Reconstruction 1865-1877: A Time of Change and Challenge

1. CHAPTER 12 Reconstruction1865-1877

3. Freedmen’s Bureau (1865-1866) • Organized under the War Department to help Southern blacks who were homeless and jobless • The Bureau • Helped find them jobs and a home • Negotiated labor contracts • Built schools and hospitals • Sherman’s Special Field Order 15 • “40 acres and a mule”

4. Lincoln’s Plan • Ten Percent Plan • 1/10 of 1860 voters must swear an oath of allegiance • High ranking ex-Confederates would have to ask the president for a pardon • The new state constitutions must abolish slavery • Lincoln’s Second Inaugural • “With malice toward none and charity for all.”

5. Congress’s Plan • Wade-Davis Bill • Place the South under military rule • A majority of 1860 voters must take oath • Only those whites who did not fight voluntarily can vote/ attend their state’s constitutional conventions • New constitution must ban slavery • Former Confederate officials cannot vote

6. Congress’s Plan • Lincoln will pocket-veto Wade-Davis • Passive veto / 10 days • Congress disagrees with Lincoln’s plan • 10% is not harsh enough • Reconstruction was Congress’s job • Southern white electorate would become Democratic

7. Radical Republicans Republicans in Congress that favored harsh reconstruction terms for the South and expansion of rights for those emancipated Thaddeus Stevens, PA

8. President Andrew Johnson

9. Andrew Johnson’s Plan • Johnson believed that the small Southern farmer would remake the South into a democratic region • Amnesty offered to all former Confederates except high officials and those w/ $20,000 in property • These men could not hold state / federal office unless they ask for and receive presidential pardon • War ordinances of secession must be revoked • States must ratify 13th Amendment • Annul (cancel) Confederate war debts

10. 39th Congress • No states had provided voting rights for former slaves • Former Confederate politicians elected to U.S. Congress • Alexander Stephens, GA (former VP of CSA)

11. 40th Congress Hiram Revels, Mississippi Senator First African-American Senator

12. Black Codes Passed by Southern legislatures in 1865-1866 in response to the Freedmen’s Bureau and the 13th Amendment Allowed former slaves to: marry fellow blacks, own personal property, sue and be sued Forbade former slaves to: serve on juries, vote, carry weapons, hold public office, own land, travel without a permit, be out after curfew, assemble in groups w/out a white person present Designed to limit the rights of freed blacks

13. Black Codes Required a former slave to buy a license to work in a craft Authorized the arrest and fining of unemployed blacks Allowed for an employer to pay fines in exchange for the person’s labor

14. Civil Rights Act of 1866 • Granted citizenship to all people born in the United States and gave African Americans the right to: • Testify in court • Own land • Make contracts • Exercise all the rights of white Americans

15. 14th Amendment • Johnson vetoes the Civil Rights Act, Congress overrides his veto and passes the 14th Amendment to protect the Civil Rights Act from a court battle. • Citizenship • Due process • Equal protection under the law • Targeted former Confederate officials

16. 15th Amendment Suffrage will not be denied on the conditions of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” Gender? Age?

17. Reconstruction Act (1867) • Tennessee exempt (ratified 14th Amendment) • Military districts • 10 remaining Confederate states divided into 5 military districts • U.S. Army will oversee and enforce the law / protect the rights of former slaves

20. Johnson’s Impeached • Johnson made enemies among Republicans in Congress (Radicals especially) • Congress impeaches Johnson for violating the Tenure of Office Act • President “could not remove cabinet officers…” • Edwin Stanton / U.S. Grant • Johnson escapes removal by a single vote: (35-19)

21. Scalawags • Southerners sympathetic to Republican Reconstruction policies • Carpetbaggers • Northerners who migrated to the South for opportunity • Sharecropping and Tenant Farming • Land owners (whites) rent land to freed African Americans. High rent kept freed blacks in a cycle of poverty

23. “Croppers”

25. Grant’s Elected • 1868 US Grant is elected President of the United States • Grant’s Presidency: • Corruption • Whiskey Ring • Panic of 1873 • Gvt. Securities fail • Enforcement Acts • Protection against KKK • Liberal Republican opposition • H. Greeley in 1872

26. Rise of the KKK • Ku Klux Klan • Formed 1866 • Former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest is the first “Grand Wizard” • KKK’s goals were to: • Restore white supremacy • Incite fear among African Americans • Obstruction of black suffrage • Destroy support for the Republican Party

28. Southern Redemption Southern Democrats take back control of the South “Redeemers” benefitted by the actions of the KKK

30. Election of 1876 • Rutherford B. Hayes defeats Samuel Tilden, Democratic Governor of New York • Hayes loses the popular vote, but wins the electoral college through ignominious means • Disputed electoral votes: SC, LA, OR, FL • Electoral Commission • 15 members (8 Republicans, 7 Democrats) award election to “Rutherfraud” B. Hayes • http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showelection.php?year=1876

31. Compromise of 1877 • Democrats will drop Tilden’s claims in exchange for: • End of Reconstruction in the South • Withdrawal of federal troops (SC, LA) • Federal subsidies for infrastructure • “Home Rule”