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Reconstruction. United States. The United States now had different meaning. The idea of “states rights” was completely changed and the new reality was we were a single nation no matter what. Reconstruction?.
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United States • The United States now had different meaning. • The idea of “states rights” was completely changed and the new reality was we were a single nation no matter what.
Reconstruction? • Reconstruction revolved around how the stronger national government would define its relationship with the Confederate states and freed slaves. • Why was the war so bad for the south?
Why it was horrible • Battlefield casualties • Agricultural land lay wasted. • Towns and cities were in ruins. • Cotton and slaves were no longer a measure of wealth and power. • It would take a generation to overcome the blow of the war.
Lincoln and Radical Republicans • Lincoln’s plan was very generous to the south and southern elites. • Key to Lincoln’s reconstruction was the acceptance that slavery was completely done. • Radical Republicans did not like this at all.
Radical Republicans • A shifting group of Republican congressmen, usually a minority, advocated very harsh treatment of the defeated south. • They wanted to fundamentally change southern society. • Lincoln saw reconstruction as part of ending the war.
Special field Order 15 January of 1865 • Ordered by General Sherman to set aside abandoned land along the southern Atlantic coast for forty-acre grants to freed men. • Families would receive a loan of mules from the Army. • “Forty-acres and a mule”
Freedman’s Bureau • Established in March 1865 • Provided food, clothing, and fuel to destitute former slaves. • Supervising and managing all abandoned lands in the south, and issue of refugees.
Freedman’s Bureau • Provided social, educational and economic services, advice, and protection to former slaves and poor whites. • This lasted seven years. • There were many complications with an easy reconstruction.
Andrew Johnson • A Democrat and former slave holder. • Was a tailor. • Was educated by his wife. • He overcame extreme poverty to have a distinguished career.
Video clip • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFJj5rDVbtQ