reconstruction mr. giesler american history. reconstruction: 1865-1877 ttyn: what is freedom?...

Reconstruction

Mr. GieslerAmerican History

Reconstruction: 1865-1877

TTYN: What is freedom?

According to former president James Garfield, “it is the bare privilege of not being chained.”

TTYN: In context to what we are about to examine – What is reconstruction?

What I Know about Reconstruction

What I Learned About Reconstruction

What I Want to Learn about Reconstruction

K-W-L

What was Reconstruction?

Reconstruction- the process (politically, economically, socially, and morally) of readmitting the former Confederate states to the Union after the conclusion of the Civil War

Status of the South Cities, towns, farms…ruined

Remember Sherman’s March to the Sea?? High food prices + crop failure = starvation Confederate money is now worthless Southern economy on brink of total collapse.

Banks failed & merchants went bankrupt People were unable to pay their debts White dismay

Submit to Northern demands

Blacks And The Meaning of Freedom

What did freedom mean to the former slaves?

Escaping the injustices of slavery

Identity

Family; reconnection with sold-off and displaced family members

Church – abandoned white churches; redrew the religious map

Education


What did freedom mean to the former slaves?

Political Freedom “Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot.”

- Frederick DouglasPolitical Participation

Held mass meetings as a method to demonstrate their liberation from the regulations of slavery

13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments

Personal Freedoms Free from white supervision, acquired dogs, guns, and liquor – all

bared under slavery No longer required to obtain a pass to travel Left plantations in search of better jobs Marriage


Land Value of land as a measure of a mans freedom

“Forty acres and a mule” Many former slaves insisted that through their unpaid labor they had

acquired a right to the land”was nearly all earned by the sweat of our brows”

Political Freedom

Northern Vision for the South

Free Labor Vision Emancipated blacks enjoying the same opportunities for advancement as

northern workers Combining Northern capital, migrants, and emancipated blacks - the

Southern economy would be energized The South would come to resemble a “free society”

The Freedmen’s Bureau (1865-1870) Congressional Act Responsible for social policy Establish schools Provide aid to the poor Settle disputes between

white and blacks

Bureau agent as a promoter of racial peace in the violent South

Northern Vision for the South

1865, Johnson ordered nearly all land in federal hands returned to its former owners Confrontations – Army forcibly evicts blacks who settled on “Sherman Land”

“We want homesteads”

No land distributions Majority of rural freed people remained poor and without property

No alternatives – work on white-owned plantations

Confined to farm work, unskilled labor, and service jobs

Low wages – little or no wealth accumulation

For most blacks, freedom was a word not a reality

Radical Reconstruction

Wartime Reconstruction

Lincoln’s 10% Plan (1863) Amnesty and full restoration of rights, including property except for

slaves, to all white southerners Loyalty Oath – supporting emancipation When 10% of the voters of 1860 had taken the oath, they could elect a

new state government Abolish slavery No role in politics for blacks Goal of Plan: Shorten the War

Radical Republicans Respond Wade-Davis Bill (1864)

A majority (not one-tenth) of white male southerners to pledge support for the Union before Reconstruction could begin in any state, and guaranteed blacks equality before the law.

13th Amendment


Andrew Johnson (1865) outlines his plan for reuniting the nation

Series of proclamations – it is with these proclamations that officially marked the beginning of the Presidential Reconstruction

Pardon to nearly all white southerners who took an oath of allegiance

Restored political and property rights, except for slaves

Excluded were Confederate leaders whose prewar property valued 20K+

Suggests that his approach would be more punitive than Lincolns

Over time, most of those excluded would eventually receive a pardon

Appointed provisional Governors

State Conventions, elected by whites only that would establish loyal governments in the South

Abolish slavery

Repudiate secession


The Black Codes

Regulate lives of former slaves

Legalized marriage Ownership of propertyAccess to courts

Denied the right to testify against whites Serve on juriesServe in state militias Can’t vote Required that the freedpeople be required to work on plantations Sign a yearly labor contract

TTYN: Did the black codes truly resemble the death of slavery?


Radical Republicans React

Who Were theyTended to represent constituencies in New England and the “burned-

over” districts of the rural North Abolitionists

What they wanted Revenge – to punish the South

A larger role for government

Maintain Republican control

Pro-business

Support/fund the railroad

Liberal policies for settlers

dissolution of Johnson’s Black Codes

Give black men the right to vote

“The whole fabric of southern society must be changed. Without this, this Government can never be, as it has never been, a true republic” Thaddeus Stevens, Rep, PA


The Origins of Civil Rights

1866, Two bills proposed Extend the Freedmen’s Bureau

Civil Rights Bill, which defined all persons born in the U.S. as citizens regardless of race

No longer could states enact laws like the Black Codes

Right to make contracts, bring lawsuits, or enjoy equal protection of one person or property


The Origins of Civil Rights

TTYN: What is missing?

Johnson reacts Vetoed both bills

Congress fails to override presidential veto of Freedmen’s Bureau by one vote…Civil Rights would happen in 1866…stay tuned

Suggested he would centralize power in the national government; deprive states of the authority to regulate their own affairs

Suggested that blacks did not deserve the rights of citizenship

Made a breach between president and the Republican party

Naturalization is the process by which people can become citizens of a country hey were not born in. The United States Constitution grants Congress the power "to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization" (Article I, section 8, clause 4). Soon after the Constitution was ratified Congress passed the Naturalization Act of 1790 (1 Stat. 103). The act provided that:

any alien, being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof, on application to any common law court of record, in any one of the States wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least, and making proof to the satisfaction of such court, that he is a person of good character, and taking the oath or affirmation prescribed by law, to support the Constitution of the United States

The “Great Constitutional Revolution”

Congressional Reconstruction

Congress proceeds to adopt its own plan of Reconstruction

14th Amendment Proposed– the principle of citizenship for all persons born on the U.S.

Prohibits the states from abridging the “privileges and immunities” of citizens or denying them the “equal protection of the law”

At Johnson’s urging, every southern state but Tennessee refused to ratify

Reconstruction Act Congress adopted

Temporarily divided the South into five military districts

Called for the creation of new state governments, with black men given the right to vote


Impeachment

1867, Congress adopts the Tenure of Office Act

barring the president from removing certain officeholders, including cabinet members, without the consent of Senate

Johnson considers this an unconstitutional restriction on his authority

1868, he removed the Secretary of Defense, an ally of the Radicals

House of Rep moves for impeachment

For the first time in American history, a president is placed on trial for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Congress fails to get the two-thirds

Johnson promises he would stop interfering with Reconstruction policy

Republican’s nominate Ulysses S. Grant


15th Amendment

1868, Grant Wins

Wins by a very slime margin, which causes congress to act….WHY?

15th Amendment Adopted

prohibits the federal and state governments from denying any citizen the right to vote because of race.

Ratified in 1870

Did not extend the right to vote to women, which marked the culmination of four decades of abolitionist agitation

Stanton and Anthony opposed the amendment

Reconstructed South

1870, All Confederate states readmitted to the Union

Nearly all were under Republican control

New state constitutions drafted with black representation

State-funded public schools

State constitutions guaranteed equality of civil and political rights

Abolished practices such as whipping as a punishment for crime

Property qualifications for officeholding

Hiram Revels

Reconstructed South

No more imprisonment for debt

Black voters provide the bulk of the Republican Party’s support

highest office remained almost entirely in white hands

2000 African-Americans occupied public office

Revels and Blanche K. Bruce – first black Senators

Since 1875 only two African-Americans have served as Senators

Hiram RevelsBlanche K. Bruce

Reconstructed South

Carpetbaggers and Scalawags The New southern gov’t brought power to new groups

Many Reconstruction officials were from the north

Their opponents dubbed them “Carpetbaggers”

packed all their belongings in a suitcase and left

Why? Many were investors in land and railroads who viewed the South as an opportunity to combine personal economic advancement with the role of helping the former slaves transition into society

Reconstructed South

Carpetbaggers and Scalawags

Former Confederates reserved their greatest scorn for Scalawags

Native white Southern politicians who joined the Republican party after the war

Advocated the acceptance of and compliance with congressional Reconstruction

Unprincipled group of traitorous opportunists who had deserted their countrymen and ingratiated themselves with the hated Radical Republicans for their own material gain.

Most scalawags were nonslaveholding white farmers

Many had been Unionist and sided with the Republicans in order to prevent “rebels” from returning to power

The Overthrow of Reconstruction

Who? South Traditionalists (planters, merchants, and Democrats – bitterly opposed the new governments

Why?

Republicans in their view = “Black Supremacists”

Most white southerners could not accept the idea of former slaves voting, holding office, and enjoying equality before the law


How?

“A Reign of Terror”

Civil War ended in 1865, but pocket of violence continued

Blacks were assaulted and murdered for refusing to give way to whites

Secret Societies, which were aimed at preventing blacks from voting and destroying the organization of the Republican Party by assassinating local leaders


KKK Served as the military arm of the Democratic Party in the South

Tennessee, 1866

Led by planters, merchants, and Dems

Attacked white and black

Anyone who defied White Supremacy

Carpetbaggers and Scalawags

A Reign of Terror

Southern governments appeal to Washington for help

Enforcement Acts

outlawing terrorist societies

allow the president to use the army

These laws continued the expansion of national authority during Reconstruction

Terror lasted until 1872

A Reign of Terror

The North’s Retreat

Liberal Republicans – a new flock of Northern politicians increasingly felt that the South should now be able to solve its own problems without the help from Washington In their opinion – the gov’t had feed the slaves, made them citizens, and given them the right to vote. Now, blacks should rely on their own resources, not demand further assistance Corruption inside Grants Admin A new Republican Party formed – Liberal Republicans

Believed that men of talent and education had been pushed aside They were convinced that the “best men” of the South had been

excluded from powerBelieved ignorant votes controlled politicsPower should be returned to the region’s natural leaders

The Redeemers

Democrats regained control of states Called themselves RedeemersClaimed to have redeemed the white South from corruption, misgovernment, and northern and black control Violence persists and Grant stays away

The Disputed Election and Bargain of 1877 Rep. Hayes vs. Dem Tilden…too close to call 1877, Congress appoints a 15-member Electoral Commission Rep. have an 8-7 edge; Hayes Wins!

recognize Democratic control of the SouthAvoid further intervention in local affairs Hayes agrees to place a southerner in the cabinet

Hayes kept his promises (most of them) Reconstruction ends

To be continued during our next unit….

The New South

reconstruction mr. giesler american history. reconstruction: 1865-1877 ttyn: what is freedom?...

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