Post on 27-Dec-2015
transcript
http://www.archives.gov/research_room/research_topics/civil_war/civil_war_photos.html
ReconstructionAngela Brown
Reconstruction
• Americans struggled to rebuild the South from 1865-1877
• Four presidents were involved
• http://encarta.msn.com/• media_461530633/• American_Civil_War_• Destruction.html
Physical and Human Toll
• 2/3 of southern shipping destroyed
• 9000 miles of railroads destroyed
• Farms, livestock, homes, bridges destroyed
• Property value dropped 70%.
• The North had lost 364,000 soldiers including 38,000 African Americans.
• The South lost 290,000 or 1/5th of its adult white men.
• One out of three southern men were killed or wounded.
• http://www.civil-war.net/cw_images/files/images/695.jpg
Southerner’s Hardships
• The south was made up of three major groups..– Black Southerners– Plantation owners– Poor white
southerners
• http://www.cityofbarnesville.com• /5/images/2080.jpg
Lincoln’s Plan
• Lincoln wanted to restore the Union gently.
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/Thomas_Nast/Thomas_Nast_Grant_Lee.jpg
Provision One
Offered a pardon to nearly all Southerners who pledged an oath of loyalty and accepted the elimination of slavery.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/railroad/j1.html
Provision Two
• Once 10 percent of a Confederate state’s voters had taken a loyalty oath, that state could resume full participation in the union.http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Confederate_Cabinet.htm
Lincoln’s Plan
• It denied pardons of all Confederate military and government officials and to southerners who had killed African American war prisoners.
• It did not require the new constitutions to give voting rights to black Americans.
• Nor did it “readmit” southern states to the Union. Lincoln viewed their succession as unconstitutional.
http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/HIUS403/
freedmen/images/blackworkers.JPG
Radical Republicans
• Some Republicans criticized Lincoln’s plan as to easy on the South.
• They wanted to punish the Confederate states and make major changes in the South.
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/Southern_Exiles.htm
Congressional Reconstruction
• Congress passed its own tough Reconstruction bill, the Wade Davis Act, in July 1864.
• It proposed putting the South under military rule.
• Lincoln refused to sign it.
http://www.civil-war.net/cw_images/files/images/188.jpg
Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln’s Assassination
• Lincoln was murdered by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865.
• Vice-President Andrew Johnson became President.
• A one-time slave owner from the South; with a strong hatred of southern planters.
http://www.civil-war.net/cw_images/files/images/198.jpg
John Wilkes Booth
The Thirteenth Amendment
• This amendment abolished slavery in the United States.
• It became law in December 1865.
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/slavery_pictures.htm
Johnson’s Plan
• Johnson’s plan was known as Presidential Reconstruction.
• Johnson followed most of Lincoln’s Reconstruction plan.
• He offered amnesty and the return of property to all Southerners who would take an oath of loyalty to the Union.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Johnson
More Generous to the South?
• States were required to void secession, abolish slavery, and ratify the Thirteenth Amendment.
• It officially denied pardons to all Confederate leaders but Johnson often issued pardons to those who asked him personally.
• He pardoned 13,000 southerners in 1865.
http://members.aol.com/historybks/images/gasoldr1.gif
The Freedmen’s Bureau
• Created by Congress in March 1865 to help black southerners adjust to freedom.
• It was the first federal relief agency.
• 250,000 African American students received their first formal education.
• Largely dismantled in 1869
• http://cla.calpoly.edu/~lcall/204/freedmans_cartoon.jpg
Black Codes
• Laws that restricted freedmen’s rights.• Curfews (couldn’t gather after sunset)• Vagrancy Laws (not working = fined, whipped,
sold for a year’s labor)• Labor Contracts (sign in January for a year)• Limits on women’s rights (forced farm labor)• Land restrictions (rent land or homes only in
rural areas)
http://www.africanaheritage.com/graphics/images
/AfricanAmericanFamilyLiveOak400.jpg
The Fourteenth Amendment
• Outraged over the black codes…
• The Radicals drafted a constitutional amendment which gave African Americans the rights of citizens.
• Ratified by the states in 1868
http://www.schoolhousevideo.org/media/MRcartoon.jpg
Election of 1866
• The Radicals gained control of the House and Senate.
• They now had the strength to implement their plan.
• Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867.
Radical Reconstruction
• It abolished the South’s new state governments and required new state constitutions.
• It placed them under military rule, five districts were governed by a northern general.
http://www.swcivilwar.com/RichmondDestruction7.html
More Restrictions
• Required all qualified male voters, including African Americans to be allowed to vote.
• Temporarily barred southerners who had supported the Confederacy from voting.
• It required southern states to guarantee equal rights to all citizens.
• It required the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment.
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/
media_content/m-8877.jpg
The Fifteenth Amendment
• In 1869, Congress protected African Americans right to vote by passing the Fifteenth Amendment.
• In 1870, with federal troops stationed across the south, proud African Americans voted…republican.
• Many whites refused to vote = landslide republican victories and African American office holders.
• http://www.allenscreations.com/images/mkmor.jpg
Carpetbag Government
• Government in the Southern States was left to “scalawags” and “carpetbaggers”.
• Carpetbaggers were Northern Republicans who moved to the south.
• Scalawags were white southern republicans.
http://encarta.msn.com/media_461520820/Cartoon_of_the_Carpetbaggers.html
The Tenure of Office Act
• This act passed by Congress in March 1867, prohibited the President from removing certain government officials without Senate approval.
• Johnson ignored the act and removed his secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton – the only cabinet member who openly sided with the Radicals.
http://www.picturehistory.com/find/p/598/mcms.html
Impeachment
• In response to Johnson’s violation of the Tenure of Office Act, the House voted to impeach the President in February 1868.
• The Senate narrowly found Johnson not guilty. He was acquitted by one vote.
http://www.picturehistory.com/find/p/12157/mcms.html
Election of 1868
• The Radical Republicans nominated Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant.
• The Democrats chose Horatio Seymour, a former governor of New York.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-11,GGLD:en&q=Ulysses+S+Grant+pictures
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1862/horatio-seymour.htm
Did you know?
• Upon leaving office, President Andrew Johnson won election to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee in 1874.
• He died in July 1875, just months after taking his Senate seat.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-11,GGLD:en&q=us+flag+pictures
Reconstruction Ends
• President Grant won reelection in 1872.
• He tried to pursue the goals of Reconstruction.
• Government corruption reminded voters of the faults of reconstruction.
• Legislature taxed and spent heavily.
• Reconstruction came to symbolize corruption, greed, and poor government.
Solid South
• As federal troops withdrew from the South, white-dominated southern states blocked many federal Reconstruction policies.
• Northern voters never fully supported the Radicals’ goal of racial equality.
• 1872 the last ex-confederates were pardoned.
• They joined with other white southerners to form a new bloc of democratic voters called the solid south.
• They reversed many reforms of the Reconstruction legislatures.
The Election of 1876
• Republican Rutherford B. Hayes lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel Tilden of the solid south.
• The electoral vote was disputed.
http://www.civil-war.net/cw_images
/files/images/198.jpg
President Hayes
Compromise of 1877
• Democrats agreed to give Hayes the Presidency.
• The new President would remove the remaining federal troops from the South.
• He would give huge subsidies to Southern railroads.
• Democrats regained the control of southern politics.
• This marked the end of Reconstruction.
• For years historians marked Reconstruction as a dismal failure.
• The truth is more complex.
Successes of Reconstruction
• The union was rebuilt and the South was repaired.
• Economic growth was stimulated in the South and new wealth created in the North.
• The 14th and 15th Amendments were passed.• The Freedmen’s Bureau helped black families.• Southern States adopted the system of tax-
supported, mandatory education practiced in the North.
Failures of Reconstruction
• Most black southerners remained in a cycle of poverty with little hope of escape.
• After federal troops withdrew Southern State governments and the Ku Klux Klan denied African Americans the right to vote.
• Left bitterness toward the federal government and the Republican party by most southerners.
• Racial attitudes continued in the South and North.
• Southern economy (agricultural) lagged behind the industrialized North.
• http://www.cursor.org/images/klan.jpg