reconstruction period during which the u.s. began to rebuild after the civil war
TRANSCRIPT
RECONSTRUCTION
Period during which the U.S. began to rebuild after the Civil
War.
POLITICAL
• Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan: wanted to be lenient on the South – proposed that after 10% of a State’s 1860 voting lists took an oath of allegiance to the Union that State could re-enter the Union.
• Lincoln believed secession was illegal and that the states had never really left the Union. He believed Reconstruction was a matter of quickly restoring state govts
Political continued…
• Lincoln also believed that once war was over the federal govt should not punish the South but act “with malice towards none, with charity for all…to bind up the nation’s wounds…”
• The assassination of Lincoln enable Radical Republicans to influence Reconstruction in a more punitive manner.
Lincoln’s Assassination
• April 14, 1865- Pres. Lincoln is assassinated in Fords theatre during a play.
• Assassin of Lincoln is John Wilkes Booth (a famous actor). He escapes.
• Booth is cornered in a VA. barn 12 days later and is shot and killed.
Lincoln’s Assassination
4 other conspirators are tried and hanged including the first woman executed by Federal Government
Political continued…..
• The states that seceded were not allowed back into the Union immediately, but were put under military occupation.
• Radical Republicans also believed in aggressively guaranteeing voting/civil rights to African Americans.
• They clashed with President Andrew Johnson over the issue of civil rights for freed slaves.
Impeachment of President Andrew Johnson
*Radical Republicans try to stop Andrew Johnson’s political goals
*He was impeached by Congress based on a law that would later be repealed
Political still……..
• Three “Civil War Amendments” added to Constitution
• 13th Amendment: Slavery was abolished permanently in the United States
• 14th Amendment: States were prohibited from denying equal rights under the law to any American
• 15th Amendment: Voting rights were guaranteed regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude (former slaves)
Political still……
• Reconstruction ended following the close Election of 1876.
• In return for support in the electoral college vote from Southern Democrats, the Republicans agreed to end the military occupation of the South……known as the Compromise of 1877
SOCIAL
• FREEDMAN’S BUREAU: distributed food/clothing to former slaves and poor whites – set up hospitals and schools
• Black codes –restricted Af-Amer lives, they could not carry weapons, serve on juries, marry whites, etc……
• Tenant Farming/sharecropping: cycle of poverty that kept large landowners in power
Social continued….
• Many former slaves move to cities or out West to look for work – EXODUSTERS
• They set up schools/churches/join politics• Scalawags- white Southerners that joined
the Republican party for self gain• Carpetbaggers-name for Northerners that
moved South to exploit the South’s less fortunate
Social/Economic
• Ku Klux Klan- (Tenn 1866) spread rapidly thru the South, violent terrorist group whose goal was to restore white supremacy
• Panic of 1873 – series of bank failures and bankruptcies, 5 year economic depression
• South: farms, cities, railways laid destroyed – would be poorest part of country for decades
• North/Midwest – emerge as strong industrial economies
• Transcontinental Railroad – intensified movement westward after the war
Extras………….
Aftermath of war
African Americans• Some able to join army• Cycle of poverty
continues (cities and farms)
• Many move west• Education becomes
available
Common Soldiers• Many injuries due to hand
to hand combat• Wartime diaries and
letters• Return to destroyed
homes, poverty and disabilities
Women after the war•Managed homes w/ few resources•Poverty and
Hunger
*took new jobs as nurses, farmers, and in factories
Ulysses S. Grant 1.Former Union Commander becomes the 18th President
2. Opposed punishing the South
3. Supported rights for freedman
Robert E. Lee1. Urged
Southerners to reconcile and rejoin U.S.
2. President of Washington University (now W&L U)
3. Supported Education
Frederick Douglass1. Supported full
equality for African Americans
2. Supported passage of 14th and 15th Amendments
3. Rights of Freedmen
Review
• Lincoln’s view of Reconstruction?• Lincoln Assassination?• Radical Republicans wanted to _______ the South.• President Andrew Johnson?• 3 Civil War Amendments?• Compromise of 1877 ended _________ ____________
in the South.• North?• South?• West?
Review continued…
• African Americans?• Soldiers?• Women?• Ullyses S. Grant?• Robert E. Lee?• Frederick Douglass?