The Reconstruction

1. The Reconstruction Answers to the matcher review.

2. Abraham Lincoln • Lincoln’s 10% Plan would likely have been more lenient on the South than the Radical Reconstruction to follow. Sadly, he was assassinated in 1865 at the hands of John Wilkes Booth.

3. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution This amendment banned slavery in the United States permanently. In order to rejoin the Union, every former Confederate state was required to ratify the amendment. This was the pinnacle of success for abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and the martyred Elijah Lovejoy.

4. Military Rule, or Military Occupation The states of the deep South were occupied militarily at the end of the Civil War, and would remain under marshal law until the year 1877. The South was divided into five distinct military zones, and ruled accordingly. The state of Virginia, as you can see on the map to the right, was a military district to itself. One Southern state was not occupied at all? Can you see which one? Why wasn’t it occupied?

5. Andrew Johnson The Democrat and Southerner was elevated to the Presidency by the assassination of President Lincoln. Lincoln’s Vice President for his first term, Hannibal Hamlin, had been dropped from the ticket in the Election of 1864, because Lincoln wanted to prove his commitment to repairing the Union. He believed that Hamlin, an abolitionist from Maine, was too much like him politically. So he selected Johnson, the only Southern Senatory to side with the Union when the Civil War began in 1861. After Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson became the leader of the nation – but he was terribly unpopular with the Radical Republican Congress and Northerners. He would remain in office until 1869, despite an impeachment attempt and the hatred of the Congress which he was subjected to.

6. The 15th Amendment to the Constitution The 15th amendment promised that suffrage would not be denied to male voters on the basis of race, skin color, or previous condition or servitude. It was passed under the leadership of Ulysses S. Grant in 1870, and every Southern State had to approve the new amendment to the Constitution and allow African-Americans to vote in democratic elections. Although African-Americans were allowed to vote on paper, the right was largely ignored at the conclusion of the Reconstruction – after federal troops left the South and were unable to advocate for the rights of African-Americans. During the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement succeeded in securing the franchise for black citizens with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

7. Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass was a former slave who became one of the most outspoken abolitionist speakers in the United States during the Antebellum Period. He founded the newspaper The North Star in order get out the message! During the Civil War, he petitioned President Lincoln to allow newly freed slaves to serve in the United States Military. After the war, he led the Freedman’s Bureau and served as the United States ambassador to Haiti – a nation founded after a slave revolt.

8. Suffrage: The right to vote. With the passage of the 15th Amendment, African American men over a certain age gained suffrage. Women of any race, on the other hand, would not gain the right to vote until the 19th Amendment was passed, in 1919.

9. Black Codes Black codes were designed to keep African-Americans in the deep South in the condition of slavery even after slavery had been officially outlawed. Restrictions were placed on African-Americans movements and their activities; unemployed men were arrested for vagrancy and force into labor on former plantations – an obvious continuation of the old slave system. Radical Republicans did everything in their power to overturn black codes. Union Army members and members of the Freedman’s Bureau worked hard to protect the rights of freedmen and help them to get on their feet during the Reconstruction years.

10. The Fourteenth Amendment Citizenship rights were granted to anyone born in the territorial confines of the United States of America – including African-Americans and ex-Confederates, but excluding the Native American communities of the continent. The amendment created national citizenship – previously citizenship had been defined largely by the state governments.

11. Robert E. Lee After the Civil War, Robert E. Lee became the President of Washington College in Lexington, VA – and he continued to influence the people of the South with his statements. During Reconstruction, Lee shared the views of many, including President Andrew Johnson, that although slavery should be outlawed, African-Americans should not receive equal rights or suffrage.

12. Freedmen

13. The Radical Republicans Although they were called “radicals,” most Americans embrace their ideas regarding racial equality and justice today. Radical Republicans advocated for full citizenship and suffrage rights for African-Americans.

14. Ulysses S. Grant After leading the Union troops during the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant went on to be elected President between 1869 and 1877. While in office, Grant remained committed to Lincoln’s goals of equality for ‘African Americans.

15. The Compromise of 1876-77

16. Rutherford B. Hayes In exchange for a pledge that he would immediately withdraw all Union soldiers from the South and end the Reconstruction, Rutherford B. Hayes was handed the Presidency in the Election of 1876. Soon, all of the gains made during Reconstruction were washed asunder.