Reconstruction Plans

1. Reconstruction and its Aftermath: Reconstruction Plans

2. Reconstruction Debate • As Americans attempted to reunite their shattered nation, they faced many difficult questions. • Should the Southerners be punished or forgiven, and what rights should be granted to the freed African-Americans? • Most of the major fighting had taken place in the South, and towns and cities were in ruins, and roads, bridges, and railroads destroyed. • People in all parts of the nation agreed that the devastated Southern economy and society needed rebuilding, but they disagreed on how to accomplish it. • This period of rebuilding is called Reconstruction.

3. Lincoln’s Plan • In December 1863, during the Civil War, Lincoln announced what came to be known as the Ten Percent Plan. • When 10% of voters of a state took an oath of loyalty to the Union, the state could form a new government and adopt a new constitution – which would have to ban slavery. • The president also offered amnesty, a pardon, to all white Southerners, except Confederate leaders, who were willing to swear loyalty to the Union. • Lincoln also supported granting the right to vote to African Americans who were educated or who had served in the Union army. • He believed punishing the South would serve no useful purpose and would only delay healing the torn nation, but many in Congress believed his plan was far too mild.

4. Lincoln Assassinated! • On the evening of April 14, 1865, just 5 days after the surrender of Lee’s army, President and Mrs. Lincoln attended the play Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater in Washington D.C. • As the Lincolns watched the play from a private box in the balcony, John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, entered and shot Lincoln in the back of the head. • Aides carried Lincoln to the nearby house of William Peterson, a tailor, where he died just a few hours later without ever regaining consciousness.

5. Catching the Assassins • After escaping from Ford’s Theater, Booth fled on horseback to Virginia. • Union troops tracked him down and on April 26 cornered him in a barn near Port Royal, Virginia. • When Booth refused to surrender, he was shot to death. • A military court convicted 8 people of taking part in the plot, and 4 were hanged. • The others were imprisoned for life.

6. The New President • Lincoln had chosen Andrew Johnson, a southern Democrat, as his vice president for his 2nd term in order to balance the ticket. • When Lincoln was assassinated, however, it became clear that Johnson had a very different plan for the direction of the reunited country. • Although Johnson believed that the war had been caused by the “rich, planter elite” of the South, he had little interest in punishing the region or in giving newly freed blacks their rights. • Plans for governing and rebuilding the region became known as Reconstruction.

7. Johnson’s Plan for Reconstruction • Johnson, a Southerner by birth, created a plan that proved quite generous to the South. • A former Confederate state could rejoin the Union once it had written a new state constitution, elected a new state government, repealed its act of secession, and canceled its war debts. • They also had to ratify (approve) the 13th Amendment to the Constitution which abolished slavery. • Republicans in Congress urged Johnson to also require Southern states to grant freedmen the right to vote, but he refused. • “White men alone,” he insisted, “must manage the South.”

8. Learning the Meaning of Freedom • Despite Johnson’s resistance, former slaves almost immediately began exercising their new found freedoms. • Many traveled in search of loved ones who had been sold years before. • Huge numbers of African-American couples got married legally for the 1st time. • Many others, like Booker T. Washington, believed that education was the key to truly becoming Americans, and started establishing black schools across the nation. • Fisk University, Atlanta University, and Morehouse College all grew out of black academies started in the South during Reconstruction.

9. The Freedmen’s Bureau • Before the end of the war, the Union government had established the Freedmen’s Bureau to assist former slaves in finding work, clothing, education, medical care, legal assistance, and most importantly, food. • This organization continued to promote the rights of African-Americans after the was as well. • The major issue they faced after the war was how to provide a way for freedmen to own their own land. • One member of Congress, Thaddeus Stevens, proposed dividing up former plantations and giving each freedman, “40 acres and a mule,” but his plan was rejected.

10. The Old South Returns • As new Southern governments were formed, Johnson withdrew Union troops from the South. • Many in the North, and in Congress in particular, feared Johnson was allowing the South to take a step backward. • Congress rejected many of the new representatives elected by southern governments because they were former Confederates. • Across the South, state legislatures passed black codes, laws intended to restrict the freedom and opportunities of African-Americans.

11. Black Codes Served 3 Purposes: • Spelling Out Rights of Blacks- They could own property, work for wages, marry, and file lawsuits. They still could not vote or serve on juries. • Ensuring a Workforce For Plantation Owners- Freedmen were required to sign yearly labor contracts each January. Those who did not could be arrested and sent to work on a plantation. • Maintaining the Current Social Order- African-Americans were forbidden from doing anything to increase their social standing like working in skilled jobs or going to school. This way, they would have no possibility of ever making decent money.