RECONSTRUCTION AND THE SOUTH 1865-1877

1. RECONSTRUCTION AND THE SOUTH1865-1877 Chapter 16 Alfred R. Waud. "The First Vote."From Harper's Weekly, November 16, 1867. Copyprint.Prints and Photographs Division.Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-19234 (5-21) The American Nation, 12e, Mark C. Carnes & John A. Garraty

2. Re construction The period of time after the Civil War when the South was rebuilt. The federal program to rebuild the South and readmit the Confederate States 1865 - 1877

3. Above: Charleston, South Carolina Right: Atlanta, Georgia

4. Crippled Locomotive, Richmond & Petersburg Railroad Depot - Richmond, VA, 1865

5. Guns and Ruined Buildings Near the Tredegar Iron Works - Richmond, VA, April 1865

6. Ruins in Front of the Capitol – Richmond, VA, 1865

7. Grounds of the Ruined Arsenal with Scattered Shot and Shell - Richmond, VA, April 1865

8. · Newly freed slaves, freedmen, had no land, jobs, or education. Left and right: post-Civil WarOhio Atlanta, GA

9. RECONSTRUCTION Two main issues: • Reconstruction failed to alter the South’s social structure or its distribution of wealth and power • Reconstruction left significant legacies, including 14th and 15th Amendment

10. Three types of Reconstruction • Executive A. Lincoln’s 10 percent plan B. Johnson’s Plan • Legislative A. Congressional Plan B. Amendments Radical vs. Moderate Republicans • Judicial A. Supreme Court Decisions

11. PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION • December 8, 1863: Lincoln issued 10% Plan • With exception of high Confederate officials and a few other special groups, all Southerners could reinstate themselves by taking a simple loyalty oath 2. When, in any state, a number equal to 10% of those voting in 1860 election had taken this oath, they could set up state government 3. Government had to be republican in form, must recognize freedom of slaves, must provide for black education

12. Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan: • Once 10% of the state’s voters swore loyalty to the U.S… II. …Southern states could rejoin the national government after they abolished slavery.

13. PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION • Radicals in Congress disliked 10% Plan because too moderate and because it let Lincoln determine policy toward recaptured regions • July 1864: Congress proposes the Wade-Davis Bill • Provided for constitutional conventions only after a majority of the others in a southern state had taken a loyalty oath • Confederate officials and anyone who had “voluntarily borne arms against the United States” were barred from voting in the election or serving in the convention • Besides prohibiting slavery, new state constitutions would have to repudiate Confederate debts • Lincoln pocket vetoed the bill

14. Congress’ Wade-Davis Bill: I. It required that amajority of Southern white men swear loyalty to the U.S…. II. …and denied former Confederate soldiers the right to vote or hold political office. CongressmanHenryW. Davis(R-MD) SenatorBenjaminWade(R-OH)

15. Presidential Reconstruction • Vice President Andrew Johnson becomes President after assassination and continues with Lincoln’s 10% plan • Few minor changes

16. PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION Johnson’s Reconstruction vision • Assumed that with war over most southerners would take loyalty oath • More classes of Confederates, including those with property in excess of $20,000 were excluded from the general pardon • By the time Congress convened in December 1865, all the southern states had organized governments, ratified the Thirteenth amendment abolishing slavery and elected senators and representatives

17. Johnson’s Plan: Presidential Reconstruction Johnson Continues Lincoln’s Policies states must swear allegiance, annul war debts, ratify 13th Amendment 1 major difference from Lincoln’s plan: Confederate leaders and rich southern landowners can’t vote does not address former slaves’ voting rights, land, protection laws

18. President Andrew Johnson • Jacksonian Democrat. • Anti-Aristocrat. • White Supremacist. • Agreed with Lincolnthat states had neverlegally left the Union. D*$@ the negroes! I am fighting these traitorous aristocrats, their masters!

19. REPUBLICAN RADICALS • Ultra radicals in Congress (led by Sumner) demanded immediate and absolute civil and political equality for blacks—should be given the vote, a plot of land, and access to decent education • Radicals (led by Thaddeus Stevens in House and Ben Wade in Senate) agreed with ultras’ objectives but were willing to forgo actual social equality • Moderate Republicans wanted to protect former slaves from exploitation and guarantee their basic rights but were not willing to push for full political equality

20. Radical Republicans

21. REPUBLICAN RADICALS • Johnson’s plan had no chance in Congress • Politically would be difficult for Republicans because threatened to return power to Democrats • Ex-Confederates not overflowing with good will • Southern voters provoked Congress by their choice of congressmen • Black codes, aimed at keeping blacks in as near a state of bondage as possible” alarmed Northerners

22. Black Codes Black Codes • Most permitted blacks to sue and testify in court, at least against others of their own race • Could own certain types of property and other rights were guaranteed • Could not bear arms • Could not be employed in an occupation other than farming or domestic service • Could not leave their jobs without forfeiting back pay • Mississippi code required them to sign year long labor contracts • Drunkards and “vagrants” could be hired out to persons who would pay fine

23. CONGRESS REJECTS JOHNSONIAN RECONSTRUCTION • Congress responded by passing a Civil Rights Act (1866) • Declared specifically that blacks were citizens • Denied states the power to restrict their rights (outlawed black codes) to testify in court, to make contracts for their labor and to hold property • April 9, 1866, Congress overrode presidential veto of Civil Rights Act and obtained upper hand in Reconstruction

24. Congress Breaks with the President • February, 1866  Presidentvetoed the Freedmen’sBureau bill. • March, 1866  Johnsonvetoed the 1866 Civil Rights Act. • Congress passed both bills over Johnson’s vetoes  1st in U. S. history!!

25. Freedmen’s Bureau • 1865-Congress enlarges Freedmen’s Bureau—helps former slaves, poor whites • gives social services, medical care, education • Distributes additional land to former slaves/poor whites (40 acres and a mule from Sherman’s Special Field Order # 15)

26. Freedmen’s Bureau · The Freedmen’s Bureau provided food, clothing, jobs, medical care, and education for millions of former slaves and poor whites. A teacher and elementary school students posing on the steps of the Hill School, ca. late 19th Century. The school was a part of the Christiansburg Institute, which was first opened by the U. S. Freedmen's Bureau in 1866. (Montgomery County, VA)

27. Freedmen’s Bureau School

28. Freed black families needed food, clothing, and opportunities to live again after the War…the Freedmen’s Bureau provided such assistance

29. One of the many Freedmen’s schools in the postwar South. These schools drew African Americans of all ages, who eagerly sought the advantages offered by education. (Library of Congress) Thought Questions • Why did African Americans thirst for education after their emancipation? • Who taught in the Freedmen's schools? • How successful were these schools?

30. CONGRESS REJECTS JOHNSONIAN RECONSTRUCTION • Johnson believed Congress could not legislate for South without Southern representatives but did not understand effect of southern intransigence on northern public opinion

31. CONGRESS REJECTS JOHNSONIAN RECONSTRUCTION • Yet Radicals faced problems • Few Northerners believed in black equality • Between 1866 and 1868, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Connecticut, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania rejected bills granting blacks the vote • Radicals were demanding not merely equal rights for freedmen but extra rights; not merely the vote but special protection for it, which flew in face of conventional American belief in equality before the law and individual self-reliance

32. THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT • June 1866: 14th Amendment submitted to states • Supplied broad definition of citizenship • Former federal officials who had served under the Confederacy were barred from state or federal office unless specifically pardoned by two-thirds vote of Congress • Repudiated Confederate debt

33. THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT • Johnson made his disagreement with 14th Amendment the focus of 1866 Congressional elections • Republicans won more than two-thirds of seats in both houses and control of all northern state governments

34. THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS March 2, 1867: First Reconstruction Act • Divided former Confederacy (except Tennessee) into five military districts, each controlled by a major general • Gave these officers almost dictatorial power to protect the civil rights of all persons, maintain order, and supervise the administration of justice • To rejoin union, states had to adopt new state constitutions guaranteeing blacks the right to vote and disenfranchising broad classes of ex-Confederates • If new constitutions satisfactory and if new governments ratified 14th amendment, would be admitted to Congress and military rule ended Overrode Johnson’s veto

35. Reconstruction Act of 1867:Military Rule of South

36. The Radical Republicans Plan The Republicans, unlike Johnson, wanted to be very hard on the rebellious southern states. They organize the south up into 5 military districts each controlled by a former Civil War General.

37. IMPEACHMENT OF JOHNSON • Tenure of Office Act of 1867: prohibited the President from removing officials who had been appointed with the consent of the Senate without first obtaining Senate approval • February 1868: Johnson dismissed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton without Senate approval • The House impeached Johnson • Johnson’s lawyers argued Stanton had been removed to prove Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional • May 16, 1868: Senate failed by single vote to convict Edwin Stanton

38. The Senate Trial • 11 week trial. • Johnson acquitted 35 to 19 (one short of required 2/3s vote).

39. THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT • Election of 1868 • Republicans nominated Ulysses S. Grant • Grant won with 214 electoral votes to 80 and 3 million popular votes to 2.7 million • Margin of victory provided by southern blacks • Importance of black vote made Republicans decide that amendment needed to guarantee black votes in all states, not just in the South

40. THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT • 15th Amendment sent to states in February 1869 • Forbade all states to deny the vote to anyone “on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude” • Passed because of unfairness of double standard of voting, contribution of black soldiers during the war and the hope of ending the strife of Reconstruction

41. 15th Amendment • Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

42. “BLACK REPUBLICAN” RECONSTRUCTION:Scalawags and Carpetbaggers—Name calling: YOU called me a what??? • Former slaves in the South voted and held office • Real rulers of “black Republican” governments were white • Scalawags: southerners willing to cooperate with the Republicans because they accepted the results of the war and wished to advance their own interests • Carpetbaggers: Northerners who went South as idealist to help the freed slaves, as employees of the federal government, or more commonly as settlers hoping to improve themselves

43. Carpetbaggers - Northerners that moved to the South during Reconstruction looking for wealth, land, or to help the freedmen. A cartoon from the 1870s makes fun of a Northern politician. It shows him as a carpetbagger, or a Northerner who moved to the South with only what he could carry in a small bag. (At the time, traveling bags were commonly made of carpet.)

44. “BLACK REPUBLICAN” RECONSTRUCTION:Scalawags and Carpetbaggers • Scalawags • More numerous • A few were prewar politicians or well-to-do planters • Most were people who had supported the Whigs • Carpetbaggers were extremely varied with differing motives • Many northern blacks: former Union soldiers, missionaries from northern black churches, teachers, lawyers, other members of small northern professional class

45. “BLACK REPUBLICAN” RECONSTRUCTION:Scalawags and Carpetbaggers • Republican southern governments accomplished a great deal • Taxes went up but money financed repair and expansion of South’s railroads, rebuilt levees, and expanded social services • Money came in part from Freedman’s Bureau and from Northern religious and philanthropic organizations • But state governments established and supported hospitals, asylums, and systems of free public education • Money also spent on land reclamation, repairing and expanding war-ravaged railroads, and maintaining levees

46. THE RAVAGED LAND • South desperately poor • Blacks sought land of their own and Thaddeus Stevens supported the goal, recommending redistributing land from planters • Problem: would still need seed, tools and other necessities • Congress did open 46 million acres of poor quality federal land under Homestead Act but few settled on it

47. SHARE CROPPING AND THE CROP-LIEN SYSTEM • Originally plantation owners tried to farm land with gang labor • No cash for wages because little capital and high interest rates • Blacks did not like working for wages or in gangs because reminded them of slave labor • They wanted to manage their own lives • Result was new labor system: sharecropping

48. SHARE CROPPING AND THE CROP-LIEN SYSTEM Sharecropping: • Planters broke up their estates into small units and established a black family on each • Planter provided housing, agricultural implements, draft animals, seed and other supplies and family provided labor • Crop was divided between them (usually 50-50 basis) • If landlord supplied only land and housing, laborer got a larger share—share tenancy

49. Sharecropping

50. SHARE CROPPING AND THE CROP-LIEN SYSTEM • Cotton production revived in 1870s and once again ruled the South