The Reconstruction Period

1. The Reconstruction Period Looking At The Civil War Through Its Consequences

2. Outcomes: War Boosts the North’s Economy The Civil War cost more money than any of its predecessors in history • Raising Money in the North 1. 1861-Congress passes first income tax law 2.Tax luxury items – carriages, jewels, etc. 3. “Bond Program”: helped pool money together

3. B. Rising Prices • North needs more money to pay for the war effort • North prints more money (more in circulation) • Greenbacks:Green paper dollars – run off more money • Inflation: rise in prices caused by an increase in the amount of money in circulation

4. C. Economic Boost • War helped North’s economy -farm production up 2. Northern manufacturers become Profiteers 3. Profiteer: overcharged the government for goods desperately needed in the war effort

5. Tax-in-Kind: require southern farmers to turn over 1/10 of their crops to government A. Economy Suffers War damaged southern economy – cotton trade way down B. Efforts of the Blockade 1. Caused famine for civilians and soldiers 2. South spent lots of $ buying weapons from Europe 3. South could not get supplies through Union Army The South Falls on Hard Times

6. Forces in Southern Politics • White Southerners (scalawags) who rejoined the Union • Northerners (carpetbaggers) • Freedmen: freed slaves You should have the definitions for each • Why did northerners move south? • To seek their fortunes • Union soldiers grew to love the land • Reformers

7. Is change inevitable in southern society? Why? Freedmen: men and women who were slaves were now free.

8. 10% Plan: a southern state could form a new gov’t after 10% of its voters swore loyalty to the Union Wade-Davis Bill: required majority of white men in each southern state swear loyalty to the Union. Those who volunteered to fight for the Confederacy were denied rights (vote, hold office) Freedmen’s Bureau: Provided all of the following for freedmen: Food, clothing, jobs, medical care Plans for Reconstruction

9. April 14, 1865: President Lincoln is assassinated at Ford’s Theater, Washington, DC John Wilkes Booth, and a number of other southerners blamed Lincoln for the south’s crushing defeat Lincoln is replaced by Andrew Johnson Johnson continues Lincoln’s “mild” plan for reconstruction Johnson vs.Congress **Congress wants south to be punished! Trouble Ahead …

10. Reconstruction Politics Southern Goal:Keep African Americans from voting, owning guns or serving on juries • Black Codes: laws that limited the rights of freedmen Northern Goal:break the power of the rich, southern planters • Give freedmen the right to vote ** Most people were Moderates, who wanted a strict policy toward the south

11. Freedmen will begin to fight for their rights …

12. What rights, do you ask? • 13th amendment (12/6/1865): abolished slavery Slaves were freed at the end of the Civil War. • 14th amendment (7/9/1868): granted any person born in the United States citizenship (including African Americans); “equal protection under the law” • 15th amendment (2/2/1870): promised to not deny any person the right to vote, based on their race

13. President Johnson is almost impeached … • Election 1866: 14th amendment is made an election issue • March 1867:First Reconstruction Act – abolished southern state gov’ts who did not ratify the 14th amendment Therefore, Former Confederate states were forced to pass 14th amendment Result: African Americans can vote!

14. Feb. 24, 1868: Congress votes to impeach President Johnson • Impeachment: process of bringing formal charges of wrong doing against an elected official. • President can only be removed by 2/3 majority vote • Johnson is found “not guilty” by one vote!

15. November 1868 • Most southern states have rejoined the Union • 1868 election: 70,000 African Americans vote • General Ulysses S. Grant becomes 18th president • Grant passes the 15th amendment

16. White southerners fought against changes in society … • Conservative white southerners agreed to allow African Americans to vote as long as they retained all the real power. • Ku Klux Klan: used “scare tactics” to try to keep African Americans from exercising their new freedoms and right to vote. • Still viewed the U.S. as “white man’s country” How did Congress respond to this?

17. Farmers already in debt ($1,000) Buy goods on credit ($10,000) Plant and harvest crops Harvest delivers $18,000 5. $18,000 - $9,000 to sharecropper; leaves $9,000 to landowner 6. Landowner has debt of $11,000. He pays his $9,000 which leaves him with a debt of $2,000. **Back to #1, cycle starts all over again! Cycle of Poverty

18. Farmers already in debt ($1,000) Buy goods on credit ($10,000) Cycle of Poverty $18,000 - $9,000 to sharecropper; leaves $9,000 to landowner . Plant and harvest crops Harvest delivers $18,000

19. The cycle of poverty was escalated by all the freedmen who were … Forced to return to slavery

20. Sharecropper: farmer who worked the land owned by another and gives landowner part of the harvest “Another form of slavery” 3) South locked in cycle of poverty as land owners cannot pay debts! Many freedmen returned to slavery due to society not accepting them as free

21. Separate is Not Equal … Voting restrictions: poll taxes, literacy tests and grandfather clauses You should have the definitions of each one! Jim Crow • Segregation: separation of people of different races • Jim Crow Laws passed to separate blacks and whites

22. Plessy vs. Ferguson1892-96 • Segregation of blacks and whites sparked many questions regarding the 14thamendment • 1890, Louisiana passes statue providing that “all railway companies carry passengers in their coaches … provide equal, but separate accomodations for the white and colored races …” • Penalty for sitting in wrong compartment is either fine of $25 or 20 days in jail

23. The Plessy Story • Homer Plessy, a 30 yr old shoemaker, was jailed for sitting in “white man’s car” of the East Louisiana Railroad. • Plessy was mix of 7/8 white and 1/8 black. • The Louisiana law still considered him black, therefore in violation of the law. • Plessy went to court arguing that the Separate Car Act violated the 13th and 14th amendments

24. The Decision is … Guilty • Plessy was found guilty of law violation • It would not be until Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka in 1954 that “separate but equal”would no longer be the law of the land.

25. Reconstruction ends in 1876 … • With the election of Rutherford B. Hayes. • Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida have disputed electoral votes • COMPROMISE: Republicans will give Hayes the presidency in exchange for him pulling out the military governors in the south • South returns to conservative Democratic rule Military Reconstruction comes to an end in the south and Jim Crow (segregation) escalates as south returns to its “Old Ways”/

26. Success of Reconstruction 1. All African Americans were finally citizens 2. Laws passed, for example the 14th amendment, were the basis of Civil Rights movements for the next 100 years Failures: 1. Southerners faced hard times 2. Southerners, esp. African Americans, fell under much hardship as their life’s rules were under constant re-evaluation