Reconstruction and the Changing South

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Reconstruction and the Changing South

• U.S. History
• Chapter 18

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POSTWAR PROBLEMS

• War changed southern society forever.
• Suddenly, there was a new class of 4 million
  people known as freedman, men and women who had
  been slaves.

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POSTWAR PROBLEMS

• Major cities were ruined
• Transportation system was destroyed
• Returning soldiers faced economic uncertainty.

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STEPS TO RECONSTRUCTION

• Lincoln wanted to make rejoining the Union easy
  for the Southern states.
• Amnesty government pardon

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STEPS TO RECONSTRUCTION

• Freedmens Bureau government agency to help
  former slaves
• Bureau gave food and clothing and helped freedmen
  find jobs.
• Bureau set up schools for freedmen.

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JOHNSON BECOMES PRESIDENT

• Conflicts erupted in Congress because Republicans
  disapproved of Johnsons Reconstruction plan.
• Republicans believed Johnsons plan was too
  lenient.

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JOHNSON BECOMES PRESIDENT

• Southern states agreed to ratify the 13th
  amendment and win Presidential approval to rejoin
  the Union.
• 13th amendment banned slavery throughout the
  nation.

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SOUTH RESISTS RECONSTRUCTION

• Southern legislatures passed black codes, laws
  that severely limited the rights of freedmen.

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SOUTH RESISTS RECONSTRUCTION

• Outraged Republicans vowed to develop a stricter
  Reconstruction plan.
• They thought that black codes deprived African
  Americans of equal opportunities.

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SOUTH RESISTS RECONSTRUCTION

• Violence toward African Americans increased in
  the South.
• Literacy tests were required for freedmen to know
  sections of the Constitution in order to vote.

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RISE OF RADICALS

• Radical Republicans wanted to ensure freedmen the
  right to vote.
• Gained power by joining forces with moderate
  Republicans to reduce power of southern
  Democrats.

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RISE OF RADICALS

• Radical Republicans were led by Thaddeus Stevens
  and Charles Sumner
• Sumners Monstrous Power was slavery he
  thought Johnsons actions were allowing slavery
  to continue in the South.

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IMPEACHMENT

• Radical Republicans wanted to remove President
  Johnson from office by impeachment, or bringing
  formal charges, against him.
• Johnson was not impeached Congress cannot remove
  a President just because they disagreed with him.

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NEW FORCES IN POLITICS

• Southern leaders lost influence
• Scalawag term for Southern white Republican who
  supported Reconstruction
• Carpetbaggers Northerners who moved South for
  profit

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NEW FORCES IN POLITICS

• Joining transplanted Northerners in the new
  Southern politics were African Americans.
• Some states unfairly used laws allowing poll
  taxes, or fees to vote, to deny African Americans
  the right to vote.

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CONSERVATIVES RESIST

• Southerners were determined real power would
  remain with whites.
• A secret organization, Ku Klux Klan, spread
  terror to keep African Americans out of office.

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CONSERVATIVES RESIST

• An outbreak of violence in New Orleans against
  African Americans helped persuade voters to elect
  a Republican Congress in 1866.
• Segregation legal separation of the races

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CHALLENGE OF REBUILDING

• Reconstruction governments raised taxes to cover
  the costs of rebuilding the South.

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CHALLENGE OF REBUILDING

• South developed its own natural resources for
  making clothing to develop industry after the
  Civil War.
• Furniture makers used lumber from southern
  forests to manufacture tables and chairs.

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CYCLE OF POVERTY

• Many freedmen and poor whites went to work on
  plantation. Sharecroppers rented and farmed a
  plot.
• Most freedmen met their basic needs by returning
  to the land where they had worked as slaves.

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CYCLE OF POVERTY

• Sharecroppers would become trapped in poverty
  because they could not earn enough money to pay
  their debts to the landowner.

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END OF RECONSTRUCTION

• Radical Republicans lost power with stories of
  corruption in President Grants administration.
• Rutherford Hayes promised to remove all federal
  troops stationed in the South to gain southern
  votes.

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Good Luck on Your Test!