Reconstruction and Its Aftermath 1865-1877

1. Reconstruction and Its Aftermath1865-1877

2. Section 1: Reconstruction Plans

3. What Now?

4. The Post-war South • Economic life had slowed almost to a halt. • Banks and businesses had closed due to inflation. • The former Confederate states didn’t produce as large a cotton crop as they had in 1860 until 1870, and much of that came from the Southwest.

5. The 10% Reconstruction Plan • Abraham Lincoln denied that secession was constitutional in the first place, and so reunion was not supposed to be difficult. Basically, there was a big difference between a civil war and a war between different nation-states. • Lincoln wanted a given southern state to be reintegrated once 10% of its 1860 voters swore allegiance to the United States and pledged to abide by Emancipation. Then a state government could be elected.

6. The 50% Reconstruction Plan: 1864 Wade-Davis Bill • The Republicans in Congress feared the return of the same Southern aristocracy and re-enslavement. Instead of Lincoln’s 10% standard, this bill (by Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio and Representative Henry Winter Davis of Maryland) demanded that at least 50% of a state’s 1860 voters take an oath of allegiance. • Lincoln used a “pocket veto” against the bill (that’s when a president refuses to sign a bill when Congress adjourns). • As a result, Congressional Republicans refused to seat Louisiana delegates after they met Lincoln’s conditions.

7. Secession: Legality? • Many argued that the Southern states had left the Union when they seceded. One could hold to that position on the ideological basis of social contract theory, or one could hold to that position in order to better punish/weaken the post-war South. • Most Republicans agreed with Lincoln (but still wanted reunion on Congress’ terms), but the “Radical Republicans” were a growing minority who favored the above approach; the seceded states were conquered territories and Congress could do what it pleased with them.

8. Freedmen’s Bureau • On March 3, 1865, Congress created the Freedmen’s Bureau to help out the newly freed black slaves (freedmen). They lacked jobs, money, and education. • “Primitive welfare agency” • Provided food, clothing, medical care, and education to freedmen and white refugees. • Taught 200,000 blacks how to read. • The Bureau was authorized to settle the freed slaves on 40 acre tracts formerly belonging to the Confederates, but a lot of trickery prevented this transition from occurring. • Andrew Johnson had some white supremacist views and helped to eliminate the Freedmen’s Bureau; it expired in 1872, five years before the end of Reconstruction.

9. The Lincoln Assassination • April 14, 1865 (Good Friday), 5 days after the Southern surrender • Fanatically pro-Southern actor, John Wilkes Booth, shot Lincoln in the back of the head at Ford’s Theatre. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBLsOQPu23U

10. The Presidency of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson was a Democrat in Congress from Tennessee who refused to secede with his state. He was picked as Lincoln’s Vice President for the 1864 “North only” election because the Union Party needed support from the Northern War Democrats. • When Lincoln was assassinated, he was inaugurated as the new President, finishing the rest of Lincoln’s 1864-1868 term. • Never attended school, but was an apprentice to a tailor. He taught himself how to read and his wife taught him how to write.

11. Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan • President Johnson agreed with Lincoln that the states had never left the Union; he recognized several states on the basis of the 10% plan. • On May 29, 1865, Johnson issued a Reconstruction Proclamation. • Leading Confederates were disenfranchised (couldn’t vote) • Special state conventions would repeal the ordinances of secession & repudiate Confederate debts • Southern states had to ratify the 13th Amendment

12. The 13th Amendment • Congress passed the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865. It prohibited all forms of slavery and involuntary servitude. • Text: • Amendment XIII. Slavery Prohibited Slavery Forbidden. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

13. Emancipation • The Thirteenth Amendment immediately took care of slavery in Kentucky, Delaware, and the rest of the North (where it was already illegal in each state). • The individual states of Missouri, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Maryland took action to end slavery from 1863-1865. • The Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves in the rest of the Confederacy in 1863, but the 13th Amendment codified this.

14. Section 1 Assessment 1) Reconstruction – the reorganization and rebuilding of the former Confederate states after the Civil War. Amnesty – the granting of pardon to a large number of persons; protection from prosecution for an illegal act. Radical – extreme. Freedmen – a person freed from slavery.

15. Section 1 Assessment 2) What did the Thirteenth Amendment provide? - Freedom from slavery throughout the United States. 3) Why do you think both Lincoln and the Radical Republicans excluded former Confederate officers from their Reconstruction plans? - They wanted to punish former Confederates as traitors.

16. Section 1 Assessment 4) Do you think President Johnson’s early ties to the South influenced his treatment of African Americans in his Reconstruction Plans? Explain your answer. - Answers vary, but remember that his attitudes reflected views similar to many Southerners. 5) Re-create the diagram below and compare Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan to the Radical Republicans’ Wade-Davis Bill.

17. Section 1 Assessment 6) Study the painting on page 501. What words would you use to describe the mood of the people? - Sad, dejected, hopeless, gloomy, depressed.

18. Section 2: Radicals in Control

19. Confederate Congressmen? • After meeting President Johnson’s stipulations, Southern voters voted for new representatives. This included former Confederates, even their former Vice President, Alexander H. Stephens. • Congress refused to seat the new representatives.

20. Black Codes • From 1865-1866, laws passed throughout the South to restrict the rights of emancipated blacks, particularly with respect to negotiating labor contracts. Increased Northerners’ criticisms of Andrew Johnson’s lenient Reconstruction policies.

21. Black Codes • The Black Codes enabled plantation owners to exploit African American workers. • Not literally enslaved, but working conditions and the lack of independence could be very much the same. • Unemployed workers could be arrested and fined and forced to work for whites in order to pay off the fines.

22. The 1866 Civil Rights Bill/Act • President Johnson vetoed a February 1866 extension of the Freedmen’s Bureau. • The Republicans responded by passing, in March of 1866, the 1866 Civil Rights Bill. It gave blacks American citizenship and attacked the Black Codes. • President Johnson argued repeatedly that this measure was unconstitutional and then vetoed it.

23. Override • But Congress did a congressional override in April of 1866; constitutionally, 2/3 of each house of Congress (a supermajority) can override a presidential veto.

24. Result • Both the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill and the 1866 Civil Rights Act became law.

25. The 14th Amendment • Republicans wanted to push through the substance of the 1866 Civil Rights Bill so that if Southerners won back Congress they would be hard-pressed to undo Reconstruction’s progress. • The Republicans proposed an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in June of 1866 and it was ratified by ¾ of all of the states in the Union by 1868.

26. The 14th Amendment • Republicans did not want to allow any state back into the Union which didn’t ratify the 14th Amendment. • ALL of the Southern states, sans Tennessee, rejected the 14th Amendment. This was encouraged by President Johnson (the amendment process does not include the president).

27. Part I • Amendment XIV. Civil Rights for Ex-slaves, etc. 1. Ex-slaves made citizens; U.S. citizenship primary. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 2. When a state denies citizens the vote, its representation shall be reduced. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

28. Part II 3.Certain persons who have been in rebellion are ineligible for federal and state office. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. 4.Debts incurred in aid of rebellion are void. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void. 5.Enforcement. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

29. Midterm Elections of 1866 • President Johnson urged rejection of the 14th Amendment and campaigned against Republicans in Congress. • Northerners were offended by his campaign and concerned about race riots. • The Republicans increased their majorities in both houses making Congressional bills veto-proof. Biggest majority in the House by one party, ever.

30. 1st 1867 Reconstruction Act • On March 2, 1867, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act. It divided the South into five military districts commanded by a Union general and garrisoned by 20,000 soldiers. Tens of thousands of former Confederates were also disenfranchised. • The Southern states also had to amend their state constitutions to give adult male blacks the right to vote.

31. Why? • Expand the electorate to include those who would *definitely* help the states get back into the Union and get Congress of the hook for protecting the rights of blacks. • A further element was that providing the vote to former slaves was forced upon the South when Northern states still did not have it (prior to the 15th Amendment).

32. 2nd 1867 Reconstruction Act • A second act was passed that required the military commanders of the military districts to: • Begin registering voters • Prepare for new state constitutional conventions

33. Johnson’s Impeachment • In 1867, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act. When Johnson vetoed it, Congress managed to get 2/3 of each house to override his veto. • The law required the president to get Congressional approval for the removal of appointees just as the president already had to get Congressional approval when they were appointed in the first place. It gave Congress more oversight authority.

34. Johnson dismissed Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton in 1868. The House of Representatives responded by voting 126 to 47 to impeach Johnson, making him the first president ever to be impeached (the second and last one to be impeached was President Bill Clinton in 1998).

35. The Senate Trial • Johnson’s defense was based on the idea that he violated the 1867 Tenure of Office Act in order to force a showdown before the Supreme Court, which he thought would declare the law unconstitutional. • On May 16, 1868, the Senate missed a 2/3 majority necessary for conviction by just one vote; 7 Republicans voted “not guilty.” Johnson remained president rather than being kicked out of office.

36. Results • House: Guilty (Impeachment) • Senate: Not Guilty (No Conviction) • Politics, which caused the conditions that led to the cause of the impeachment proceedings in the first place, played a role in derailing the efforts at conviction. • Senators who avoided a “guilty” vote didn’t want to be too heavy-handed, didn’t want president pro tempore Benjamin Wade to become president, and perhaps most important of all: Johnson implicitly promised to stop obstructing Republican policies.

37. Johnson’s Vindication • Fifty-eight years later, in 1926, the Supreme Court ruled in Myers v. United States thata law similar to the 1867 Tenure of Office Act unconstitutional. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VMg9C1zGuY

38. The 15th Amendment • Congress passed the 15th Amendment to codify the Reconstruction Act; specifically, the right of black males to vote. • Text: • Amendment XV. Suffrage for Blacks. • 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. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

39. The Civil War Amendments • The 1865 13th Amendment constitutionalized the principles of the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. • The 1866-68 14th Amendment constitutionalized the principles of the 1866 Civil Rights Bill. • The 1869-70 15th Amendment constitutionalized the principles of the 1867 Reconstruction Act

40. The Civil War Amendments These three amendments are worth noting… Freedom, Citizenship, and finally, Voting

41. Women's Rights • The three Reconstruction-era Amendments were a disappointment to advocates of women’s rights. They would have to wait over 50 more years for the 19th Amendment. • The Women’s Loyal League had gathered nearly 400,000 signatures on petitions asking Congress to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery.

42. Union League • Reconstruction-era African American organization that worked to educate Southern blacks about civic life, built black schools and churches, and represented African American interests before government and employers. • It also campaigned on behalf of Republican candidates and recruited local militias to protect blacks from white intimidation.

43. The Presidential Election of 1868 • Ulysses S. Grant “waving the bloody shirt” which involved reviving memories of the bloody fighting during the Civil War in order to elicit sympathy and thus garner political support. • The Democrats nominated former New York Governor Horatio Seymour, who supported redemption of Civil War bonds in greenbacks.

44. Racism in the Election

45. Election Results

46. Ex parte Milligan (1866) • The Supreme Court ruled that military tribunals could not try civilians, even during wartime, in areas where the civil courts were open. • But the Court refrained from applying this to Congress’ Reconstruction efforts.

47. Texas v. White (1869) • In 1869, the Supreme Court argued in Texas v. White that secession was inherently unconstitutional, and the pre-Civil War efforts on the part of the Southern States to secede were “absolutely null.” • The Chief Justice was Salmon P. Chase, a member of Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet. He argued that the Articles of Confederation created a “perpetual” union which was intensified by the U.S. Constitution. He reasoned that the Union must have been indissoluble because the Constitution was created to “form a more perfect union.”

48. Section 2 Assessment 1) Black codes – laws passed in the South just after the Civil War aimed at controlling freedmen and enabling plantation owners to exploit African American workers. Override – to overturn or defeat, as a bill proposed to Congress. Impeach – to formally charge a public official with misconduct in office.

49. Section 2 Assessment 2) Discuss two ways Southerners violated Lincoln’s plan for Reconstruction. - Former Confederate officials were chosen for congressional representatives, and treatment of African Americans did not improve. 3) How did Congress challenge the black codes set up by Southern states? - It granted power to the Freedmen’s Bureau to prosecute those who violated rights of African Americans; passed Civil Rights Act of 1866.

50. Section 2 Assessment 4) Of you had been a member of the Senate, would you have voted for or against convicting President Johnson. Why? - Answers vary. 5) Re-create the diagram below and answer the questions about these amendments.