1865-1876. Briefly discuss the competing interest groups and their representatives during the...

1865-1876

Briefly discuss the competing interest groups and their representatives during the reconstruction era

Compare and Contrast the 3 reconstruction programs

What privileges did the African American population need access to in order to fundamentally change their condition of servitude?

What measures did Radical Republicans take to reverse over two hundred years of institutionalized and constitutionalized discrimination

Discuss the response by many white Americans to these institutional changes

What is the significance of the 1876 election and 1877 Compromise

Compare and contrast conditions of labor , political and social status of African-Americans post Reconstruction.

Lincoln’s 10% plan Election of 1876 Johnson’s Reconstruction program Congressional Reconstruction 13, 14, 15th Amendments Freedmen’s Bureau Compromise of 1877 Land Order # 15 Wade-Davis Bill Negro Rule Radical Republicans Black Codes Klu Klux Klan Share Cropping

The process by which the nation was rebuilt after the destruction caused by the Civil War. This attempted rebuilding was social, political, and economic.

Issues: A. how to handle seceded states B. Suffrage

1. ex-confederates 2. Freedmen

Lincoln announced that when a number of men equal to ten percent of those who had voted in the 1860 presidential election swore an oath of allegiance to the United States, they could establish a state government, elect officials, apply to be restored to their normal relations with the

nation. .

Presidential pardon to confederates Lincoln urged blacks to leave the country to

emigrate to all black countries such as Haiti

Taking the Oath of AllegianceThese white southerners are shown taking the oath of allegiance to the United States in 1865 as part of the process of restoring civil government in the South. The Union soldiers and officers are administering the oath. (Library of Congress)

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Response to Lincolns lenient reconstruction plan

Alternative 50% of state population – “Iron Clad Oath”

before framing a new constitution To verify white males had not taken up arms

against the government (impossible) An appointed governor would summon a state

constitution convention, with members elected by the oath-takers only.

The new constitution forced to abolish slavery, punish Confederate leaders by distributing their

property, and repudiate debts collected during the war Re admittance into union –

Lincoln Pocket veto

Opposition to Lincoln: Thaddeus Stevens – House

representative Charles Sumner – Senate

Provide freedmen land by confiscating plantation land and punish confederate land holders for their treason

Give freed people the vote (rather than restoring old elite to power)

Congress established The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was meant to aid southern refugees.

o During its four-year history o supplied food and medical services, o built schools and colleges, o negotiated employment contracts between

freedmen and former masters, o and tried to manage confiscated land.

April 14th 1865 Ford’s Theater Drunk guard

Confederate John Wilkes Booth

Kidnapping plot assassination

Plots Conspiracy theories

© 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved.

1

The Gun

The Theater Box

John Wilkes Booth

Lincoln lay in state 1st at White House 2nd Capital

Headed back to Illinois

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved.

3

Ford Theater Box

Funeral Procession

Tennessee Democrat

Blanket Amnesty

Governor of North Carolina

13th Amendment

Southern Defiance

4Andrew Johnson

Henry Rathbone

Robert Todd Lincoln

Following assassination of Lincoln. His plan to compromise with Congress

and introduce a policy that included voting rights for some blacks and some measures to protect civil liberties

Johnson did not like the old aristocracy and wanted punishments but did not favor civil rights of suffrage for blacks either (racist also)

pardoning many Confederate leaders allowing ex-Confederates to maintain

their control of Southern state governments, Southern lands, and black people

Johnson was a white supremacist and did not favor black civil and political rights.

Johnson’s belief that black suffrage could never be imposed on a southern state by the federal government put him on a collision course with the Radical Republicans.

Refused to cooperate with Radical Republicans like Thaddeus Stevens to implement a progressive reconstruction policy

Issued blanket amnesty for aristocracy and leading confederate officials and military officials

“white men alone must govern the south”

Johnson’s pardons upset many Republicans, but the discriminatory black codes revealed the depth of southern defiance.

4 million former slaves Excluded from voting and juries Could not testify against white Banned interracial marriage Punished blacks more severely for

crimes Defined unemployed black as a vagrant

and hired them out to planters Forbade blacks to lease lands

Thirteenth Amendment – many Southern states balked at ratifying

violence against Blacks

Presidential pardons made to ex-Confederates

Many ex-Confederate leaders elected to Congress

Alexander Hamilton Stephens

Praise and support from leading Northern Democrats


7

Klu Klux Klan

Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment on January 31, 1865. The Amendment abolished slavery and gave Congress the power of enforcement.

Congress quickly passed the Civil Rights bill

Congress over rode the presidential veto, 1866

14th Amendment Citizenship to freedmen (everyone born here) Prohibited states from interfering with

constitutional rights Declared the Confederate war debt null and void, Barred Confederate leaders from holding state

and federal office Punished any state that restricted extension of

the right to vote to black men. Framers did not intend to prevent segregation in

schools and public places

Post-war South was in economic shambles Post-war Slaves:

Returned to farming for wages or crop shares Moved into towns Searched out relatives


10

Union army occupies South

Negotiated labor contracts

Food rations Education Sharecropping


11

Northern Idea of Freedmen’s Bureau

Freedmen in Richmond, Virginia in 1865.


Burning of a Freedmen’s School


16

General T. Sherman moved to confiscate confederate plantation lands and provide “40 acres and a mule” to freedmen.

Backed by northern radicals but successfully opposed by southern whites, and Johnson. Johnson restored lands to planters

Congress worked to extend the Freedmen’s Bureau and to pass a civil rights law counteracting the black codes. Civil Rights Bill

Granted right to own property Make contracts Have access to courts as parties and witnesses

Johnson vetoed these bills, ending hopes of compromise between the president and congress.

Congress overrode his veto in 1866 Moderates joined Radicals in Congress

American Flag above Richmond State House, April 1865 by Mathew BradyAt the war's end, the U.S. flag flew over the state capitol in Richmond, Virginia, which bore many marks of destruction. (National Archives )


King AndrewThis Thomas Nast cartoon, published in Harper's Weekly just before the 1866 congressional elections, conveyed Republican antipathy to Andrew Johnson. The president is depicted as an autocratic tyrant. Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens, upper right, has his head on the block and is about to lose it. The Republic sits in chains. (Harper's Weekly, 1866)


Congressional elections of 1866 Radicals: Stevens & Sumner took over Congress,

southerners not allowed to vote Wanted To Transform The south: Goals:

public education, suffrage, ensure rights of black people.

Conservative or moderate republicans did not want to go that far. Johnson refused to negotiate.

Charles SumnerCharles Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts, and Thaddeus Stevens, Congressman from Pennsylvania, led the Radical Republican faction in Congress. (Library of Congress)


Memphis Riots, May 2, 1866, Harper's WeeklyIn 1866, as Congress reviewed the progress of Reconstruction, news from the South had a considerable impact. Violence against black people, like the riot in Memphis depicted here, helped convince northern legislators that they had to modify President Johnson's policies. (Library of Congress)


Placed 10 unreconstructed states under military commanders

Guaranteed freedmen the right to vote in elections for state constitutional conventions

Barred former confederates Disqualified prominent ex-confederates from office

Required congressional approval of all new state constitutions

Must frame consitutions that ratified 14th Amendment Many southerners boycott


18

Southerners refused to register voters. Congress responded with the 2nd Act ordered the local military commanders to enforce

reconstruction Johnson tried to limit power of military commanders:

3rd Act: upheld their superiority in all matters Whites boycotted first election in Alabama to ratify

state constitution: 4th ACT: Required ratification of constitution by only a

majority of those voting rather than those who were registered

Portrait of Andrew JohnsonCombative and inflexible, President Andrew Johnson contributed greatly to the failure of his own Reconstruction program. (Library of Congress)

•1867 routinely overrode John’s veto•Johnson acted to removed radicals from office•Congress responded with Tenure of Office Act, he could not remove a cabinet member withou senate consen•He moved to remove Edwin Stanton – Sec. of war


Johnson’s obstruction of reconstruction legislation led to House to votes to impeach Johnson

1868, Senate fails to impeach by 1 vote


Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War

19Ticket to impeachment proceedings

Ulysses S. Grant Republican nominee Opposed Johnson’s

Reconstruction policies Supported congressional

reconstruction & black rights


Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877)22

In 1869/70, Radicals succeeded in passing the Fifteenth Amendment prohibited denying the right to vote based on

“race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Voting rights of women could still be denied.

The Beginning of the End of Reconstruction In 1872, Congress offered amnesty to most

remaining former Confederates, and in 1875 it offered a watered-down Civil Rights Act that the Supreme Court eventually struck down.

Supreme Court decisions, by narrowing the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment and by denying equal rights, encouraged the northern retreat from Reconstruction.

The Grant Administration Corruption under Grant was rampant Reformers began to focus on cleaning up

corruption rather than on blacks’ rights Growing Northern Disillusionment

Civil Rights Act of 1875 was the last major piece of Reconstruction legislation

Economic depression in 1873 led to Democratic resurgence and growing disinterest in issues of Reconstruction

42

Scandals 3 Cabinet members

resigned

Grant’s administration not alone “Boss” William Marcy

Tweed and Tammany Hall An “Era of Good Stealings”

Mark Twain The Gilded Age (1873)


23 Mark Twain

Republican victory in the South meant that for the first time black citizens gained political office. Southern Republicans worked to build white support for the party and condemned itself to defeat if white voters would not cooperate.

Election Campaign in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, c. 1868A Republican Party brass band in action during the 1868 election campaign in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The Union regimental colors and soldier caps demonstrate the strong federal presence in the South at this pivotal moment in Radical Reconstruction. (Andrew D. Lytle Collection, Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, LSU Libraries, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana)


His First Vote by Thomas Waterman Wood, 1865Thomas Waterman Wood, who had painted portraits of society figures in Nashville before the war, sensed the importance of Congress's decision in 1867 to enfranchise the freedmen. This oil painting, one of a series on suffrage, emphasizes the significance of the ballot for the black voter. (Cheekwood Museum of Art, Nashville, Tennessee)


The First Vote

A newly freed slave casts his first vote. (Library of Congress)


Black Office Holding Black men constituted 80% of Republicans in

the South Most black office holders were literate and

came from top levels of black society

“Increasingly the success or failure of Reconstruction hinged on developments not in Congress but in the southern states themselves. Power there rested with the new Republican parties, representing a coalition of black and white southerners and transplanted northerners.”

48

Republican Party 80% of Republican

voters in South were Black

1868-1876: 14 Black Representatives 2 Black Senators

"Negro rule“ myth Blacks held 15-20% of

elected offices in Reconstruction


26

Birth of a Nation: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=364179073081887124&ei=_OyYSIEclcKoA_v20coM&q=%22birth+of+a+nation%22&vt=lf

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=364179073081887124&ei=_OyYSIEclcKoA_v20coM&q=%22birth+of+a+nation%22&vt=lf




White Republicans in the South Black voters were a majority in only three

southern states; Republicans therefore needed white votes

Scalawags referred to white southerners who supported the Republican party

Such voters were largely yeoman farmers from the upland districts and “carpetbaggers” (northern transplants)

Serious divisions among southern Republicans

51

Distinguished Colored MenThis lithograph from 1883 depicts prominent African American men, several of whom had leading roles in Black Reconstruction. (Library of Congress)


The New State Governments New state constitutions included many

political and social reforms All granted political equality but social

equality was generally ignored Economic Issues and Corruption

Southern economy in ruins Corruption was rampant and state debt was

skyrocketing

53

Election 1872 – Grant

Wall Street panic Five-year depression Blame Reconstruction Mississippi Plan (1875) All whites should become

Democrats Intimidate Black voters


27

“Of course he wants to vote the Democratic ticket” Cartoon showing how the Mississippi Plan worked.

a. How did people first react?

b. Families Reunited

c. Sought Independence

d. Desired Land

e. Embraced Education

f. Growth of Black Churches

g. Rise of Sharecropping

Many former slaves began to explore freedom by searching for family members or exercising their right of mobility. Others reacted more cautiously.

Most settled as workers on their former farms or plantations but attempted to control the conditions of their labor. Many blacks tried to avoid contact with

overbearing whites by abandoning their slave quarters and relocating their houses. Some even established all-black settlements.

Domestic workers with toolsDomestic workers with the tools of their trades--bridle, pot, broom, duster, wheelbarrow, and wagon--pose in front of their employer's home. (Atlanta History Center )


Next to freedom, blacks wanted land most of all. Since they could not secure solid support in the North, however, few obtained their dream of independence.

Many African Americans eagerly sought an education. Federal aid and northern charity helped start thousands of schools for freedmen in the South

Established churches, became social center of new freedom

Daughter teaching mother to read, Mt. Meigs, AlabamaAfrican Americans of all ages eagerly pursued the opportunity freedom provided to gain an education. This young woman in Mt. Meigs, Alabama, is helping her mother learn to read. (Smithsonian Institute. Photo by Rudolf Eickemeyer.)


Black teacher and studentsDuring Reconstruction, the freed people gave a high priority to the establishment of schools, often with the assistance of the Freedmen's Bureau and northern missionary societies. This photograph of a newly established school was taken around 1870, showing both the barefoot students and the teacher. (Library of Congress)


Blacks could not get credit, and sharecropping became widespread. Owners often cheated their tenants.

Most southern farmers grew cotton, but a weak market created low prices that made dependence on cotton a mistake. Many white farmers lost their land as a result, and joined the ranks of sharecroppers.

Black sharecropping family in front of their cabinSharecropping gave African Americans more control over their labor than did labor contracts. But sharecropping also contributed to the south's dependence on one-crop agriculture and helped to perpetuate widespread rural poverty. Notice that the child standing on the right is holding her kitten, probably to be certain it is included in this family photograph. (Library of Congress)


Store owner's record book of debts of sharecroppersSharecropping became an oppressive system in the postwar south. At plantation stores like this one, photographed in Mississippi in 1868, merchants recorded in their ledger books debts that few sharecroppers were able to repay. (Smithsonian Institution, Division of Community Life)


Whites in the South resisted Reconstruction. Some denied freedom to their slaves, while others prevented blacks from getting land.

The White LeagueAlabama's White League, formed in 1874, strove to oust Republicans from office by intimidating black voters. To political cartoonist Thomas Nast, such vigilante tactics suggested an alliance between the White League and the outlawed Ku Klux Klan. (Harper's Weekly, October 24, 1874)


Pig iron, Birmingham, Harper's Weekly, March 26, 1877One notable success in Reconstruction efforts to stimulate industry was Birmingham, Alabama. Here workers cast molten iron into blocks called pigs. (Birmingham Public Library)


Hayes as a Benevolent Farmer, May 12, 1880This cartoon by J. A. Wales Puck reveals the North's readiness to give up on a strong Reconstruction policy. According to the image, only federal bayonets could support the "rule or ruin" carpetbag regimes that oppressed the south. What do the background and foreground of the cartoon suggest will be the results of President Hayes's "Let ‘Em Alone Policy"? (Library of Congress)


The Triumph of White Supremacy Racism not dissipated by Reconstruction Rise of the Ku Klux Klan led to federal attempts to

stem racial violence Mississippi Plan—bold effort by the Democrats to

use force to win the election The Ku Klux Klan terrorized black leaders in

an effort to curb their support for the Republicans. “By 1877, the entire South was in the hands of the Redeemers, as they called themselves. Reconstruction and Republican rule had come to an end.”

Ku Klux Klan meetingIn this picture, the artist has portrayed a group of bizarrely dressed Klansmen contemplating the murder of a white Republican. (Library of Congress)


Mississippi Klansman, 1871Members of the Ku Klux Klan devised ghoulish costumes to heighten the terror inspired by their acts. This photograph shows the costume of a Mississippi Klansman from 1871. (Courtesy of Mr. Herbert Peck, Jr.)


A number of things brought about the collapse of the Republican regimes, forcing them out of office before they instituted social and economic reforms.

Reconstruction cartoonThis 1868 cartoon by Thomas Nast pictured the combination of forces that threatened the success of Reconstruction: southern opposition and the greed, partisanship, and racism of northern interests. (Library of Congress)


Congress passed two Enforcement Acts in 1870 and 1871 in an effort to counteract Klan violence.

The laws were enforced selectively. Congressional opponents of these laws charged that Congress was infringing on states’ rights.

Corruption and government reform were key campaign issues

Samuel J. Tilden

Rutherford B. Hayes

“bulldozing”


Rutherford B. Hayes29


Hayes-Tilden Disputed Election of 187630

The disputed election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden resulted in the Compromise of 1877, effectively ending Reconstruction in the South.

Through Coercion and terrorism and fraud and irregularities in counting votes democrat’s wrestled control of government

Electoral Commission partisan vote awarded victory to Hayes

Compromise To abandon

reconstruction programs

Postmaster David M. Key

Internal Improvements for South 1878

Removal of federal troops


32

Tens of thousands of southern African Americans felt betrayed by the election of 1876 and decided to leave the South, where they could no longer hope for equal rights.

ExodustersBenjamin "Pap" Singleton, a one-time fugitive slave from Tennessee, returned there to promote the "exodus" movement of the late 1870s. Forming a real estate company, Singleton traveled the south recruiting parties of freedmen who were disillusioned with the outcome of Reconstruction. These emigrants, awaiting a Mississippi River boat, looked forward to political equality, freedom from violence, and homesteads in Kansas. (Library of Congress)


The federal government pursued a policy of containment against Native Americans in the West. Hispanics in the Southwest and the Chinese in California were subjected to racial prejudice and persecution.

Red Cloud's Delegations, 1868Red Cloud (seated, second from left), with other Oglala Sioux, visited President Grant at the White House to argue for his people's right to trade at Fort Laramie, Wyoming. His clothing, unlike the traditional Native American dress of the other chiefs, reflected his desire to negotiate with whites on equal terms. ( National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.)


In 1867 the United States purchased Alaska from Russia and also took control of the Midway Islands.

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