“Radical Reconstruction”???

Failure to implement truly radical measures during reconstruction failed

to truly help southern Blacks while thoroughly angering and alienating

southern whites.

I. After Appomattox: The Ultimate Questions

• How do you reconstruct the Union?

• How far should the federal government go to insure Black freedom and civil rights?

II. Philosophies of Reconstruction

• Presidential--quick restoration with minimal protection for southern Blacks

• Congressional-- “loyal” southern governments to replace ex-confederates--Southern Blacks need basic rights of American citizenship

III. Presidential Reconstruction

• Lincoln’s 10% plan

• Battle over who had the power to reconstruct the Union

• Andrew Johnson’s background

--hated southern planters

--no friend of Blacks

• Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan (May, 1865)

IV. Radical Republicans Gain the Upper Hand

• Johnson’s controversial vetoes

• Johnson’s opposition to the 14th amendment

• The “Swing Around the Circle” (1866)

• Republicans won veto-proof majorities in the 1866 election

V. Congressional Reconstruction (Begins in 1867)

• Reconstruction Act of 1867

• Military rule of the south• Readmission of states with

guarantees of Black suffrage

• Exclusion of ex-Confederates from government office

• Radicals wanted redistribution of land to Blacks—too radical

VI. The Impeachment Crisis

• Johnson tries to obstruct congressional reconstruction with executive privilege

• Tenure of Office Act• Johnson tries to remove

Secretary of War Stanton• Impeachment and Trial in

the Senate• Process neutralized

Johnson

VII. Reconstruction in the South

• A Condition of Ruin• “Forty Acres and a Mule”• Blacks resist gang labor

after the War• Development of

Sharecropper system• Black Codes• The Segregated South• Freedmen faced violence

if they tried to vote

VIII. The Southern Republican Party

• Hastily organized for 1868 elections

• Three constituencies:--southern Blacks--northern businessmen--poor, white farmers

• Some success, some corruption

• Blacks held only limited political offices in the south

IX. The Fifteenth Amendment

• Highpoint of Reconstruction era

• Ratified in 1870

• Ambiguous wording allowed the future use of literacy tests, poll taxes, and property requirements

• Worked to divide the feminist movement

X. Grant and the Retreat from Reconstruction

• Rise of the Ku Klux Klan between 1868-1872

• Inconsistent use of federal troops to protect Black voters

• Northern disenchantment with “propping up” corrupt southern state governments

• Open southern appeal to white supremacy after 1872

X. Retreat from Reconstruction (cont.)

• Grant administration facing charges of corruption

-- Credit Mobilier scandal

• Radical Republicans dying or out of office

• Civil service reform replaces Black civil rights as the major political issue of the time

XI. The Compromise of 1877

• The election of 1876• Tilden vs. Hayes• Disputed votes in the

electoral college• Electoral commission fell

under Republican control• Hayes’ victory in

exchange for southern “home rule”

• Eliminates Republican party in the south

XII. The “New South”

• Redemption governments

• Laissez-faire policies and white supremacy

• Northern industry attracted to no taxes and low wages for workers

• Corrupt governments

XII. “The New South” (cont.)

• Lynchings common

• Poor whites neglected just as much as Blacks

• Some Blacks continue to vote until the 1890’s

• Supreme Court decisions between 1875-1896 gutted Reconstruction

--Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

XII. “The New South” (cont.)

• Signs of sectional healing: Battlefield reunions

• Sectional reconciliation made possible by northern abandonment of Black rights

• “Lost Cause” myth also helps reconcile the two regions

• Blacks bore the burden of sectional reconciliation