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Reconstruction and the New South
Chapter 15
• The era of Reconstruction was one of the most controversial in our nation’s history
• Southerners interpreted it as a vindictive North exacting revenge while Northerners viewed The South as unrepentant and unwilling to abandon its slave culture
• For African Americans throughout the nation, Reconstruction began a slow and tortured process to gain civil rights and freedoms in America
• As the Civil War ended, the physical destruction in the states of the former Confederacy was unparalleled in American History
• Approximately 258,000 Confederate soldiers died, and a substantial proportion of private and pubic property was destroyed
• In its defeat, the South embraced a myth of the “lost Cause,” which looked back nostalgically to the South before the war
• Almost 200,000 African American had served in the Union armies and others labored in Confederate service
• At the end of the war, many left their former plantations to look for economic opportunities and to unite broken families, but they had no property and nowhere to go
• In 1865, the South was in disarray
• What freedom would mean in the postwar United States was unclear• Most African Americans wanted the rights and freedom enjoyed by whites, but
there was disagreement about what this mean• The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, but no one was quite sure how
society was to be structured and the labor force reestablished• Americans were not familiar with a large and intrusive national government • Both the government and the American people were unsure of how to proceed to
turn the civil war victory into lasting changes in American society• For their part, African‐American former slaves wanted land and opportunity for
education• Some fought for a redistribution of property as a means to achieve that end• White southerners wanted freedom to restore some semblance of antebellum
Southern society, free from Northern interference• Congress established the Freedman’s Bureau in 1865 to distribute food, establish
schools, provide economic assistance, and reunite families of both black and white Southerners
• The Republican Party had established an ambitious economic program favoring a national industrial economy
• It was not clear how this would be developed in the agricultural lands of the South
• The political system, which Republicans had dominated during the war, was certain to be altered as Southern Democrats rejoined the union
• Republicans worried about losing their political majority if a united Democratic Party emerged after the war
• Republicans were divided among themselves about how to reconstruct the nation
• Conservatives wanted the abolition of slavery and a minimum of change in the South
• Radical Republicans looked to punish the Confederacy, guarantee full political and civil rights for African Americans, and strengthen the Republican Party in the south in order to maintain their political power in the nation
• Lincoln was a moderate and proposed a lenient reconstruction policy known as the 10 percent plan• He proposed a general amnesty for most Southerners and would allow states to reenter the Union
when 10 percent of the number of 1860 voters took an oath of loyalty and accepted the abolition of slavery
• In 1864, three states—Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee—fulfilled these conditions• Radical Republicans refused to seat the representatives from the “reconstructed” states or to
count their electoral votes that year• They countered by passing the Wade‐Davis Bill, which authorized the president to appoint a
provisional governor for each conquered state• When a majority of those who had voted in the 1860 election took an oath of loyalty to the United
States, a state constitutional convention consisting of delegates who swore past loyalty to the county, the ironclad oath, could write a constitution that abolished slavery, repudiated Confederate debts, and disenfranchised Confederate leaders
• Like Lincoln’s plan, political rights fro African Americans were to be determined by the states• Lincoln pocket‐vetoed this measure in 1864
• Lincoln’s reconstruction plans ended with his assassination by John Wilkes Booth in April 1865 at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.
• There was suspicion of a conspiracy by former Confederates, which was exploited by extreme Republicans to promote their political agenda
• The intemperate, impolitic, and white supremacist Andrew Johnson, who was a former Democrat, Tennessee governor, and United States senator, assumed the presidency on Lincoln's death
• Like Lincoln’s plan for reconstruction, Johnson’s plan, known as Presidential Reconstruction, extended amnesty to Confederates, excluding high‐ranking Confederate officials and any Southerner with property worth more than $20,000, who needed individual presidential pardons
• Otherwise, his plan was like the Wade‐Davis plan• By the end of 1865, all former Confederate states had formed new
governments and were ready to reenter the Union once Congress recognized them
• However, Congress refused to seat these governments
• When Congress convened in late 1865, it created the Joint Committee on Reconstruction to institute its own policy
• This inaugurated the period known as Radical or Congressional Reconstruction
• Southern states had enacted black codes to ensure white control over former slaves and restrict freedmen’s movement and labor
• Congress responded by extending the life of the Freedman’s Bureau and passing the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which protectedfreedmen’s rights
• Congress also proposed the Fourteenth Amendment, which defined American citizenship and provided “due process” and “equal protection” of the laws by both state and national governments
• Race riots in Southern Cities increased Northern Support of the Radical Republicans, which sustained substantial majorities in 1866 elections
• That majority passed and overrode vetoes of three major reconstruction bills in 1867• Ultimately, the former Confederacy was divided into five military districts• The commander of each district was to register voters, including adult freedmen and excluding
white males who had supported rebel governments• The district commanders were also to call conventions to draft new state constitutions that
accepted the Fourteenth Amendment• By 1868 eight of the former Confederate states had been readmitted• A later requirement for readmission was ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, forbidding the
federal or state governments to deny the vote on the basis of race• Congress also passed the Tenure of Office Act designed to reduce the power of the president o
subvert its plans• The act required the president to obtain the Senate’s advice and consent to remove officials,
thereby protecting Radical secretary of war Edwin Stanton from removal by Johnson• In 1867, the House of Representatives used Johnson’s refusal to obey this act as grounds to
impeach President Johnson after he dismissed Stanton without their advice or consent• The Senate failed to convict Johnson by one vote, but by then Johnson’s power to resist
congressional will had dissipated
• African Americans played a significant role in the politics of Reconstruction governments but now in the ways nor to the extent that critics have claimed
• Twenty blacks served in the House of Representatives, two in the Senate, and many in state legislatures and other state offices
• But the myth of “negro rule” was just that, a myth• Restrictions on white suffrage were dropped quite quickly and only South Carolina
had a black majority in its lower House for a short time• White Southern scalawags joined the Republican Party because it best matched
their economic interests• White Northerners, earning the epithet of carpetbaggers, served as Republican
leaders and also hoped to find fortune in the South• These governments were criticized for their inefficiency and corruption, but they
were probably no more corrupt than governments in the North during this time period
• The growing state debts resulted largely from rebuilding as a result of the war and increased government services, especially in education
• Reconstruction governments began building a public education system for both blacks and whites, and a number of black colleges were started
• Concurrent with freedman’s gains was the establishment of a system of segregation based on race
• Initial attempts to integrate schools were abandoned when Democratic governments assumed control
• Blacks and whites continued to be separated in economic terms• The few attempts at the redistribution of land to fulfill the freedman’s dream of
“forty acres and a mule” were abandoned in Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina
• However, black land ownership increased while white land ownership decreased during Reconstruction
• For both races the crop‐lien system was the major way to gain access to land and for farming
• Merchants or landowners would loan farmers money and land with which to plant crops, charge high rates of interest, and used the crop as collateral
• Individual debt grew, and many small landowners of both races lose their land and resorted increasingly to cash crops, especially cotton
• This could result form either tenant farming or sharecropping
• Without slavery’s restraints, black families began to adopt the structure of white families
• Women increasingly inhabited the domestic sphere and men worked in the fields
• However, poverty required many black women to work outside the home for wages
• Ulysses S. Grant ran on the Republican ticket in 1868 against Democrat Horatio Seymour
• An inexperienced and somewhat naïve politician, Grant used patronage extensively, which ultimately inspired a good deal of corruption in his administration and split the Republican Party
• Credit Mobilier, a construction company chartered to help build the Union Pacific Railroad, defrauded the railroad and the federal government
• This scandal came to light in 1872• Another scandal known as the “whisky ring” involved Treasury
officials and distillers who falsified reports of tax revenues• Several other smaller scandals tainted Grant’s administration• The Panic of 1873 was a severe depression lasting four years, and
Grant’s monetary policy, which was firmly based on the gold standard, made the depression worse
• During this time, Alaska was acquired by secretary of state William Seward for $7.2 million, but this move was derided at the time as “Seward’s Folly”
• An active and forward thinking secretary of state, Seward also annexed the Midway Islands
• With mounting economic and political problems, the country turned away from Reconstruction’s idealistic goals, and the overriding goal of the Republican Party became continued political dominance
• Even so, by the end of Grant’s tenure, seven of the former eleven Confederate states had been “redeemed” by the Democrats
• In those states, secret societies such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camellia, and White Leagues used violence an intimidation to solidify white supremacy and to exclude freedmen from exercising their political rights
• Congress attempted to toward this with the Ku Klux Klan Acts in 1870 and 1871, which authorized the federal government to enforce civil and political rights in the states
• These acts were ineffectual• The federal government’s commitment to enforce these rights waned
soon after
• Northern support for Reconstruction diminished after ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment
• Some Radicals moderated to the point of allying with Democrats, and white Southern Republicans defected to the Democratic Party
• The Panic of 1873 also diverted support for the Reconstruction• The new philosophy of Social Darwinism also argued that blacks were inferior and
destined to occupy a low station in society• Democrats won a majority in the House of Representatives in 1874, and growing
Democratic political strength led to the disputed election of 1877• The contest between Republican Rutherford B. Haynes and Democrat Samuel
Tilden would turn on disputed electoral votes from three states• Congress established a commission to settle the dispute, and its Republican
majority awarded every questionable ballot to Hayes, who became president• Democrats and the South accepted the Compromise of 1877 because Hayes
agreed to withdraw all federal troops from the South, appoint a Southerner to the cabinet, and provide substantial economic aid to rebuild southern states
• Republicans vainly hoped their accommodations would sore up Republican support in the South
• The Compromise ended the federal effort to establish politic al and civil rights for African Americans
• There were no immediate or lasting gains• A deep‐seated social conservatism and commitment to
white supremacy along with a strong belief in private ownership of property and free enterprise thwarted substantial reform
• The surprising result is that Reconstruction accomplished as much as it did
• Most significantly, the ratification of the three Reconstruction amendments provided the constitutional basis for the civil rights revolution of the twentieth century
• The Republican goal of establishing a Republican Party in the South failed, and by the end of 1877 every Southern state was in Democratic control
• These redeemers were mostly not the former planter class but a commercial class that promoted economic development of the South
• These governments mirrored the rest of the country in their corruption, and they lowered taxes and reduced the services that Reconstruction governments had provided
• Leaders hoped to build an industrial economy and were lead by spokesmen such as Henry Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution
• In promoting the Northern values of thrift, industry, and progress that were so roundly denounced before the Civil War, Grady hoped to transform Southern culture
• Industry expanded, particularly in textiles, tobacco processing, iron and steel, and railroads• Southern production and income increased but still lagged significantly behind that of the North • Agriculture, the most significant sector of the economy, was impoverished in the post‐Reconstruction South• Farmers increasingly relied on a few cash crops, and by 1900, 70 percent of Southern farmers were tenants• Many African Americans were attracted to the “new South Creed” of progress and some established a black
middle class• Acquiring property, establishing business enterprises, and entering professions, these blacks offered services to
their own race• This group embraced education as the basis of self‐improvement, and with the support of Northern missionary
societies created a network of colleges and institutes• Booker T. Washington founded and was president of Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, a trade school• He urged blacks to learn trades and adopt white middle‐class values• Once they gained the respect of whites in the economic area, he believed, larger social gains would follow• He outlined this program in his 1895 Atlanta Compromise speech
• Washington's Compromise implied that the growing segregation in South would not be challenged
• In the 1883 Civil Rights Cases, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited states, but not private individuals or organizations, from discriminating against African Americans
• In the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case, the Supreme Court ruling declared that separate but equal accommodations were constitutional
• This legalized what came to be called Jim Crow laws authorizing segregation by race in America
• In addition, Southern states passed laws restricting blacks from voting; poll taxes, literacy texts, and grandfather laws all tried to accomplish this
• Both black and white voting dropped significantly, although the formers was more dramatic
• Restricting the vote of poor whites often served the interests of people in power• Another effort to maintain white control was lynching, and the rise of the anti‐
lynching movement did little to slow it
• Reconstruction solidified economic nationalism throughout the country, and although the exercise of political and civil rights by African Americans was relatively short‐lived, a constitutional foundation for those rights was put in place
• A network of black institutions was also established to help counter the effects of a society that believed in black inferiority
• Although primarily agricultural, the New South accepted industry and commerce and many of the related values it had previously despised
• The Reconstruction era was one of largely unfulfilled promises, but it laid the foundation for significant changes in America’s future