Chapter 13: Reconstruction and the New South

1. Chapter 13: Reconstruction and the New South 1865-1900 Section 1: Presidential Reconstruction Pages: 402-406

2. Presidential Reconstruction • The North, the Union, wins the Civil War!! • After Charleston, South Carolina, surrendered in February 1865, the city’s African American residents hosted a parade they called, “jubilee of freedom.” • African American T. Chester Morris wrote in the Philadelphia Press, “There is no describing the scene along the route. The colored population was wild with enthusiasm.”

3. Presidential Reconstruction • The Old South Destroyed: (402-403) • The Civil War inflicted mass devastation on the South, leaving many cities in ruins. • Illness swept through the South, resulting in thousands of deaths in the South in the year after the war. • The Civil War also shattered the South’s economy. • Tens of Thousands of Confederate veterans were left without jobs. • Most of the approximately 4 million emancipated slaves found themselves homeless and penniless.

4. Presidential Reconstruction • The Old South Destroyed: (402-403) • Despite the obstacles, most freed-people looked eagerly to the future. • They hoped to establish their own churches and schools and to legalize their marriages. • Many freed-people expected to choose their own livelihood. With freedom anything seemed possible, even finding family members who had been sold away. • Most African Americans hoped to have land and farm it • Most wanted land to support themselves and protect their independence • General William T. Sherman had encouraged hopes of the freed slaves by ordering part of South Carolina to be divided into 40-acre parcels and given to the freed-people. • Rumors spread that the federal government would give each freedman “40 acres and a mule.”

5. Presidential Reconstruction • President Lincoln and Reconstruction: (403-404) • President Lincoln wanted to bring the rebel states back into the Union. • He had not gone to war to destroy the South, but top preserve the Union. • Reconstruction: rebuilding the former Confederate states and reuniting the Nation

6. Presidential Reconstruction • President Lincoln and Reconstruction: (403-404) • The Beginning of Reconstruction: (403) • To encourage southerners to abandon the Confederacy, Lincoln had issued the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction on December 8, 1863 • Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction would give full pardon to all southerners – except high-ranking Confederate leaders and a few others – who would swear allegiance to the U.S. Constitution and accept federal laws ending slavery • The Proclamation also permitted a state to rejoin the Union when 10% of its residents who had voted in 1860 swore their loyalty to the nation.

7. Presidential Reconstruction • President Lincoln and Reconstruction: (403-404) • The Beginning of Reconstruction: (403) • Many members of Congress objected to this so-called Ten Percent Plan. • They did not trust the Confederates to become loyal U.S. citizens or to protect the rights of former slaves • Congress laid out its own Reconstruction plan in the Wade-Davis Bill, passed in July of 1864. • The Wade-Davis Bill called for the Confederate states to abolish slavery and to delay Reconstruction until a majority of each state’s white males took a loyalty of oath • Lincoln said he vetoes the bill because he was not ready to “be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration.

8. Presidential Reconstruction • President Lincoln and Reconstruction: (403-404) • The Beginning of Reconstruction: (403) • In his second inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1865, Lincoln clarified his goal for Reconstruction. • “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on…to bind up the nation’s wounds…to do all which may achieve…a just and lasting peace.”

9. Presidential Reconstruction • President Lincoln and Reconstruction: (403-404) • Lincoln’s Assassination: • On April 14, 1865, just days after General Robert E. Lee’s surrender, Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth shot the president as he and his wife watched a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C. • Across the country, Americans remembered Lincoln by displaying bits of black cloth outside their homes. • Many ordinary Americans feared the impact of Lincoln’s Death might have on the country. • The assassination also increased distrust between the North and South. • Many Northerners believed that Booth was part of a conspiracy organized or encouraged by Confederate leaders

10. Presidential Reconstruction • President Johnson and Reconstruction: (405) • After President Lincoln’s death, Vice President Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency. • Andrew Johnson was a Democrat, opposite of Lincoln, a one-time slaveholder, and a former U.S. Senator from Tennessee • He had been chosen as Lincoln’s Vice President because of his Pro-Union sympathies • President Andrew Johnson proved to be ill-suited to the challenges of Reconstruction; he was very prejudiced against African Americans • He favored a government run by white citizens • Johnson issued a complete pardon to all Confederate Rebels except former Confederate Officeholders and the richest planters; he pardoned these people on an individual basis • For seceded states readmission to the Union all they had to do was nullify their acts of secession, abolish slavery, and refusing to pay their debts

11. Presidential Reconstruction • President Johnson and Reconstruction: (405) • Southerners, including Robert E. Lee, enthusiastically supported President Johnson’s plan. • They liked it because it allowed Confederate leaders to take charge of Reconstruction. • Many Confederate leaders dominated the new southern state legislatures • As lawmakers, these former Confederates made sure that the new state constitutions did not grant voting rights to black freedmen. • Congress passes 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in 1865

12. Presidential Reconstruction • Black Codes: (405-406) • President Johnson’s actions encouraged former Confederates to adopt laws limiting the freedom of former slaves • These Black Codes closely resembled pre-Civil War slave codes • Mississippi, for example, simply recycled its old code, substituting the word freedman for slave

13. Presidential Reconstruction • Black Codes: (405-406) • The Black codes varied from State to State; however, they all aimed to prevent African Americans from achieving social, political, and economic equality with southern whites • African Americans could not hold meetings unless whites were present • The code also forbade them to travel without permits, own guns, attend school with whites, or serve on juries • Most importantly the codes re-established white control over African American labor

14. Presidential Reconstruction • Black Codes: (405-406) • Without slaves to do the work, “our fields everywhere lie untilled,” one white southerner said. • To force former slaves to return to the fields, some local codes did not allow African Americans from living in towns unless they were servants and from renting land outside of towns or cities • Several states required freed-people to sign long-term labor contracts and those who refused could be arrested and have their labor put up for auction. • Other codes required African Americans to obtain a special license to work in a skilled profession

15. Presidential Reconstruction • Black Codes: (405-406) • The black codes also allowed judges to decide whether African American parents could support their children. • Children without “adequate” support could be bound, or hired, out against their will. • Some courts bound out children without even informing their parents

16. Presidential Reconstruction • Black Codes: (405-406) • Many African Americans realized that emancipation had not greatly improved their daily lives. • Although African Americans immediately denounced these laws as “a disgrace to civilization,” they had little political power. Many felt that they had to accept the codes to survive. • Northerners criticized the Black Codes as an attempt to re-establish slavery.

17. THE END