Reconstruction in the South

1. Reconstruction in the South Section 3 Chapter 17

2. Focus Questions • What reforms did Reconstruction government carry out? • What factors led to the end of Reconstruction? • How did southern laws and governments change after Reconstruction ended?

3. Reconstruction Governments • The Republican Party controlled most southern governments because the 14th Amendment banned many former Confederates from holding office • Most officeholders were unpopular with the majority of southern whites • Carpetbaggers were northerners who moved to the south after the war • Many southerners felt the northerners were making a profit on Reconstruction

4. Reconstruction Governments • Southern Republicans were called scalawags (“Mean fellows”) and were mostly small farmers who supported the union during the war • African-Americans were the largest number of Republican voters • African-Americans also served in many government positions both locally and nationally

5. Reconstruction Governments • Hiram Revels was the first African-American elected the U.S. Senate (took over for Jefferson Davis) • Blanche K. Bruce was the first African-American to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate

6. Reconstruction Governments • Reconstruction governments helped establish the first state funded schools and also also built new hospitals, prisons, and orphanages and passed laws prohibiting discrimination • To get money for these projects the governments raised taxes and issued bonds

7. Opposition to Reconstruction • Most white southerners opposed Reconstruction • Democrats disliked that soldiers were stationed in their states and also that African-Americans could hold office

8. Opposition to Reconstruction • In 1866 a group of white southerners in Tennessee created the Ku Klux Klan • The Klan disguised themselves with robes and used violence and terror against African Americans, Republicans, and public officials • The Klan grew in numbers in the south

9. Opposition to Reconstruction • Congress made it a federal crime to interfere with an election or deny citizens equal protection • Within a few years the Klan was not an organized threat but violence against African Americans and Republicans continued

10. The End of Reconstruction • The General Amnesty Act of 1872 allowed former Confederates to hold public office • Soon many Confederates were elected to southern governments and most opposed Reconstruction • President Grant (Republican) was elected in both 1868 and 1872 but soon afterward the Democrats began taking control in the north

11. The End of Reconstruction • The Panic of 1873 put the economy in a sever economic depression and Democrats won control of the House of Representatives in 1874 • The Civil Rights Act of 1875 guaranteed African Americans equal rights in public places and was a major victory for the Republicans • By 1876, many Republicans were tired of Reconstruction

12. The End of Reconstruction • Republican candidate for president in 1876 was Rutherford B. Hayes who wanted to end federal Reconstruction • Democrats again in the south used violence to keep Republicans from the polls • The Democratic candidate Samuel Tilden appeared to have won the presidential election in 1876 but the Republicans challenged the results in four states • A special election commission made up of ten members of Congress decided to give all four disputed states to Hayes and therefore Hayes would win by one electoral vote

13. The End of Reconstruction • In the Compromise of 1877, Democrats agreed to accept the Hayes victory but in return all federal troops had to be removed from the south • Shortly after taking the presidency, Hayes removed the last of the federal troops from the south

14. Jim Crow Laws and Plessy v. Ferguson • Slowly Democrats regained control of state governments • Democrats were also called Redeemers • Redeemers wanted to limited the size of the government and limit the rights of African-Americans • Redeemers also set up the poll tax to try to deny African Americans the right • The poll tax was a tax a person had to pay before they could vote

15. Jim Crow Laws and Plessy v. Ferguson • Some states also required voters to pass a literacy test • A grandfather clause made it so that a person did not have to pay a poll tax or pass a literacy test if their father or grandfather voted in an election before 1867 • Redeemers also introduce legal segregation, the forced separation of whites and African Americans in public places

16. Jim Crow Laws and Plessy v. Ferguson • Jim Crow laws– laws that require segregation (very common in the south) • African Americans challenged Jim Crow laws in court • They had very little luck as the Supreme Court ruled that the fourteenth Amendment only applied to actions of state government

17. Jim Crow Laws and Plessy v. Ferguson • Plessy v. Ferguson was a Supreme Court Case that had far reaching affects • Homer Plessy was an African American that did not want to leave the all White section of a train and he was arrested • Plessy’s lawyers argued that the Louisiana law that did not allow African Americans to ride on the same car as whites violated his right to equal treatment under the Fourteenth Amendment • The court ruled that segregation was allowed if “separate-but-equal” facilities were provided for African Americans • John Marshall was the only justice on the Supreme Court that disagreed with this decision

18. Jim Crow Laws and Plessy v. Ferguson • This case allowed segregation to spread across the country • The separate facilities were usually of poorer quality than those created for whites • The facilities were separate and unequal

19. Focus Questions • What reforms did Reconstruction government carry out? • What factors led to the end of Reconstruction? • How did southern laws and governments change after Reconstruction ended?