Reconstructing the South

1. Reconstructing the South Chapter 16

2. Presidential Reconstruction • Before the end of the war, Congress and President Lincoln struggled with, and frequently clashed over, Reconstruction policies and programs. • Some believed that the South should be punished. • President Lincoln argued that the task before the country was to restore the Union.

3. Presidential Reconstruction:Lincoln’s Plan • Before the war ended, Lincoln began to plan for the peace that would follow the war. • Because his primary goal was to restore the Union as quickly as possible, the President favored a generous policy. • Except for a few high-ranking Confederate officials, he offered amnesty, or pardon, to all Southerners who pledged an oath of loyalty to the United States.

4. Presidential Reconstruction:Lincoln’s Plan • Lincoln proposed that when 10 percent of a state's voters in the 1860 presidential election had taken this oath, Congress would readmit the state to the Union. • Lincoln's plan did not address the plight of the newly freed African Americans. • Although Lincoln strongly supported the Thirteenth Amendment, for a long time he personally had favored colonization of free African Americans in Africa and the Caribbean. • He was willing, though, to let the South handle the matter. • The President urged, however, that African Americans who could read and write and those who had served in the Union army be allowed to vote.

5. Presidential Reconstruction: The Radical Republican’s Plan • Resistance to Lincoln's plan surfaced at once from his Radical Republican opponents in Congress. • The Radicals' alternative to Lincoln's plan came in the Wade-Davis Bill of 1864. • This legislation proposed putting the South under military rule and required a majority of a state's electorate to take the loyalty oath as a condition for the state's readmission.

6. Presidential Reconstruction: The Radical Republican’s Plan • Lincoln killed this bill with a pocket veto-he let the session of Congress expire without signing the legislation. • However, when the states of Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana met the conditions of Lincoln's plan, Congress refused to readmit them to the Union. • The President then realized that a peace based on "malice toward none and charity for all" was not possible, and he began to negotiate with Radical congressional leaders. • At this critical point, Lincoln was assassinated.

7. Presidential Reconstruction: Johnson’s Program • Andrew Johnson, who succeeded to the presidency, attempted to carry out Lincoln's Reconstruction policies. • He was hampered in this effort because, as an unelected President, he had little popular following. • In addition, as a former Democrat, he could not command the support of the Republican majority in Congress, and as a Tennessean and former slaveholder, he offended the Radicals. • If these handicaps were not enough, he was viewed by his critics as being self-righteous, hot-tempered, stubborn, and crude.

8. Presidential Reconstruction: Johnson’s Program • In the summer of 1865, with Congress in recess, Johnson began to implement his Reconstruction program. • His conditions for readmission were that each Southern state abolish slavery, repeal its ordinance of secession, and repudiate its war debts. • When Congress returned in December, every state except Texas had followed Johnson's formula and asked to return to the Union. • The Radicals, however, expressed alarm because the leniency of Johnson's plan allowed the return of traditional leadership in each of these states, and Southern voters elected former Confederate officials to power. • As a result, Congress refused to seat members from the Southern states.

9. Presidential Reconstruction: Reconstruction Plans

10. Presidential Reconstruction: White Men and Black Codes • The Radicals were also concerned about the status of African Americans in the South. • Like Lincoln, President Johnson believed that this was a state matter and that federal jurisdiction stopped with the abolition of slavery. • Consequently, the new Southern state governments endorsed the principle stated by the governor of Mississippi, "Ours is and ever shall be a government of white men.“

11. Presidential Reconstruction: White Men and Black Codes • The new Southern state legislatures passed a series of laws known as "black codes" that severely limited the rights of African Americans and made it plain that African Americans were still to have a subordinate status in the South. • State governments made few provisions for African Americans' schools. • In no Southern state were African Americans permitted to vote, testify against whites, handle weapons, or serve on juries.

12. Presidential Reconstruction: White Men and Black Codes • In some states, all African Americans were required by law to have steady work. • Those who did not were arrested as vagrants and their labor sold to the highest bidder. • Some states permitted African Americans to work only as farmers and servants and denied them many of the rights enjoyed by whites.

13. Presidential Reconstruction: The North Responds • Northerners were outraged by the black odes, and even Johnson's supporters were alarmed by the actions of the Southern states. • Their fears proved well founded. • Events in the South increasingly led moderate Northerners to support the Radicals in Congress against the President.

14. Presidential Reconstruction: The North Responds • In 1865, House and Senate leaders created a Joint Committee on Reconstruction to set congressional policy for restoring the Union. • The Joint Committee proposed bills providing economic aid for African Americans and protection of their civil rights. • Congress passed these bills, but President Johnson vetoed each one.

15. Presidential Reconstruction: Civil Rights Bill • Finally, in April 1866, Congress passed the Civil Rights Bill, which granted citizenship to African Americans and gave the federal government the power to intervene to protect the rights of freed men and women. • When Johnson also vetoed this bill, Congress overrode his veto.

16. Presidential Reconstruction: Fourteenth Amendment • Fearing that the Civil Rights Act might be overturned in court, however, Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution in June 1866. • The amendment defined citizenship to include African Americans and required that no state deny any person "the equal protection of the laws." • In addition, the amendment barred many Confederate political leaders from holding public office and prohibited any state from paying Confederate war debts.

17. Presidential Reconstruction: Fourteenth Amendment • President Johnson attacked the Fourteenth Amendment and campaigned against its ratification. • As the 1866 congressional elections neared, it was clear that they would reveal whether the President or Congress would control the direction of Reconstruction. • The November election provided an overwhelming victory for the Radicals, who gained control of both the House and Senate. • They now had the strength to override any presidential veto and could claim that they had been given a mandate, or command, from the public to enact their own Reconstruction program.

18. Radical Reconstruction • Now firmly in control, the Radical Republicans began implementing their policies for Reconstruction. • One goal was to sweep away the new state governments in the South and to replace them with military rule. • Other goals were to ensure that former Confederate leaders would have no role in governing the South and that the freed African Americans‘ right to vote was protected.

19. Radical Reconstruction:Reconstruction Plans • Radical plans were inspired by self-interest as well as by concern for the freed African Americans and a desire to punish the South. • The Radicals expected that African Americans would express their gratitude for freedom by voting Republican. • Radical plans also were supported by Northern business leaders, who feared that a Congress controlled by Democrats might lower tariffs or destroy the newly established national banking system.

20. Radical Reconstruction:Reconstruction Plans • Many Radicals genuinely cared about the plight of the freed men and women, of course. • They had been abolitionists and had pushed Lincoln into making emancipation a goal of the war. • They believed in a right to equality and that government must rest on the consent of the governed.

21. Radical Reconstruction:Reconstruction Legislation • In March 1867,Congress passed a Reconstruction Act that abolished the South's new state governments and put them under military rule. • Except for Tennessee, the former Confederacy was divided into five military districts, each under command of a Union general. • To be restored to the Union, each of the states was • required to hold a Constitutional convention with delegates elected by all adult males and • to frame a state constitution that gave African Americans the right to vote. • If the voters ratified the constitution, a state government could be elected.

22. Radical Reconstruction:Reconstruction Legislation • Finally, • if Congress approved the constitution, • if the state legislature ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, and • if the amendment became a part of the Constitution, then the state would be readmitted to the Union. • By 1868 Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina had met these requirements and regained statehood.

23. Radical Reconstruction:Reconstruction Legislation • In 1869 Congress protected African American suffrage by passing the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, providing that the right to vote • "shall not be denied ... on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." • Congress required that states not yet complying with the Reconstruction Act-Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas-ratify the Fifteenth Amendment as a further condition for readmission to the Union.

24. Carpetbag Government • By 1870 each of the 10 states under military rule had been readmitted to the Union. • However, Radical Reconstruction had disenfranchised-or taken the right to vote from-many former Confederates. • In addition, many other Southern white men boycotted elections.

25. Carpetbag Government • One was a group of white Southern Union sympathizers whom Southerners nicknamed "scalawags." • Northerners who came South-called "carpetbaggers"-comprised the other group. • They gained this derogatory name because they arrived with all their belongings in cheap suitcases made of carpet fabric.

26. Carpetbag Government • Some carpetbaggers were respectable, honest, and sincerely devoted to the public interest. • However, enough of them were greedy and self-seeking so as to give the phrase "carpetbag governments" a reputation for graft, fraud, and waste. • One carpetbag governor admitted to accepting more than $40,000 in bribes. • Railroad franchises, public lands, and government contracts went to white Northerners and Northern businesses. • As a result, Southern state debts rose sharply.

27. Carpetbag Government • Carpetbag rule was not without achievement, however. • Most public funds were spent honestly to encourage rebuilding and industrial development. • Carpetbag governments also established public schools, including facilities for African American children .

28. Carpetbag Government • Many Southern whites despised carpetbag governments. • African American voters, however, saw the carpetbag governments as their best hope, and they overwhelmingly voted for Republican candidates. • At the height of Radical Reconstruction, 700,000 African Americans could vote in the South compared to 625,000 whites. • Even so, no African Americans were elected governors, and only in South Carolina did a state legislature have a majority of African American members. • Fifteen African Americans were elected to the House of Representatives during Reconstruction, and two African American men served as United States senators.

29. Carpetbag Government:The Radicals in Power • The Radicals were determined to reduce the presidential power that Lincoln had assumed during the Civil War and to remove Johnson as an obstacle to their plans. • In March 1867, Congress passed the Army Appropriation Act, which severely limited the President's power as commander in chief. • Accompanying this legislation was the Tenure of Office Act, which required Senate approval for the President to remove any government official whose appointment had required its consent.

30. Carpetbag Government:Challenging the Tenure Law • The Radicals knew that President Johnson wanted to remove Edwin Stanton, Lincoln's secretary of war, who remained in Johnson's cabinet but who openly sided with the Radicals. • Characteristically, Johnson ignored these warnings. • He continued trying to block Radical Reconstruction. • Johnson also removed commanders in the Southern military districts who supported the Radicals and, while Congress was in recess, he fired Stanton.

31. Carpetbag Government:Challenging the Tenure Law • To replace Stanton, Johnson appointed General Grant, but when the Senate reconvened it rejected Grant's nomination, and Grant resigned in favor of Stanton. • Outraged, Johnson fired Stanton again-on February 21, 1868-this time replacing him with General Lorenzo Thomas. • In answer, Stanton barricaded himself inside his office and refused to leave.

32. Carpetbag Government:Johnson Impeached • The Radicals came to Stanton's support. • Three days later, the House of Representatives voted to impeach, or charge, Johnson with "high crimes and misdemeanors" in office. • As provided in the Constitution, the President was tried by the Senate. • A two thirds majority vote was needed for a conviction.

33. Carpetbag Government:Johnson Impeached • For more than two months amid intense public excitement, the Senate debated the President's fate. • Radical members of the House, led by Thaddeus Stevens, presented the case against Johnson. • Johnson's lawyers argued that Lincoln, not Johnson, had appointed Stanton to the Cabinet and, therefore, that the Tenure of Office Act did not apply.

34. Carpetbag Government:Johnson Impeached • On May 16, 1868, the Senate voted 35 to 19 to find Johnson guilty, just 1 vote short of conviction. • Seven Republican senators were not able to find honest evidence that Johnson was guilty. • Under tremendous political pressure, they refused to give in to partisan politics. • Although Johnson remained in office for the last few months of his term, he was powerless to challenge the Radicals' policies.

35. Carpetbag Government: The 1868 Election • The Radical Republicans sought a candidate in the 1868 presidential election who could sweep the country and keep them in power. They chose General Grant. • The Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour, former governor of New York, and their platform condemned Radical Republican actions.

36. Carpetbag Government: The 1868 Election • Although Grant won easily, by a vote of 214 to 80 in the electoral college, a small shift in the popular vote in key states would have given Seymour the election. • Grant won because he was supported by the carpetbag governments of the South and because three Southern states had not yet been readmitted.

37. Restoring Southern Power • Unable to strike openly at federal government, opponents of Reconstruction organized secret resistance societies. • The largest of these groups was the Ku Klux Klan. • Started in Tennessee in 1866, the Klan spread throughout the former Confederacy. • Hooded, white-robed Klan members rode in bands at night and threatened carpetbaggers, teachers in African American schools, and African Americans themselves. • Using beatings, murder, and other violence to back up their threats, Klansmen broke up Republican meetings, tried to drive Freedmen's Bureau officials out of their communities, and tried to keep freed African Americans from voting.

38. Restoring Southern Power • Although by 1872 it had been greatly suppressed by federal troops, the Klan and similar organizations contributed to the establishment of Southern governments opposed to the Radicals. • Democrats, often called "Redeemers," gained control of one Southern state after another, until by 1876 only South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana did not have governments controlled by white Democrats, many of whom were former Confederates.

39. Restoring Southern Power • One reason for these Democratic successes in the South was that Northerners were becoming weary of Radical Reconstruction. • In 1872 a group called the Liberal Republicans, including several prominent Republican leaders, opposed the Radicals and refused to support Grant for reelection because they considered him unfit for the presidency.

40. Restoring Southern Power • The Liberal Republicans joined with the Democrats to nominate newspaper publisher Horace Greeley for President. • Although Grant won reelection, the Radicals‘ power was weakened, and Grant's administration loosened its controls over the South. • As fewer troops were sent to protect African American voters during Southern elections, white political power was restored.

41. The Compromise of 1877 • The presidential election of 1876 brought the end of Radical Reconstruction. • In the campaign the Republicans "waved the bloody shirt," or attempted to stir up bitter memories of the war. • Democrats countered by attacking the excesses of Radical Reconstruction and the corruption they claimed was rampant in the Grant administration.

42. The Compromise of 1877 • On Election Day, Democratic candidate Samuel J. Tilden, governor of New York, polled 250,000 more popular votes than the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, Ohio's governor. • Tilden was a vote short of a majority in the electoral college, but 20 electoral votes were disputed. • One of these electoral votes was from Oregon, and it was challenged on a technicality. • The other 19 involved disputed results from the 3 Southern states still under carpetbag rule-Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana-where charges of massive voting fraud flew.

43. The Compromise of 1877:Electoral Commission • Republicans complained that Democrats had prevented African Americans from voting, and Democrats accused Republicans of using federal troops to raise its vote totals. • These 3 states each filed 2 sets of election returns, 1 for Tilden and another for Hayes.

44. The Compromise of 1877:Electoral Commission • Because the Constitution did not provide for settling such a dispute, Congress appointed a commission of 5 members each from the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court to settle the matter. • Tilden needed only 1 of the disputed electoral votes to become President, but Hayes needed all of them. • Voting strictly along party lines, the commission awarded all 20 disputed electoral votes to Hayes. • Congress accepted the verdict on March 2, 1877, 2 days before the inauguration.

45. The Compromise of 1877: Reaching an Agreement • The Democrats were outraged at the commission's decisions, and they were determined not to be defrauded. • There were threats of civil war and talk of blocking Hayes's inauguration. • The Republicans were just as determined to keep control of the presidency, and they began to talk about a compromise. • After negotiations between party leaders, the Democrats agreed to accept the election results and the Republicans agreed to several demands.

46. The Compromise of 1877: Reaching an Agreement • Democrats were assured that • a Southerner would become postmaster general, an important position because of the many federal jobs it controlled. • federal funds for internal improvements in the South. • Republicans agreed to withdraw the remaining federal troops from the South. • Without soldiers to protect them, the three remaining carpetbag governments collapsed and Reconstruction officially came to an end.

47. After Reconstruction • In many ways, the South after Reconstruction was similar to the South before the Civil War. • As white Southern Democrats returned to power, African Americans lost many of their civil rights.

48. After Reconstruction:Segregation • For years, in the North as well as the South, segregation, or the practice of separatingpeople on the basis of race, had been an accepted way of life. • Even before the Civil War, custom in the North had separated African American and white travelers on railroads, coaches, and steamboats and in hotels. • Such segregation also existed in Northern schools, churches, hospitals, and cemeteries. • After Reconstruction, however, the South began to pass "Jim Crow" laws, which legally segregated blacks from whites in daily life.

49. After Reconstruction:Segregation • Where possible, African Americans protested segregation. • These protests helped to integrate the streetcar lines of Washington, D.C.; Richmond, Virginia; and Charleston, South Carolina. • In 1875 Congress passed a Civil Rights Act requiring that all people have equal access to public places and transportation facilities. • In 1883, however, the Supreme Court ruled that the act was unconstitutional, and by the 1890s Jim Crow laws were common throughout the South.

50. After Reconstruction: The "New South" • Despite the South's return to white supremacy, by the late 1870s there was increasing talk of a "New South.“ • An alliance between powerful white Southerners and Northern financiers brought about the economic rebuilding of the South. • Northern capital helped to build railroads, and by 1890 the South had twice the railroad mileage that it had had in 1860.