Reconstruction, 1865-1877

1. Reconstruction,1865-1877

2. Reconstruction • How to restore rebellious states to the Union? • Issues? • Ideas?

3. The Constitution and Reconstruction • Does not address secession or any procedure for Reconstruction • Which branch of government should handle the readmission of rebellious states?

4. Phase I:Presidential Reconstruction

5. Wartime Reconstruction: Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan • Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (1863) • Pardons to all but high-ranking Confederates willing to pledge loyalty to Union • State restored to Union when 10% of voters took oath and abolished slavery • Majority rule to “loyal rule” • Lincoln did not consult Congress

6. “Lincoln governments” (1864) formed in LA, TN, AR • Weak and dependent on Northern army for survival

7. Congressional Plans:The Wade-Davis Bill (1864) • Stricter substitute by Republicans in Congress • Oath of allegiance by majority of state’s adult white men • New state governments formed only by those who had never carried arms against Union • Permanent disfranchisement of Confederate leaders • Lincoln  pocket veto BenjaminWade(R-OH) HenryW. Davis(R-MD)

8. Lee Surrenders to Grant • Appomattox Court House, VA • April 9, 1865

9. Lincoln’s Assassination • By John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater • April 14, 1865 The Martyr of liberty (Library of Congress, Stern Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division) Available http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/alrintr.html

10. A “So Called President” in Petticoats May 1865 Available http://faculty.ithaca.edu/pponce/gallery/2290/?image_id=18023

12. The Thirteenth Amendment • December, 1865 • Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction. • Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

13. President Andrew Johnson • Jacksonian Democrat • Champion of poor whites • Anti-aristocrat • Slave owner from TN • Why Lincoln’s VP?

14. Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan • Amnesty to all southerners, except high-ranking Confederate officials and wealthy property owners, who took oath of allegiance • Appointed provisional governors for southern states • Had to repudiate slavery, secession, and state debts • Within months, all states met requirements and had rejoined Union

15. Effects? • Johnson granted 13,500 special pardons • Planter elite and ex-Confederates back in power—even Alexander Stephens heads to Congress! • Republican outrage • Revival of southern defiance ↓ BLACK CODES To drive former slaves back to plantations

16. Mississippi Black Code (1865) • Sec. 1. Be it enacted, etc.,...That all rogues and vagabonds, idle and dissipated persons, beggars, jugglers, or persons practicing unlawful games or plays, runaways, common drunkards, common night-walkers, pilferers, lewd, wanton, or lascivious persons, in speech or behavior, common railers and brawlers, persons who neglect their calling or employment, misspend what they earn, or do not provide for the support of themselves or their families, or dependents, and all other idle and disorderly persons, including all who neglect all lawful business, habitually misspend their time by frequenting houses of ill-fame, gaming-houses, or tippling shops, shall be deemed and considered vagrants, under the provisions of this act, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not exceeding one hundred dollars, with all accruing costs, and be imprisoned at the discretion of the court, not exceeding ten days.

17. Mississippi Black Code (1865) • Sec. 1. Be it enacted,...That no freedman, free negro or mulatto, not in the military service of the United States government, and not licensed so to do by the board of police of his or her county, shall keep or carry fire-arms of any kind, or any ammunition, dirk or bowie knife, and on conviction thereof in the county court shall be punished by fine, not exceeding ten dollars, and pay the costs of such proceedings, and all such arms or ammunition shall be forfeited to the informer; and it shall be the duty of every civil and military officer to arrest any freedman, free negro, or mulatto found with any such arms or ammunition, and cause him or her to be committed to trial in default of bail.

18. Pardon: Shall I pardon this man? Franchise: And not this one? 5 August 1865

19. Convention or Massacre… Which is the more illegal? 8 Sept. 1866

20. Freedmen’s Bureau • 1865 to aid former slaves (food, housing, education, health care, employment contracts with private landowners) • Congress votes to extend life and fund after war

21. Freedmen’s Bureau: Southern View

22. Civil Rights Bill (1866) • Lyman Trumbull • All persons—regardless of race—born in US to be citizens and given equal protection laws

23. Congress vs. the President • February 1866  Johnsonvetoed FB bill • March 1866  Johnsonvetoed CRA • “This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am president, it shall be government for white men.” • Congress passed both bills over vetoes  1st time in US history! Harper’s Weekly (14 April 1866)

24. Phase II: Radical Reconstruction

25. The Fourteenth Amendment (1968) • Citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” • Forbids states to deny any person “life, liberty or property, without due process of law” or to deny “equal protection of the laws”

26. 1866 Congressional Elections • A referendum on Radical Reconstruction • Republicanswon 3:1majority in both houses + gained control of every northern state Andy’s “Swing around the circle” (1866)

27. Goals and Faces of Radical Reconstruction • Primarily about remaking southern society rather than restoring the Union • Beginning with suffrage for black men • New England and upper Midwest • Senate: Charles Sumner (MA) • House: Thaddeus Stevens (PA) • “The foundations of their institutions…must be broken up and relaid, or all our blood and treasure will have been spent in vain.”

28. Reconstruction Act of 1867

29. Reconstruction Act of 1867 • Divided South into 5 military districts, each under command of a Union general • Readmission req’d vote to freedmen and disfranchising pre-war leaders • Vetoed by Johnson • Overrode by Congress

30. Tenure of Office Act (1867) • Req’d Senate consent for removal of any federal official whose appt. had req’d Senate confirmation • To protect Sec. of War Edwin M. Stanton, Lincoln holdover and only cabinet member to favor radical Reconstruction • Req’d president to issue all orders to army through commanding general, Ulysses S. Grant

31. Impeachment of President Johnson • Power given to House in Constitution to charge federal officials with “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” • 11 counts of misconduct brought—9 violations of Tenure of Office Act • 1st time in US history! • Johnson acquitted (1 Senate vote short of 2/3 majority req’d)

32. This little boy would persist in handling books above his capacity… And this was the disastrous result. 21 March 1868

33. Why Acquittal?—Issues Impacting the Decision • Reconstruction: Radicalism vs. Conservatism • Future Control of Congress • Tenure of Office Act • Personal Considerations • Benjamin Wade as President pro tempore

34. Future Control of Congress Statistics published in Harper’s Weekly, 26 May 1866 Available http://www.impeach-andrewjohnson.com/02KeyPoliticalIssues/FutureControlOfCongress.htm

35. Election of 1868: “Waving the bloody shirt” “‘We regard the Reconstruction Acts (so called) of Congress as usurpations, and unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void.’ - Democratic Platform”

36. The Fifteenth Amendment • On heels of Grant’s Republican victory in election of 1868 • Last major piece of Reconstruction legislation • States cannot deny right to vote on basis of race, color, or “previous condition of servitude” • Are there any means remaining to deny someone the right to vote?

37. The Fifteenth Amendment • Left room for poll taxes, property requirements, and literacy tests • And, duh, no women

38. Republican Rule in the South • Scalawags and carpetbaggers • African American leaders • Radical reforms, taxes, and corruption • Schools and churches • “Ole missus used to read the good book to us…on Sunday evenin’s, but she mostly read dem places where it says, ‘Servants obey your masters.’…Now we is free, there’s heaps of tings in that old book we is just suffering to learn.” (Mississippi freedman) • Sharecropping system

39. The Sharecropping System

40. Sharecroppers in Georgia (Brown Brothers)

41. Phase III:Abandoning Reconstruction-Counterrevolution &Southern “Redemption”

42. Why and how do you think Reconstruction is undone? • Who is responsible?

43. Counterrevolution • Democratic Party • Ex-Confederate voting rights • Southern patriotism • Secret organization and terrorism

44. Nathan Bedford Forrest & the KKK Forrest, c. 1865 “Worse than Slavery” (1874) Cavalry general in Confederate army Grand Wizard of KKK

45. Federal Response • KKK Act (aka Enforcement Acts) of 1871: Federal prosecutions, military intervention, and martial law to stop terrorist activities Revealed dependence on federal support, weakness of local and state Republicans in South • CRA of 1875 (Charles Sumner) • Weak enforcement • Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional 1883 • Not another attempt for 90 years!

46. Northern Acquiescence • Political cynicism • Waning enthusiasm • Rejection of wartime expansion of federal power • Liberalism: free trade, market competition, limited government

47. “Grantism” & Economic Depression • “Whiskey Ring” scandal (1875) • Panic of 1873 • Failure Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company… • Election of 1876 about the economy and political fraud, NOT Reconstruction

48. Hayes wins  Official end to Reconstruction Election of 1876 and the “Compromise of 1877” (Corrupt Bargain II?)