Unit 3- Reconstruction

1. Unit 3- Reconstruction Break it down and build it UP!!!!

2. Reconstruction after the war Between 1865 and 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, known as Reconstruction, was hugely controversial at the time, and historians continue to debate its successes and failures to this day. War had destroyed two thirds of the South’s shipping industry and about 9000 miles of railroads. The value of southern farm property had plunged by about 70 percent. The North lost 364000, including 38000 African Americans, and the South lost 260000. The postwar South was made up of three major groups of people: Black Southerners- some 4 million freed people were starting their new lives in a poor region with slow economic activity. Now, after a lifetime of forced labor, many were homeless, jobless, and hungry. Plantation owners- Planters lost slave labor worth about 3 billion. In addition the Captured and Abandoned Property Act of 1863 allowed the federal government to seize 100 million in southern plantations and cotton. With worthless Confederate money, some farmers couldn’t afford to hire workers. Others had to sell their property to cover debts. Poor white southerners- Many white laborers could not find work because of the new job competition from freedmen. Poor white families began migrating to frontier lands such as Mississippi and Texas.

3. Reconstruction after the war The fall of the Confederacy and the end of slavery raised difficult questions. How and when should southern states be allowed to resume their role in the Union. At stake were basic issues concerning the nation’s political system. Yet it was not even clear which branch of government had the authority to decide theses matters. As early as December of 1863, Lincoln had begun reconstruction plans. He had written the Ten Percent Plan for Reconstruction. It was very forgiving to the South. 1- It offered a pardon, an official forgiveness of a crime, to any Confederate who would take an oath of allegiance to the Union and accept federal policy on slavery 2- It denied pardons to all Confederate military and government officials and to southerners who had killed African American war prisoners. 3- It permitted each state to hold a convention to create a new state constitution only after 10 percent of voters in the state had sworn allegiance to the Union. 4- States could then hold elections and resume full participation in the Union. Lincolns plan did not require the new constitutions to give voting rights to black Americans. Nor did it “readmit” southern states to the Union, since in Lincoln’s view, their secession had not been constitutional. Lincoln set a tone of forgiveness .

5. Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan With Lincoln’s death, Reconstruction was now in the hands of a one time slave owner from the South: the former Vice President, Andrew Johnson. Johnson had a profound hatred of rich planters and found strong voter support among poor white southerners. Hoping to attract Democratic voters, the Republican Party chose Johnson as Lincolns running mate. When Johnson took office in April 1865, Congress was in recess until December. During those eight months, Johnson pursued his own plan for the South. His plan, known as Presidential Reconstruction, included the following provisions: 1- It pardoned southerners who swore allegiance to the Union. 2-It permitted each state to hold a constitutional convention (without Lincoln’s 10 percent allegiance requirement). 3-States were required to void secession, abolish slavery, and repudiate the Confederate debt. 4- States could then hold elections and rejoin the Union. Although officially it denied pardons to all Confederate leaders, Johnson pardoned 13000 southerners.

6. The taste of freedom Black leaders knew that emancipation- physical freedom- was only a start. True freedom would come only with economic independence, the ability to get ahead through hard work. Freed people urged the federal government to redistribute southern land. They argued that they were entitled to the land that slaves had cleared and farmed for generations. Proposals to give white owned land to feed men got little political support. In 1865, Union general William Sherman had set up a land distribution experiment in South Carolina. He divided confiscated coastal lands into 40 acre plots and gave them to black families. Soon the South buzzed with rumors that the government was going to give all feed men “forty acres and a mule.” Sherman’s project was short lived, however. President Johnson eventually returned much of the land to its original owners, forcing the freed men out. In place of programs like Sherman’s, small scale, unofficial land redistribution took place. For example, in 1871 Amos Morel, a freed man who stayed o to work on the plantation where he had been enslaved in Georgia, used his wages to buy more than 400 acres of land. He sold pieces to other freed me and later bought land for his daughter.

7. Worship, Learn, and the Bureau African Americans throughout the South formed their own chruches. They also started thousands of voluntary groups, including mutual aid societies, debating clubs, drama societies, and trade associations. Historians estimate that in 1860, nearly 90 percent of black adults were illiterate, partly because many southern states had banned educating slaves. Help came from several directions. White teachers, often young women, went south to start schools. Some freed people taught themselves and one another. Between 1865-1870, black educators founded 30 African American colleges. To help black southerners adjust to freedom, Congress created the Freedmen’s Bureau in March 1865, just prior to Lincoln’s death. It was the first major federal relief agency in United States history. In its short existence the bureau gave out clothing, medical supplies, and millions of meals to both black and white war refugees. More than 250000 African American students received their first formal education in bureau schools.

8. Homework Read Pages- 224-229 complete page 229 1-5 Vocabulary page 424, 430, 436, 442, due Friday Oct 7th

9. Section 2 As the southern states met Johnson’s Reconstruction demands and were restored to the Union, the white run governments enacted black codes. The black codes established virtual slavery with provisions such as: - Curfews- blacks could not gather after sunset - Labor contracts- Freedmen had to sign agreements in January for a year of work. Those who quit lost all the wages they earned. - Land restrictions- Freed people could rent land or homes only in rural areas. This restriction forced them to live on plantations. Southern defiance of Reconstruction enraged Southern Republicans in Congress who blamed President Johnson for southern Democrats’ return to power. Determined to bypass Johnson and put an end to his Reconstruction plan, Congress used one of its greatest tools, the power to amend the Constitution. In early 1866, Congress passed a Civil Rights Act that outlawed the black codes. Johnson vetoed the measure. As an unelected former Democrat, Johnson had no real mandate to govern. A mandate is voter approval of a politician’s policies that is implied when he or she wins an election.

10. Cont… Congress overrode the President’s veto. Then it took further action. Concerned that courts might strike down the Civil Rights Act, Congress decided to build equal rights into the Constitution. In June 1866, Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified by the states in 1868. The southern states were very reluctant to grant civil rights to African Americans. White rioters went on rampages against African Americans. White police sometimes joined in the stabbings, shootings, and hangings that killed hundreds. Despite public outrage against the brutality, Johnson continued to oppose equal rights for African Americans. In the 1866 congressional elections, he gave speeches urging states not to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. Angry northerner voters responded by sweeping Radical Republicans into Congress.

12. Strict Laws, Power struggle, Impeachment Calling for “reform, not revenge,” Radicals in Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867. Historians note that this was indeed a “radical” act in American history. The provisions were: 1- It put the South under military rule, dividing it into five districts, each governed by a northern general. 2- It ordered southern states to hold new elections for delegates to create new state constitutions. 3- It required states to allow all qualified male voters, including African Americans, to vote in the elections. 4- It temporarily barred those who had supported the Confederacy from voting. 5- It required southern states to guarantee equal rights to all citizens. 6- It required the states to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.

13. Strict Laws, Power struggle, Impeachment In 1868, Johnson tried to fire Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a Lincoln appointee. Johnson wanted Stanton removed because, under the new Reconstruction Act, Stanton, a friend of the Radicals, would preside over military rule of the South. The firing of Stanton directly challenged the Tenure of Office Act just passed by Congress in 1867. The act placed limits on the President’s power to hire and fire government officials. Under the Constitution, the President must seek Senate approval for candidates to fill certain jobs, such as Cabinet posts. The Tenure of Office Act demanded that the Senate approve the firing of those officials as well, thereby limiting the President’s power to create an administration to his own liking. The Command of the Army Act also took away the President’s constitutional powers as commander in chief of the armed forces. The House found that Johnson’s firing of Stanton was unconstitutional. On February 24, 1868, House members voted 126 to 47 to impeach him, to charge him with wrongdoing in office.

14. Strict Laws, Power struggle, Impeachment The house drafted 11 articles of impeachment, including violation of the Tenure of Office Act and bringing “into disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt, and reproach the Congress of the United States.” Johnson became the first President in United States history to be impeached. Johnson was tried and escaped the removal by one vote, his won the battle but lost the war. After he finished out his term, he went back to Tennessee and regained his Senate seat, as a Democrat. In the 1868 election, Republicans chose a trusted candidate who was one of their own: the victorious Civil War general, Ulysses S. Grant.

16. The Fifteenth Amendment Across the South, meanwhile, freedmen were beginning to demand the rights of citizenship: to vote, to hold public office, to serve on juries, and to testify in court. In February 1869, at the peak of Radical power, Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. It stated that no citizen may be denied the right to vote “by the United States or by any State on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.” African American voters began to register freedmen under the Reconstruction Act of 1867. Nearly 80 percent of the newly registered African American voters went to the polls, while most registered white voters did not participate. As a result, one quarter of the more than 1000 delegates elected to the ten state conventions were black. In 1870, with federal troops stationed across the South and with the Fifteenth Amendment in place, southern black men proudly voted in the legislative elections for the first time. Most voted Republican, while many angry white voters again stayed home.

17. Cont… More than 600 African Americans were elected to state legislatures. However, African Americans remained the minority I nearly every state house in the South. Individual black leaders could rise to positions of power in state government through alliances with white Republicans. The extension of the vote to freedmen led to the election of the first African Americans to the House of Representatives. Despite resistance from other representatives, their number gradually rose to eight by 1875. During Radical Reconstruction the Republican Party was a mixture of people who had little in common but a desire to proper in the postwar south. This bloc of voters included freedmen and two other groups. Carpetbaggers- Northern Republicans who moved to the postwar south. Southerners gave them this insulting nickname, which referred to a type of cheap suitcase made from carpet scraps. Carpetbaggers were often depicted as greedy men seeking to grab power or make a fast buck. In the postwar South, to be white and a southerner and Republican was to be seen as a traitor. Southerners had an unflattering name for white southern republicans- Scalawag. Originally a Scottish word meaning “scrawny cattle”. Many southern whites, resenting the power of freedmen, carpetbaggers, and scalawags, criticized the Reconstruction governments as corrupt and incompetent.

18. Review Why were northern Republicans in Congress enraged by the black codes and the reports of violence against African Americans? Why was President Johnson impeached? Who had power in the post Civil War south and why?

19. Birth of the New South • The Holtzclaws were part of an economic reorganization in the “New South” of the 1870’s. It was triggered by the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, which ended slavery and shook the economic foundations of the South. • Although the Civil War left southern plantations in taters, the destruction was not permanent. Many planters had managed to hang on to their land, and others regained theirs after paying off their debt. Planters complained however that they couldn’t find people willing to work for them. Nobody liked picking cotton in the blazing sun. • In simple terms, planters had land but no laborers, and freedmen had their own labor but no land.

20. Sharecropping, tenant farming • The most common new farming arrangement was known as sharecropping. A sharecropping family, such as the Holtzclaws, farmed some portion of a planter’s land. As payment, the family was promised a share of the crop at harvest time, generally one third or one half of the yield. • Sharecroppers worked under close supervision and under the threat of harsh punishment. They could be fined for missing a single workday. After the harvest, some dishonest planters simply evicted the sharecroppers without pay. Others charged the families for housing and other expenses, so that the sharecroppers often wound up in debt at the end of the year. • If a sharecropper saved enough money, he might try tenant farming. Like sharecroppers, tenant farmers did not own the land they farmed. Unlike sharecroppers, however, tenant farmers paid to rent the land, just as you might rent an apartment today.

22. Changes in Economy • Changes in the labor force- before the Civil War, 90% of the South’s cotton was harvested by slaves. By 1875, white laborers, mostly tenant farmers, picked 40% of the crops. • Emphasis on cash crops- Sharecropping and tenant farming encouraged planters to grow cash crops, such as cotton, tobacco, and sugar cane, rather than food crops. The South’s postwar cotton production soon surpassed prewar levels. As a result of the focus on cash crops, the South had to import much of its food. • Cycle of debt- By the end of Reconstruction, rural poverty was deeply rooted in the South, among blacks and whites alike. Both groups remained in a cycle of debt, in which this year’s profits went to pay last years bills. • Rise of merchants- Tenant farming created a new class of wealthy southerners the merchants. Throughout the South, stores sprang up around plantations to sell supplies on credit. • A major focus of Reconstruction and one of its greatest successes, was the rebuilding and extension of southern railroads. By 1872, southern railroads were totally rebuilt and about 3300 miles of new track laid, a 40% increase.

23. From the south to the north • Despite these changes, Reconstruction did not transform the South into an industrialized, urban region like the North. Most southern factories did not make finished goods such as furniture. They handled only the early, less profitable stages of manufacturing, such as producing lumber or pig iron. These items were shipped north to be made into finished products and then sold. • Most of the South’s postwar industrial growth came from cotton mills. New factories began to spin and weave cotton into un-dyed fabric. The value of cotton mill production in South Carolina rose from 713000 to 3 million. However the big profits went to northern companies that dyed the fabric and sold the finished product. • In a sense, the postwar South was one giant business opportunity. The region’s infrastructure, the public property and services that a society uses, had to be almost completely rebuilt. That included roads, bridges, canals, railroads, and telegraph lines. In addition to the rebuilding effort, some states used Reconstruction funds to expand services to their citizens. For instance, following the North’s example, all southern states created public school systems by 1872.

24. Fraud and Corruption • During Reconstruction, enormous sums of money changed hands rapidly in the form of fraudulent loans and grants. Participants in such schemes included everyone. Scandal and corruption also reached to the White House. • The Union Pacific gave the Credit Mobilier enormous sums of federal money. While some of this money paid for work, much of it went into the pockets of the Union Pacific officers and politicians who were bribed into ignoring the fraud.

25. The end of Reconstruction • In 1866, six former Confederate soldiers living in Pulaski, Tennessee, decided to form a secret society. Someone suggested they name their group “Kuklos” (The Greek word for “circle”), and they voted to modify that to “Ku Klux Klan” (KKK). Members wore robes and masks and pretended to be the ghosts of Confederate soldiers, returned from the dead in search of revenge against the enemies of the South. • The Klan spread rapidly throughout the South, fueled by a blend of rage and fear over the Confederacy’s defeat and toward the newly won freedom of black southerners. Klansmen pledged to “defend the social and political superiority” of whites against what they called the “aggressions of the inferior race”. The membership consisted largely of ex Confederate officials and plantation owners who had been excluded from politics. The group also attracted merchants, lawyers, and other professionals. While the Klan was supposed to be a secret society, most members’ identities were well known in their communities. • In 1867, at a convention in Nashville, Tennessee, the Klan chose its first overall leader, or “grand wizard”, Nathan Bedford Forrest. • As Reconstruction proceeded, Klan violence intensified. In 1868 Klansmen murdered 1000 people in Louisiana. Fully half of the adult white male population of New Orleans belonged to the KKK

26. Cont… • In 1867, at a convention in Nashville, Tennessee, the Klan chose its first overall leader, or “grand wizard”, Nathan Bedford Forrest. • As Reconstruction proceeded, Klan violence intensified. In 1868 Klansmen murdered 1000 people in Louisiana. Fully half of the adult white male population of New Orleans belonged to the KKK • The Klan’s terror tactics varied from place to place. Often, horsemen in long robes and hoods appeared suddenly at night, carrying guns and whips. They encircled the homes of their victims, and planted huge burning crosses in their yards. Anyone who didn’t share the Klan’s goals and hatreds could be a victim: blacks and whites alike. • The violence kindled northern outrage. At President’s Grants request, Congress passes a series of anti Klan laws in 1870 and 1871. The Enforcement Act of 1870 banned the use of terror, force, or bribery to prevent people from voting because of their race. Other laws banned the KKK entirely and strengthened military protection of voters and voting places.

28. Dying Issues • By the mid 1870s, white voters had grown weary of Republicans and their decade long concern with Reconstruction. There were four main factors contributing to the end of Reconstruction. • 1- Corruption- Reconstruction legislatures, as well as Grant’s administration, came to symbolize corruption, greed, and poor government. • 2- The economy- Reconstruction legislatures taxed and spent heavily, putting southern states deeper into debt. In addition, a nationwide economic downturn in 1873 diverted public attention from the movement for equal rights. • 3- Violence- As federal troops withdrew from the South, some white Democrats were freer to use violence and intimidation to prevent freedmen from voting. This allowed white southerners to regain control of state government. • 4- Democrats return to power- the era of Republican control of the South was coming to a close. In 1872, all but about 500 ex Confederates had been pardoned. They combined with other white southerners to form a new bloc of Democratic voters known as the solid South. Democrats of the solid South blocked many federal Reconstruction policies and reversed many reforms of the Reconstruction legislatures.

29. Compromise of 1877 • Reconstruction politics took a final, sour turn in the presidential election of 1876. In that election, Republican Rutherford Hayes lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel Tilden, who had the support of the Solid South. Hayes claimed victory based partly on win in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Those states were still under Republican and federal control. • Democrats submitted another set of tallies showing Tilden as the winner in those states, and thus in the presidential race. Congress set up a special commission to resolve the election crisis. Not surprisingly, the commission, which included more Republicans than Democrats, named Hayes the victor. However, Democrats had enough strength in Congress to reject the commission’s decision. • Finally the two parties made a deal. In what became known as the Compromise of 1877, the Democrats agreed to give Hayes the victory in the presidential election he had not clearly won. In return the new President agreed o remove the remaining federal troops from southern states. He also agreed to support appropriations for rebuilding levees along the Mississippi River and to give huge subsidies to southern railroads. The compromise opened the way for Democrats to regain control of southern politics and marked the end of Reconstruction.