Reconstruction

1. Reconstruction 1864-1877

2. And You are a Carpetbagger!!!! You Sir are a Scalawag!!!!

3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz_GLcumolw What is the Lost Cause?

4. What did Freedom mean to the Freedmen? • What had been examples of freedom they had observed? • How will they react to White society? The Meaning of Freedom

5. Post-emancipation – the search for family • Reorganization of the family structure • More male dominated • Women left the fields to do domestic items Families in Freedom

6. Rise of the independent and local church- more Methodist and Baptist – The Black minister rises as political and social leaders • Education – people flocked to get education – Freedman Bureau schools overwhelmed. Daytime for children, evening hours for adults. Church and School

8. The vote symbolized freedom and equality to the Freedman • Secondly the ownership of land was important. (Rumors of 40 acres and a mule) • Patriotism run rampant – enormous 4th of July celebrations Political Freedom

9. Established to set up free labor system in the South • Duties – establish schools, provide aid for the aged and the poor, provide health care, settling disputes between landowners • Very daunting – fewer than 1,000 agents led by General O.O. Howard The Freedman’s Bureau

10. Andrew Johnson ordered all of the land in Federal hands returned to the former owners. • Most Blacks will be landless and be poor during much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Failure of Land Reform

11. Sharecropping

12. Tenancy & the Crop Lien System

13. Presidential Reconstruction

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

15. Offered amnesty upon simple oath to all except Confederate civil and military officers and those with property over $20,000 (they could apply directly to Johnson) • In new constitutions, they must accept minimumconditions repudiating slavery, secession and state debts. • Named provisional governors in Confederate states and called them to oversee elections for constitutional conventions. President Johnson’s Plan (10%)

16. Disenfranchised certain leading Confederates. • Pardoned planter aristocrats brought them back to political power to control state organizations. • Republicans were outraged that planter elite were back in power in the South! EFFECTS?

17. Many Southern state constitutions fell short of minimum requirements. • Johnson granted 13,500 special pardons • Revival of southern defiance. • BLACK CODES Growing Northern Alarm!

18. Purpose: • Guarantee stable labor supply now that blacks were emancipated. • Restore pre-emancipationsystem of race relations. Black Codes

19. Congress bars Southern Congressional delegates. • Joint Committee on Reconstruction created. • February, 1866 – President vetoed the Freedmen’s Bureau bill. • March, 1866 – Johnson vetoed the 1866 Civil Rights Act. • Congress passed both bills over Johnson’s vetoes - 1st in U. S. history!! Congress Breaks with the President

20. Radical (Congressional) Reconstruction

21. Ratified in July, 1868. • Provide a constitutional guarantee of the rights and security of freed people. • Insure against neo-Confederate political power. • Enshrine the national debt while repudiating that of the Confederacy. • Southern states would be punished for denying the right to vote to black citizens! 14th Amendment

22. The Balance of Power in Congress

23. Johnson’s “Swing around the Circle” • A referendum on Radical Reconstruction. • Johnson made an ill-conceived propaganda tour around the country to push his plan. • Republicanswon a 3-1majority in both houses and gained control of every northern state. The 1866 Bi-Election

24. Civil authorities in the territories were subject to military supervision. • Required new state constitutions, includingblack suffrage and ratification of the 13th and 14th Amendments. • In March, 1867, Congress passed an act that authorized the military to enroll eligible black voters and begin the process of constitution making. Radical Plan for Readmission

25. Military Reconstruction Act Restart Reconstruction in the 10 Southern states that refused to ratify the 14th Amendment. Divide the 10 “unreconstructed states” into 5 military districts. Reconstruction Acts of 1867

26. Reconstruction Acts of 1867 • Command of the Army Act • The President must issue all Reconstruction orders through the commander of the military. • Tenure of Office Act • The President could not remove any officials [esp. Cabinet members] without the Senate’s consent, if the position originally required Senate approval. • Designed to protect radicalmembers of Lincoln’s government. • A question of the constitutionality of this law. Edwin Stanton

27. President Johnson’s Impeachment • Johnson removed Stanton in February, 1868. • Johnson replaced generals in the field who were more sympathetic to Radical Reconstruction. • The House impeached him on February 24 before evendrawing up the charges by a vote of 126 – 47!

28. Waving the Bloody Shirt! Republican “Southern Strategy”

29. 1868 Presidential Election

30. 1872 Presidential Election

31. Black Senate & House Delegates

32. Colored Rulein the South?

33. Blacks in Southern Politics • Core voters were black veterans. • Blacks were politically unprepared. • Blacks could register and vote in states since 1867. • The 15th Amendment guaranteedfederal voting.

34. 15th Amendment • Ratified in 1870. • 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. • The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. • Women’s rights groups were furious that they were not granted the vote!

35. States could discriminate on bases other than race: • Illiteracy • Inability to pay taxes • Later Grandfather clause Loopholes

36. The “Invisible Empire of the South”

37. The Failure of Federal Enforcement • Enforcement Acts of 1870 & 1871 [also known as the KKK Act]. • “The Lost Cause.” • The rise of the“Bourbons.” • Redeemers(prewarDemocrats and Union Whigs).

38. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 • Crime for any individual to deny full &equal use of public conveyances andpublic places. • Prohibited discrimination in jury selection. • Shortcoming lacked a strongenforcement mechanism. • No new civil rights act was attemptedfor 90 years!

39. Legal Challenges • The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)The rights of citizens now that they have been defined. • Bradwell v. IL (1873)People don’t have the right to certain professions • U. S. v. Cruickshank (1876)States had to enforce 2nd Amendment Rights for African Americans. The 14th amendment covers only civil rights violations by the states , not private individuals • U. S. v. Reese (1876) The 15th Amendment does not guarantee the right to vote; just discrimination

40. The Abandonment of Reconstruction

41. Northern Support Wanes • “Grantism” & corruption. • Panic of 1873 [6-yeardepression]. • Concern over westwardexpansion and Indian wars. • Key monetary issues: • should the government retire $432m worth of “greenbacks” issued during the Civil War. • should war bonds be paid back in specie orgreenbacks.

42. 1876 Presidential Tickets

43. “Regional Balance?”

44. 1876 Presidential Election

45. Two products of the Civil War and Reconstruction • An empowered national state (Morrill Land Grant College Act, Pacific Railway Act, the Homestead Act, and a new financial policy) with a new relationship between the federal government and the states. • The idea of a national citizenry enjoying equality before the law (14th and 15th amendments) The Great Constitutional Revolution