Reconstruction

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Reconstruction

• 1863-1877

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Phase 1Presidential Reconstruction Plans

• 1863-Spring 1866

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Presidential Reconstruction Plans

• Lincolns Plan
• Wanted the process to be simple, meeting a
  minimum test of loyalty
• Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (1863)
• Full presidential pardons to southerners who (1)
  took an oath of allegiance to the Union and the
  Constitution and (2) accepted the emancipation of
  slaves
• State governments could be reestablished as soon
  as 10 of the population took the oath

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Presidential Reconstruction Plans

• Congressional Republican Plan
• Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
• Response by many Republicans who thought that
  Lincolns plan would allow disloyal secessionists
  to run state governments
• Required 50 of voters to take the loyalty oath
• Only non-confederates could vote on a new state
  constitution
• Lincoln pocket-vetoes the bill
• Leaves it alone until after congress adjourns

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Presidential Reconstruction Plans

• Congress was ready to reassert its power after
  the war in 1865
• Retake power of the president
• Freedmens Bureau
• (Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned
  Lands)
• Provided food, shelter, medical aid for the
  destitute
• Benefited both blacks (mostly freed slaves) and
  homeless whites
• Had the authority to resettle freed blacks on
  confiscated farmland

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Presidential Reconstruction Plans

• Led by General Oliver O. Howard
• Greatest success in education
• Established almost 3,000 schools for freed blacks
  as well as several colleges
• Helped approximately 200,000 African-Americans
  how to read
• Funding ended in 1870

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• Last public address on April 11, 1865
• Says he wants to grant the right to vote to very
  intelligent freedmen and those who were soldiers
• Suggests that he would have adopted the
  congressional Republican agenda
• Loss of intelligent flexible leader makes
  lasting reform impossible

Assassinated April 14, 1865
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Presidential Reconstruction Plans

• Andrew Johnsons Plan
• Chosen as running mate in 1864 to encourage
  pro-Union democrats to vote for the Union
  (Republican) party
• Was the only senator from a Confederate state who
  stayed loyal to the Union
• Tennessees war governor
• Problem with him leading reconstruction
• Hes a white supremacist

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Presidential Reconstruction Plans

• Plan is similar to Lincolns 10 Plan
• Provided for disfranchisement of certain groups
• (1) All former leaders and officeholders of the
  Confederacy
• (2) Confederates with more than 20,000 in
  taxable property
• Retains power to pardon disloyal southerners
• Frequently pardoned wealthy planters
• Many former Confederates in power by fall, 1865

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Presidential Reconstruction Plans

• Southern Governments of 1865
• 8 months after Johnson takes office, all 11 of
  the ex-Confederate states qualified to rejoin the
  Union
• They repudiated secession, negated debts of the
  Confederacy, ratified the 13th Amendment.
• But they didnt give blacks voting rights and
  ex-Confederates elected to congress
• Alexander Stephens, VP of the CSA elected senator
  from Georgia

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Presidential Reconstruction Plans

• Black Codes
• Restricted the rights of newly freed blacks
• Prohibited blacks from renting land or borrowing
  money to buy land
• Placed freedmen into a form of servitude by
  forcing them as vagrants and apprentices to
  sign work contracts
• Worked in cotton fields under white supervision
  for deferred wages
• Prohibited blacks from testifying against whites
  in court

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Presidential Reconstruction Plans

• Republicans begin to ask Who won the war?
• Begin to demonstrate unhappiness w/Johnson
• In 1866, Congress refuses to seat elected
  representatives and senators from former
  Confederate states
• Johnson angers them again by vetoing 2 bills
• (1) a bill increasing services and protection of
  Freedmens bureau
• (2) a civil rights bill nullifying black codes
  and guaranteeing full citizenship and equal
  rights to blacks

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Election of 1866

• Johnson launches campaign against Republicans
• Appeals to racial prejudices
• Says Equal Rights Africanization of society

• Republicans wave the bloody shirt
• Inflame northern voters by reminding them of
  wartime hardships
• Propaganda campaign against Democrats
• Since southerners are Democrats, all Democrats
  belong to the party of Rebellion and Treason

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Phase 2Congressional Reconstruction

• 1866-1872

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Congressional Reconstruction

• After election of 1866, Republicans have a 2/3
  majority in the House and Senate
• Most Republicans join the Radicals
• Feared strength of unified Democrats, especially
  since the South gained seats in Congress
• Led by Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts
  and Rep. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania

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Congressional Reconstruction

• The Radical Program
• Civil Rights Act of 1866
• Pronounces all African-Americans to be U.S.
  citizens, repudiating the Dred Scott decision,
  shield against black codes
• Fourteenth Amendment
• All people born/naturalized in U.S. are citizens
• equal protection of laws due process need
  to be protected by the states

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Congressional Reconstruction

• Joint Committee of June 1866
• Decide that the Confederates are not entitled to
  representation in Congress
• Determines that Congress, not the president has
  the power to set the conditions of readmitting a
  state
• All but renders Johnsons powers useless

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Congressional Reconstruction

• Reconstruction Acts of 1867
• Passed over Johnsons vetoes
• Placed the South under military occupation
• Divides the former Confederacy into five military
  districts under the control of the Union army
• Added the condition of ratifying the 14th
  Amendment as a readmission requirement

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Congressional Reconstruction

• Andrew Johnsons Impeachment
• 1867Congress passes Tenure of Office Act
• Prohibits the president form removing federal
  officials or military commanders without the
  Senates approval
• Probably unconstitutional
• Designed to protect cabinet Radical Republicans
• Congress wanted to maintain the military
  governments installed in the South

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Congressional Reconstruction

• Johnson dismisses Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War
• House charges Johnson with 11 high crimes and
  misdemeanors
• Impeaches, or indicts him
• First president until to be impeached
• Nixon?
• Clinton
• Senate falls one vote short of removing him from
  office
• Needed 2/3 of Senate
• Democrats and more moderate Republicans dont
  want to set precedent of removal for political
  reasons

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Congressional Reconstruction

• Fall 1868Presidential election
• Democrats had nominated Horatio Seymour
• Johnsons out no matter what
• Republicans nominate Ulysses S. Grant
• War hero, but no political experience
• Very close electionwould have lost without black
  votes

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Congressional Reconstruction

• Fifteenth Amendment (1869)
• Prohibits states from denying a citizens right
  to vote on condition of race, color, or previous
  condition of servitude
• Civil Rights Act of 1875
• Guaranteed equal accommodations in public places,
  including hotels, railroads, and theaters
• Poorly enforced, and largely ignored

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Reconstruction in the South

• Military rule by the Union army until ready for
  readmission
• Whites are the majority in all state legislatures
  except for lower house of South Carolina in 1873
• Most Republicans were native-born whites,
  freemen, and northern transplants

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Reconstruction in the South

• Scalawags
• Conservative Democrat name for Southern
  Republicans
• Carpetbaggers
• Northern newcomers who supported Republican
  policies
• Most southern white Republican interested in
  economic development for their state
• Northerners interested in new business,
  missionary work, teachers, and some were just
  plain greedy

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Reconstruction in the South

• African-American legislators
• Most were educated property-holders
• Moderates
• Two black Senators and over a dozen
  Representatives sent to Congress
• Hiram Revels takes Jefferson Daviss Senate seat
  from Mississippi
• Causes bitter resentment among disfranchised
  ex-Confederates

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Reconstruction in the SouthThe Republican Record

• Universal male suffrage
• Property Rights for Women
• Debt relief
• Modernized penal codes
• Built roads, bridges, railroads
• Hospitals, asylums, public schools for all
• Overhauled tax systems, issued bonds

• Graft and wasteful spending
• Kickbacks and bribes from govt contractors
• Decline in govt ethics
• Sharecropping
• Economic picture didnt improve for blacks
• By 1880, less than 5 of southern blacks are
  independent landowners

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Reconstruction in the North

• Idealism pushed aside, marked by greed and
  corruption in politics and business
• Rise of spoilsmen
• Give govt jobs and favors to supporters
• Crédit Mobilier Affair
• Influential Congressmen given stock by insiders
• Hiding profits of up to 348 from govt subsidies
  for building the transcontinental railroad

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Reconstruction in the North

• Election of 1872
• Republicans break apart due to scandals and
  corruption of Grant Administration
• Select Horace Greeley to run as Liberal
  Republican
• Also nominated by Democrats
• Bloody Shirt waved again
• Grant wins in a landslide

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Reconstruction in the North

• Panic of 1873
• Overspeculation by financiers and overbuilding by
  industry and railroads
• Debtors wanted more paper money issued that
  wasnt supported by gold
• In 1874, Grant sides with hard-money bankers

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Phase 3

• End of Reconstruction
• 1872-1877

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The End of Reconstruction

• During Grants second term, Radical Republicanism
  declining
• Corruption, economic problems in the north,
  waning interest in idealistic policies
• Rise of the redeemers
• Southern conservatives
• Different social backgrounds, but all wanted
• States rights, lower taxes
• Reduced spending on social programs
• White supremacy

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The End of Reconstruction

• During Republican rule, southern whites organized
  secret societies to intimidate white reformers
  and blacks
• Ku Klux Klan
• Founded by an ex-Confederate GeneralNathaniel
  Bedford Forrest
• Invisible Empire
• Burned black-owned buildings
• Flogged, murdered freedmen to prevent voting
• Congress passes Force Acts in 1870
• to stop the worst of the violence
• Enforce 14th and 15th Amendments

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The End of Reconstruction

• Amnesty Act of 1872
• Removes restrictions on ex-Confederates, except
  the highest leaders
• By 1876 Federal troops withdrawn from everywhere
  except Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina
• Democrats regain control of House of
  Representatives

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The End of Reconstruction

• Election of 1876
• Republicans nominate Rutherford B. Hayes
• Governor of Ohio
• Not involved with corruption of Grant
  Administration
• Democrats nominate Samuel J. Tilden
• Governor of New York
• Fought corruption of the Tweed Ring
• Votes contested in LA, FL, SC
• Tilden wins popular vote, needs only one
  electoral vote from one of the three states to
  win

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The End of Reconstruction

• Special electoral commission created to decide
  who gets disputed votes
• Commission 8 Republicans, 7 Democrats
• Votes 8-7 to give all electoral votes to Hayes
• Democrats threaten to filibuster the results,
  send election to the House

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The End of Reconstruction

• Compromise of 1877
• Deal worked out between the parties
• Hayes becomes President on two conditions
• Federal support for Republicans on the south
  ended immediately
• Support the building of a Southern
  transcontinental railroad
• Hayes complies with conditions, agrees to only
  serve one term

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The End of Reconstruction

• Reasons for the final failure
• End of federal military presence
• Throughout 1880s and 1890s, Supreme Court strikes
  down anti-discrimination laws
• New South supporters promised industrial
  development that never was realized
• Most blacks and whites remain poor farmers
• South increasingly fell behind the rest of the
  nation