Georgia and the American Experience

1. Georgia and the American Experience Chapter 9: 1866-1889 Reconstruction and the New South Study Presentation

2. Section 1: Lincoln and Reconstruction Section 2: Reconstruction in Georgia Section 3: Georgia’s Redemption Years Section 4: The New South

3. Section 1: Lincoln and Reconstruction • ESSENTIAL QUESTION • What were Lincoln’s plans for rebuilding the South after the Civil War?

4. Section 1: Lincoln and Reconstruction • What words do I need to know? • freedmen • Freedmen’s Bureau • Reconstruction • disfranchise • Thirteenth Amendment • Nullify • assassinated

5. Section 1: Lincoln and Reconstruction • What people do I need to know? • Abraham Lincoln • John Wilkes Booth • Andrew Johnson

6. The Freedmen • Problems of freedmen (former slaves): • homeless • hungry • uneducated • free for the 1st time • no property or goods • Many former slaves feared re-enslavement • Most whites had difficulty treating freeman as free persons

7. The Freedmen’s Bureau • Started as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands by U.S. government in 1865 • Oliver O. Howard – 1st Commissions of the Freedmen’s Bureau.(Howard University) • Original Purpose: to help freed slaves and poor whites with basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter • The purpose shifted to education • Set up 4,000 primary schools • Started industrial schools for jobs training • Started teacher-training schools • Missionaries started schools like Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Clark College

8. Conditions in Georgia at the end of the war: • farms were in ruins • homes, railways, bridges,roads were destroyed or in need of repair • not enough food • banks were closed – Confederate money was worthless • the state owed $20,000,000 in war debt • 25,000 Georgians had died of wounds or disease – many more were crippled and could not work

9. Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction • Lincoln wanted to rebuild the south, to heal them and return the south to the Union as soon as possible • Wanted reconstruction to be a healing process for the Southern States. • “Reconstruction” would have two parts: • Southerners would be pardoned after taking an oath of allegiance; • When 10% of voters had taken the oath, the state could rejoin the Union and form a state government.

10. Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction • Lincoln’s plan to reconstruct the south was challenged. Some northerners called “Radical Republicans” thought the south should be more severely punished. • The Radical Republicans wanted to make sure the freedmen retained their new rights. • Confederate President Jefferson Davis was captured and imprisoned. • Wade-Davis Bill (Congressional bill) – vetoed by President Lincoln

11. Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction Wade-Davis Bill (Congressional bill) – • Passed by congress after overriding a presidential veto. (2/3rd majority of both House and Senate) • Placed the Southern States under military control and supervision of an appointed provisional governor. • Lincoln saw it as an attempt to punish the Southand thus hinder the healing process of the nation.

12. Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan • Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865 during a play at Ford’s Theater by actor John Wilkes Booth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVLM0BSqx5o • Vice President Andrew Johnson is sworn in to take over as President.

13. Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan • In addition to Lincoln’s requirements, President Johnson added a few more. Southern states had to: • approve (ratify) the 13th Amendment (outlawing slavery); • nullify their ordinances of secession; • Large Plantation owners had to apply for a pardon from the President • Southern States could not repay money borrowed during the war.

14. Section 2: Reconstruction in Georgia • ESSENTIAL QUESTION • What changes occurred in Georgia during Reconstruction?

15. Section 2: Reconstruction in Georgia • What words do I need to know? • provisional • discrimination • Black Codes • Fourteenth Amendment • carpetbagger • scalawag • Ku Klux Klan

16. Section 2: Reconstruction in Georgia • What words do I need to know? • suffrage • Georgia Act • Fifteenth Amendment • impeach • sharecropping • credit • tenant farming

17. Section 2: Reconstruction in Georgia • What people do I need to know? • James Johnson • General John Pope • Henry McNeal Turner

18. The Constitutional Convention of 1865 • President Johnson appointed James Johnson as Georgia’s provisional Governor. • Governor Johnson held a Constitutional Convention. The Georgia representatives voted to abolish slavery and repeal the ordinance of secession. • Elections were held in November 1865 for a new legislature. • The General Assembly voted to extend rights to freedmen.

19. Black Codes • Black Codes were laws passed to keep freedmen from having the same rights as whites. • Didn’t allow blacks: the same jobs as whites, the right to vote, the right to marry a white person, jury service, or the right to testify. • Blacks could be: whipped as punishment, forced to work from sunrise to sunset six days per week, or put in jail if they didn’t have a job.

20. Congressional Reconstruction • Congress was angry about Georgia’s Black Codes, so it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This law gave: • citizenship to all freedmen; • the federal government power to intervene any time civil rights were taken from freedmen. • The 14th Amendment was passed granting citizenship to freedmen and required “equal protection under the law.”

21. Congressional Reconstruction • Congress required southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment. • Georgia and most of the other southern states refused. • Congress abolished these states’ governments and put them under military control. • Georgia was ruled by Provisional Governor General John Pope. • Pope was required to register all male voters – black and white. These voters would elect new representatives to form a new state government.

22. Constitutional Convention of 1867 • Georgia male voters elected delegates to the convention to create a new state constitution. • Delegates were carpetbaggers (northerners who had moved south), scalawags (southerners who sided with the Republicans), and 37 black legislature. • The Constitutional Convention was scheduled to be held in the state Capital of Milledgeville Georgia. • Milledgeville refused the African-American delegates with lodging within the city. • General Pope ordered the convention moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta • Atlanta thus became the state’s permanent capital.

23. Constitutional Convention of 1867 • Accomplishments of the Convention: • A new constitution ensuring civil rights for all citizens; • Free public education for all children; • Women were allowed to control their own property. • For the second time Georgia met the requirements for re-admittance to the Union. • Georgia had satisfied Congress, so General Pope and his troops left the state. • The election of 1867 was the first time African Americans had voted.

24. African Americans in Politics • Several African Americans were elected to Georgia’s General Assembly in 1867. (29 elected to the House of Representatives and 3 elected to the Senate) • Rev. Henry McNeal Turner, Tunis G. Campbell, Jr. and Aaron A. Bradley were the first black men elected in Georgia Senate. • In 1868, all African Americans elected to the General Assembly were expelled from office. • It was argued by whites that civil rights laws gave blacks the right to vote but not the right to hold office.

25. Ku Klux Klan • Secret organization – originally started as a social club for men returning from the war. • Members hid behind robes and masks. • The group terrorized blacks to keep them from voting. • As a result, Congress passed “The Georgia Act” and sent troops back into Georgia to place Georgia under military control for a third term. • The act required Georgia to pass the 15th Amendment giving all males the right to vote.

26. The End of Reconstruction • The African Americans who had been expelled from the General Assembly in 1868 were readmitted by the Georgia Supreme Court in 1870. • The Assembly approved the 14th and 15th Amendments. • Georgia was readmitted to the Union, again, ending Reconstruction.

27. Economic Reconstruction • Without slaves, landowners needed laborers to work their large farms. • Two systems emerged: tenant farming and sharecropping. • Cotton was Georgia’s most important crop. • Continuous growing of tobacco and cotton ruined the soil on many farms. • Railroads expanded across the state. • Savannah and Brunswick became important shipping ports. • Atlanta began its growth into an important business center.

28. Tenant Farming and Sharecropping

29. Section 3: Georgia’s Redemption Years • ESSENTIAL QUESTION • How did Georgians work to improve their state after Reconstruction?

30. Section 3: Georgia’s Redemption Years • What words do I need to know? • redemption • white supremacy • Bourbon Triumvirate • ally • temperance • convict lease system

31. Section 3: Georgia’s Redemption Years • What people do I need to know? • Joseph E. Brown • Alfred H. Colquitt • John B. Gordon • Rebecca Latimer Felton • Tom Watson • Leo Frank

32. The Bourbon Triumvirate • After Reconstruction, Democrats gained control of Georgia’s government. • Powerful Democratic leaders, known as the “Bourbon Triumvirate” were Joseph E. Brown, Alfred H. Colquitt, and John B. Gordon. • Their goals were: • expand Georgia’s economy and ties with industries in the North; • maintain the tradition of white supremacy.

33. Decline of the Bourbon Triumvirate • “Independent Democrats” criticized the Bourbons for not attending to the needs of the poor or improving education and working conditions in factories. • Leaders William and Rebecca Felton worked to improve conditions for poor white Georgians using newspapers to highlight problems in the state. • The convict lease system “rented” prisoners to companies to use as workers. It took many years for the poor conditions the prisoners endured to be brought to light and changed.

34. Section 4: The New South • ESSENTIAL QUESTION • What changes occurred to create the era of the “New South” in Georgia?

35. Section 4: The New South • What words do I need to know? • New South • normal school • segregation • Grange • Farmers’ Alliance • co-op

36. Section 4: The New South • What people do I need to know? • Henry Grady • Joel Chandler Harris • Sidney Lanier • Charles Henry Smith

37. The New South Era • Challengers to the Bourbon Triumvirate wanted Georgia to be more industrialized. • Henry Grady was a speaker and newspaper editor. • Grady described Georgia as a place which could have competitive industry and more efficient farming. • Grady envisioned improved race relations in a “New South” which left its antebellum past behind.

38. Education in the New South Era • Funding to provide elementary education for all children in Georgia grew slowly from 1868-1895. • Teachers were paid a little more than farm hands and had little or no training. • Normal schools were started to train more teachers. • The “school year” was only three months long which allowed children to work on farms or in factories. • The state constitution of 1877 did not mandate provisions for school beyond 8th grade and it segregated schools for black and white students.

39. The Arts of the New South Era • Several Georgians gained fame for their work as writers: • Joel Chandler Harris’ most famous work was Uncle Remus: His Sayings and Stories; • Sidney Lanier was one of the best Georgia known poets of his time; Corn, Marshes of Glynn • Charles Henry Smith wrote satire for newspapers in Georgia. Bill Arp stories

40. Agriculture in the New South Era • Crop prices declined through the 1870s. • The Grange and the Farmers’ Alliance started out as social groups but began to reorganize to put pressure on lawmakers to find ways to help farmers. • Georgia became the first state to have a Department of Agriculture. • Co-ops allowed farmers to work together to buy goods and equipment at a lower cost.

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