederate officials • Write new State Constitutions: • Approve the 13th Amendment • Reject secession and state rights • Submit to U.S. gov’t authority • No mention of: • Education for Freedmen • Citizenship and voting rights for Freedmen
Southern Governments: 1865 • All 11 of ex-Confederate states qualified for President’s Reconstruction Plan • State governments wrote new Constitutions, repudiated secession and ratified 13th Amendment • No gov’t extended voting rights to blacks • Former leaders of Confederacy were elected seats in Congress • Example: Alexander Stephens (Confederate V.P.) was elected Senator from Georgia
Congressional Reconstruction • Reconstruction Act of 1867-1876 (harsh) • Amnesty: Presidential Pardons • Oath of allegiance- 50% • High ranking Confederate officials included • Lose voting rights if not signed • Write new state Constitutions • 14thAmendment • Reject secession and state rights • Submit to U.S. authority • Help for Freedmen • Freedmen Bureau of Education • 40 acres and a mule • Divide South into 5 military districts
Mississippi Govenor, 1866: “The Negro is free…” • “Whether we like it or not; we must realize that fact now and forever. To be free, however, does not make him a citizen or entitle him to social or political equality with the white man.”
Black Codes • Similar to Slave Codes • Restricted the freedom of movement • Limited blacks’ rights as people, as humans • Southern States enacted Black Codes as they were restored to the Union • Curfews: • In general, blacks could not gather after sunset • Vagrancy Laws: • Freedmen convicted of vagrancy (not working) could be whipped, fined or sold for a year’s labor • Labor Contracts: • Freedmen had to sign contracts in January; if they quit they had to give back all earned wages • Land Restrictions: • Freedmen could rent or own homes only in rural areas; forced them to live on plantations
Black Codes: St. Landry’s Parish- Louisiana, 1866 • Section I: Be it ordained by the police jury of parish of St. Landry, That no negro shall be allowed to pass within the limits of said parish without a special permit in writing from his employer. Whoever shall violate this provision shall pay a fine of $2.50, or in default thereof shall be forced to work four days on the public road or suffer corporeal punishment. • Section IV: Be it further ordained, No Negroes shall be allowed to congregate in public meetings between the hours of sunset to sunrise and by special permission of the police chief may a public meeting of Negroes occur. However, church services are not included in this law. Pay a fine of $5.00, work 5 days on the road crew or receive corporeal punishment
Radical Republicans Thadeus Stevens to Congress, 1866: “Strip a proud nobility of their bloated estates, send them forth to labor and you will thus humble the proud traitors.” • Wanted to see the South punished • Advocated social, political and economic equality for Freedmen • Proposed military rule over South • Seek to impeach President Johnson after he vetoed Civil Rights Act of 1866 Charles Summner to Congress, 1867: “I am for Negro suffrage in every rebel state. If it be just, it should not be denied: if it be necessary, it should be adopted: if it be a punishment of traitors, they deserve it.”
Enacting the Radical Program • Civil Rights Act (1866) • All African-Americans were pronounced citizens of U.S. • This decision repudiated the Dred Scott decision • Attempted to give legal shield against Black Codes • Feared Act could be repealed if/when Democrats took control of Congress • Fourteenth Amendment • Declared all persons born or naturalized in U.S. were citizens • Obligated the states to respect rights of U.S. citizens; provide equal protection under the law • First time: States, not Federal gov’t, required to uphold Constitution • Other Clauses of 14th Amendment: • Repudiated debts of defeated governments of the Confederacy • Penalized state’s representation in the electoral college if it kept any eligible person from voting
President Johnson’s Impeachment • President Johnson vetoed Civil Rights Act of 1866 • This would have increased the Freedmen Bureau’s $$ • This bill would have granted citizenship to Blacks • This forced Congress to pass the 14th Amendment: • Declared all people born or naturalized in the US were citizens • All peoples protected by due process of the law • Johnson was a Southern Democrat, white supremacist • Johnson pardoned many southern elite landowners, politicians • Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1867 in defiance of Johnson • South would be placed under military control • States had to ratify 14th amendment in their constitutions • President Johnson impeached • Vote for removal was one short of 2/3 needed
Realizations of Reconstruction • The South may have lost the war, but ideologies and mind-set in southerners who defended the war were still present • Who, from the South, can take part in politics again? • What to do with southern military officers? • The ways in which to “reconstruct” were heavily debated in Congress • Should the South “pay” for what they did? • Should an even hand be used to bring southerners back into the fold? • How would free blacks be treated in an American society that treated them primarily as second-class citizens, and in many cases, less than citizens? • How long would the South be militarized? Would this lead to more animosity between the two regions (North and South)?
Reconstruction & Grant’s PresidencyPageant Chapter 23(pages 538-564) Election of 1868 Reconstruction Governments Republican Record African-Americans Election of 1872 End of Reconstruction
Reforms after Grant’s Election • Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour at their convention (Johnson’s presidency would have ended regardless of impeachment) • Republicans turned to war hero (Ulysses S. Grant) • Grant won only 300,000 more popular votes in North (500,000 freed blacks voted for Grant) • 15th Amendment (1869): protect all citizens’ right to vote • Civil Rights Act 1785: • guaranteed equal accommodations in public places (hotels, railroads, theatres) • African-Americans could not be prohibited from juries • Poorly enforced: • Northern politicians frustrated with having to ‘reform’ unwilling South and losing white votes in the North
Reconstruction in the South • Republican party dominated in ex-Confederate states • Each state was under military protection starting in 1867 (until Gov’t satisfied Reconstruction criterion were met) • Whites were majority in southern state governments • Scalawags: southern Republicans • Southern whites (Republicans) were former Whigs who had interest in economic development • Carpetbaggers: northern newcomers • Northerners who came south for investment purposes, missionaries, teachers and to plunder • African-American Legislators: Educated land holders; took moderate stance on issues
Evaluating Republican Record • Accomplishments: • Liberalized state constitutions • Universal male suffrage, property rights for women, debt relief, modernized penal codes • Promoted building of roads, bridges, railroads • Established hospitals and asylum for handicapped • State supported public schools in the South • Tax systems overhauled, bonds introduced • Failures: • Greed and wasteful spending • Kickbacks and bribery from contractors business in state programs • No demographic or geographic section of U.S. immune to general decline in ethics
Reconstruction in the North • North’s economy driven by Industrial Revolution and pro-business policies of Republicans • Greed & Corruption • Rise of spoilsmen: • Political leadership passed from reformers to manipulators (Stevens, Sumner & Wade out- Roscoe Conklin and James Blaine in) • Gave jobs and gov’t favors to supporters - Patronage • Corruption of Business & Gov’t • 1869: Wall Street financiers (Jay Gould & James Fisk) got help from Pres. Grant’s brother-in-law to corner the gold market • Treasury Dept. broke the scheme but Gould made fortune • Credit Mobilier Affair: • Insiders gave gov’t officials stock to hide the large profits they made from the Trans-Continental Railroad • Whiskey Ring: • Federal Revenue agents conspired w/ liquor industry to defraud gov’t of millions in taxes • Local Politics: • William Tweed - Democratic Party boss in New York • Tweed found ways to steal from New York tax payers ($200 million) • Scheme discovered and Tweed was put in prison (1876)
Adjusting to Freedom • Building Communities: • Freedom to southern blacks- reuniting families, reading & writing, migrating to cities, emancipation • Independent black churches founded after War • Baptist and African Methodist Episcopalian Churches grew in stature • Black colleges: Howard & Morehouse were established to train black teachers and ministers • Sharecropping: • Compulsory labor force was gone • White landowners adopted a system of tenancy & sharecropping • Landlords provided seeds and supplies in return for a share of the harvest • By 1880 only 5% of southern blacks were independent landowners • Sharecropping was a new form of servitude
Population: 33 million Slaves: 4 million Compare geographical location of large slave percentages to that of large sharecropping percentages
Election of 1872 • Reform-minded Republicans broke from party • Horace Greeley selected as pres. Candidate (editor of New York Tribune) • Liberal Republicans advocated civil service reform, end of railroad subsidies, withdrawal of troops from South, reduced tariffs, free trade • Democrats joined them & nominated Greeley • Republicans ‘waved the bloody shirt’ & won again
Panic of 1873 • Thousands of northerners were jobless & homeless • Over-speculation by financiers and overbuilding by industry led to business failure & depression • Debtors argued for easy-access solution: Greenbacks (money not supported by gold) • Grant vetoed a bill calling for additional Greenbacks (1874) • Hard-money bankers and creditors wanted stable money supply backed by gold
End of Reconstruction • White Supremacy & KKK: • Secret societies to intimidate black and white reformers • Nathaniel Forest Bedford founded KKK (1867) • Burned black-owned buildings, flogged, murdered, lynched freedmen • Force Act (1870 & 1871): federal authority to stop KKK violence • Amnesty of 1872: • Last restrictions of ex-Confederates passed • Reduced high Civil War tariffs • Election of 1876 • Federal troops w/drawn from ex-Confed. states (except S. Car, Florida & Louisiana) • Democrats returned to power except in these three states
Congressional Reconstruction 1865-1877 • Republicans nominated Rutherford B. Hayes (not part of Grant’s scandals) • Democrats chose Samuel J. Tilden (reform minded, fought against corruption of Tweed) • Democrats won clear majority but votes were contested in three ex-Confed. states This leads to Compromise of 1877
Compromise of 1877 • The compromise essentially stated that Southern Democrats would acknowledge Hayes as president, but only on the understanding that Republicans would meet certain demands. • The following elements are generally said to be the points of the compromise: • The removal of all federal troops from the former Confederate States. (Troops remained in only Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida, but the Compromise finalized the process.) • The appointment of at least one Southern Democrat to Hayes's cabinet. (David M. Key of Tennessee became Postmaster General.) • The construction of another transcontinental railroad using the Texas and Pacific in the South (this had been part of the "Scott Plan," proposed by Thomas A. Scott, which initiated the process that led to the final compromise). • Legislation to help industrialize the South and get them back on their feet after the terrible loss during the Civil War. • In exchange, Democrats would: • Peacefully accept Hayes's presidency. • Respect blacks' rights.
Information for you to Comprehend • Aftershock: Beyond the Civil War (Part I) • Aftershock: Beyond the Civil War (Part II) • Understand and be able to discuss the information from notes and the following from the text: • Election of 1876 (page 544) • Compromise of 1877 (page 545) • Jim Crow Laws in the South (page 547) • Class Conflicts & Ethnic Clashes (page 548)