Central Questions: What system of labor would replace plantation slavery? On what terms should the...

Central Questions: What system of labor would replace plantation slavery? On what terms should the Confederacy be reunited with the Union? Who will decide these terms? What rights would the freedmen have in the post-war South? RECONSTRUCTION: 1865-1877

BATTLE OF FORT FISHER (JAN., 1865)

RICHMOND, VA 1862

RICHMOND, VA 1865 RUINS OF WAR

CHARLESTON, 1865

DAMAGE TO RICHMOND AT THE CLOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR (APRIL, 1865)

The Wars End: Victory and Defeat 13 th Amendment (Jan. 31, 1865) Prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Competing Visions of the New South Freedmen Planters Vision

Freedom meant independence from white control and the shackles of slavery overthrow of masters authority both symbolically and in real life Withdrawal from white churches Mass meetings refusal to follow behavioral codes of slavery: refusal to yield sidewalks, etc. Dress (as they liked) Movement: over half of the former slave population on the move (2 million); within the south, from rural to urban settings; Reunited with families and relatives Education and schools Seek land and control over the conditions of their work seek land, either to own or rent grow food, not staple-cash crops VISION OF THE FREEDMEN

-planters recognized that ex-slaves didnt want to work for anyone but themselves; -understood this before the north did -recognized problem from keeping labor on the plantations; was both a economic and a -political problem; Written contracts: 1 year contracts with payment at the end of the year; decrease the mobility of ex-slaves; restrict their movement and meetings; Planters turned to the state to enforce contracts and desires Black Codes Vagrancy codes VISION OF THE PLANTERS

Lincolns Plan for Reconstruction Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (Dec. 8, 1863) 10 percent Plan Offered full pardon and the restoration of all rights "except as to slaves" to persons who resumed their allegiance by taking an oath of future loyalty, and pledged to accept the abolition of slavery. 1. -excluded a few groups, including high ranking civil and military officers of the Confederacy 2. -when in any state the number of loyal Southerners, thus defined, amounted to 10 percent of the votes cast in 1860, this minority could establish a new state government; Lincolns Assassination: April 14, 1865

3. State constitutions must abolish slavery, but it could adopt temporary measures regarding blacks "consistentwith their present condition as a laboring, landless, and homeless class." 4. The 10% plan, as it came to be known, was criticized by abolitionists for it failure to make any provision for suffrage or equality before the law, or defining any role whatever for blacks in the Reconstruction process. *For Lincoln, the 10% plan was not a hard and fast policy from which he was determined to never deviate from; rather it was viewed as a measure to shorten the war and to solidify white support for emancipation. *Yet it marked and made clear for the first time that the definition of Southern loyalty now encompassed not merely a willingness to rejoin the Union, but acceptance of the slave's freedom. LINCOLNS 10% PLAN

Andrew Johnson and Presidential Reconstruction Johnsons Character and Values Johnson was born in North Carolina and eventually moved to Tennessee; rose to political power by portraying himself as the champion of the people against the wealthy planter class. "Some day I will show the stuck-up aristocrats who is running the country," he vowed as he began his political career. Johnson accepted emancipation as one consequence of the war, but remained a confirmed racist--"Damn the negroes" he said during the war, "I am fighting these traitorous aristocrats, their masters." PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

Radicals viewed his contempt for the planter elite to be so deep that they thought he would uphold their views. At times, the new president spoke of trying Confederate leaders and breaking up planter's estates. On the other hand, Johnson opposed government aid to business, and was strongly for states' rights--so perhaps a rift with radicals would be inevitable. PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

Johnsons Plan (advanced May, 1865): no repeal of the ordinances of succession, no repudiation of the Confederate war debts, no ratification of the 13 th Amendment, no provisions for freedmen and women. PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

Johnsons Plan of Presidential Reconstruction May, 1865: Plan advanced At first, Johnson seemed to be following Lincoln's policy of quickly restoring the southern states to their rightful place in the Union. He prescribed loyalty oaths for ordinary white southerners, each of whom would have to take to preserve their property, aside for slaves, and to regain their civil and political rights. Like Lincoln, Johnson excluded high Confederate officials from this groups, but he added those with property worth over $20,000, which included his old foes in the planter class. These groups had to apply to the president for individual pardons. Johnson's plan stated that loyal state governments could be formed after a provisional governor, appointed by the present, called a convention to draft a new state constitution. Voters and delegates had to qualify under the 1860 state election laws, take the loyalty oath. Once the elections were held to choose a governor, legislature, and members of Congress, Johnson announced he would recognize the new state governments, revoke martial law, and withdraw northern troops. PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

How does this plan compare to Lincolns? more lenient than Lincoln's?? not very explicit: --no repeal of ordinances of secession --no repudiation of Confederate debts --no ratification of 13th Amendment --no provisions for education of freedmen and women PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

The Failure of Johnsons Program Southern Defiance: Black Codes In 1865 and 1866, Southern states passed a series of laws, often modeled on the old slave codes that applied only to African Americans. These Black Codes did grant some rights--they legalized marriages from slavery, permitted the holding and selling of property in some cases, granted the right to sue and be sued--but in general. Black Codes were designed to keep African Americans as property- less agricultural laborers with inferior legal rights; no service on juries, testifying against whites; restrictions on work: SC forbade blacks from engaging in anything other than agricultural labor; Mississippi restricted freedmen from buying or renting farmland; most states allowed blacks who were "vagrants" to be arrested and hired out to landowners; FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

State Elections of 1865 and 1866 1. Southern delegates meeting in 1865 and 1866 to construct new state governments soon demonstrated their reluctance to follow even Johnson's lenient requirements and recommendations. Several states not only failed to repudiate their ordinances of secession (merely repealed), but many rejected the 13th Am. altogether, as well as demonstrated a refusal to repudiate the Confederate war debts. 2.Additionally, not one of the new governments allowed African Americans any political rights; most failed to make any effective provisions for the education of the freedmen. 3.Southern voters under J's plan defiantly elected prominent military and political leaders to office, including Alexander Stephens, former VP of the Confederacy, to senate in Georgia. Johnson could have nullified these elections or called for new under a new system of Reconstruction, but instead he caved in. FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

Riots of 1866: Memphis and New Orleans Riots (May, June 1866) 1. Memphis Riot May 1, 1866, two horse-drawn carriages, one driven by a white man, the other by a black, collided on the streets of Memphis. When police arrested the black driver, a group of recently discharged black veterans intervened, and a white crowd began to gather. From this incident followed three days of racial violence, with white mobs, composed in large part of the mostly Irish policemen and firemen, assaulting blacks on the streets and invading South Memphis, an area that included a shanty town housing families of black soldiers stationed in nearby Fort Pickerin. Before the rioting subsided, at least 48 persons (all but two of them black) lay dead, five black women had been raped, and hundreds of black dwellings, churches and schools were pillaged or destroyed by fire. One of the bloodiest outbreaks of the era, the Memphis riot had its roots in tensions that had gripped the city for over a year. the black population had more than quadrupled during the war, and signs of change abounded, from the black soldiers to FB hospitals and schools. What was most threatening to local whites--the large number of impoverished rural freedmen who thronged the streets in search of employment or the considerable group that managed to achieve modest economic success (many of the black victims were robbed of cash, watches, tools, and furniture). Racial altercations were frequent, and the city's press constantly abused black residents. "Would to God they were back in Africa, or some other seaport town" declared the Memphis Argus two days before the riot, "anywhere but here. FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

For black and white alike the riot taught many lessons, not least the impotence of federal authorities, for the Bureau proved unable to aid those who crowded into its offices seeking protection, and the army commander refused to dispatch troops of either race to assist the families of black soldiers. The violence exposed divisions within the black community as well--in its aftermath, a group of better-off free men of color urged the removal of rural freedmen from the city, to reduce racial tensions. --The riot demonstrated as well the limits to moderate Republican policies as well. The Tennessee Unionist's policy of disenfranchising former Confederates had as intended brought new men to power, but the recently arrived Irish immigrants who came to dominate city politics were no more sympathetic to African Americans than the old elite; --Most of all, the violence discredited J's policies: as one newspaper wrote: "if anything could reveal, in light as clear as day, the demoniac spirit of southern whites toward the freedmen...it is such an event as this." FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

2. New Orleans Even worse, an outbreak twelve weeks later in New Orleans; this time the violence was a direct result of Reconstruction politics; The growing power of former Confederates under the administration of Governor Wells had long dismayed the city's Radicals, and alarmed Wells as well; the state legislature reacted in early 1866 by mandating new municipal elections, which returned to power the city's former Confederate mayor; Wells responded by endorsing a Radical plan to reconvene the constitutional convention of 1864 to enfranchise blacks, to establish a new state government, and to prohibit "rebels" from voting; For weeks, opponents to reform agonized over the prospect that Louisiana might be "revolutionized;" apparently some members of the city's police force--made up largely of Confederate veterans--conspired to disperse the gather by force; On July 30, the first day the delegates of the assembly was met; the assembly was joined by a procession of some 200 black supporters, many of whom were former Union soldiers; Fighting broke out in the streets, police converged on the area, and the scene quickly degenerated into what Gen. Philip Sheridan later called "an absolute massacre," with black assaulted indiscriminately and the delegates and their supporters besieged in the convention hall and shot down when they fled, despite hoisting white flags of surrender. FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

By the time federal troops arrived, thirty-four blacks and three white Radicals had been killed, and well over 100 persons injured. The son of former Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, a veteran of the CW wrote that "the wholesale slaughter and the little regard paid to human life I witnessed here" surpassed anything he had seen on the battlefield. impact: the riots further discredited Presidential Reconstruction-- particularly that of New Orleans where the stark fact remained that nearly all the victims of the riot had been blacks and convention delegates, and the police, far from preserving order, had joined in on the assault; Most northerners agreed with General Joseph Holt's opinion: the leniency of Johnson had unleashed "the barbarism of the rebellion in its renaissance." FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

The Failure of Johnson's Program Southern defiance A. Southern State Elections of 1865 and 1866: 1. Southern delegates meeting in 1865 and 1866 to construct new state governments soon demonstrated their reluctance to follow even Johnson's lenient requirements and recommendations. Several states not only failed to repudiate their ordinances of secession (merely repealed), but many rejected the 13th Am. altogether, as well as demonstrated a refusal to repudiate the Confederate war debts. 2. Additionally, not one of the new governments allowed African Americans any political rights; most failed to make any effective provisions for the education of the freedmen. FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

Finally, southern voters under J's plan defiantly elected prominent military and political leaders to office, including Alexander Stephens, former VP of the Confederacy, to senate in Georgia. Johnson could have nullified these elections or called for new under a new system of Reconstruction, but instead he caved in. FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

3.Rather, most states passed a series of laws, often modeled on the old slave codes, that applied only to African Americans. These Black Codes did grant some rights--they legalized marriages from slavery, permitted the holding and selling of property in some cases, granted the right to sue and be sued--but in general, they were designed to keep African Americans as property-less agricultural laborers with inferior legal rights; no service on juries, testifying against whites; restrictions on work-- SC forbade blacks from engaging in anything other than agricultural labor; Mississippi restricted freedmen from buying or renting farmland; most states allowed blacks who were "vagrants" to be arrested and hired out to landowners; FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

Johnsons Pardons-former high Ranking Military and Civil Confederate Leaders Johnson aggravated these conditions in 1865 and 1866 by quickly pardoning over 13,500 former rebels. FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

Johnson Vetoes Extension of the Freedmens Bureau Congress Overrides (July, 1866) Extension of the life of the Freedmen's Bureau (overrode July, 1866); gave to the Freedmen's Bureau new responsibilities of supervising special courts to resolve disputes involving freedmen and establishing southern schools for freedmen and their children. A revised Freedmen's Bureau bill was passed in July, 1866; Johnson again vetoes the legislation, Congress overrides again overrides his veto; FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

Johnson Vetoes Civil Rights Bill Congress Overrides (April, 1866) Johnson vetoes a civil rights bill passed by congress (overrode April, 1866); bill was designed to overturn the more flagrant provisions of the black codes; the law made African Americans citizens of the US and granted them the right to own property, make contracts, and have access to courts as parties and witnesses. --For most congressional Republicans, Johnson's veto of this legislation marked the last straw; --Congress's passage of the CR Act of 1866 marked the first attempt to give meaning to the 13th Amendment; it defined all persons born in the US as national citizens and spelled out the rights they were to enjoy equally without regard to race: making contracts, brining lawsuits, and enjoying "full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property." Added that no law or custom could deprive any citizen of these fundamental rights. FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

14 th Amendment *Approved by both houses of Congress in June 1866 *Certified July, 1868 *Removed many matters beyond the reach of the President *Prohibited repayment of the Confederate war debt *Disqualified prominent Confederate leaders from holding office *Gave Congress the right to reduce the representation of any state that did not have impartial male suffrage *Key Features: Citizenship Clause, Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause

*Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

*Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

*Section 3: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Congressional Elections of 1866: Elections brought the issue of black suffrage once again to the forefront; in many ways the elections also became a referendum on the 14th Amendment and J's policy of Reconstruction President set off on a speaking tour of the East and Midwest; J. found it difficult to convince audiences that the white southerners were fully repentant; race riots; J traded insults with the audience, stated that the Radicals were traitors; Republicans countered with insults, vilified Johnson as a traitor about to turn the country over to the rebels and the Copperheads; revived bitter memories of the war; Gov. Morton of Indiana proclaimed that every bounty jumper, every deserter, every sneak who ran away from the draft was a Democrat... everyone who murdered Union prisoners, every New York rioter in 1863 who burned up little children in colored asylums called himself a Democrat. In short the Democratic party may be described as a common sewer... The Result: Voters soundly repudiated Johnson and his program of Reconstruction: the result was a disastrous defeat for the President; voters confirmed a massive Congressional majority; Reps outnumbered Democrats and Johnson conservatives by well above the 2/3 majority necessary to override a presidential veto. END OF PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION

RADICAL (CONGRESSIONAL) RECONSTRUCTION Radical (Congressional) Reconstruction (1867-1876) Reconstruction Acts of 1867 and 1868 Divided 11 Confederate states (except Tenn.) into five military districts under commanders Empowered commanders to employ the army to protect life and property Laid out new steps by which new state governments were to be created and recognized by Congress, including: (1) new state constitutions by new state conventions; (2) new state constitutions to provide for universal manhood suffrage (including guarantees for black male suffrage; (3) ratification of the 14 th Amendment; (4) new state Constitutions to be approved by a majority of registered voters (later amended by the 4 th Reconstruction Act)

Tenure of Office Act (1867) Forbid the removal of any official in government service whose appointment required Senate confirmation Throughout 1867 Congress routinely overrode Js vetoes; the president had other ways of undercutting congressional Reconstruction: --interpreted laws narrowly --removed military commanders who rigorously enforced Reconstruction Acts Congress thus passed the Tenure of Office Act; forbid the removal of any official in government service whose appointment required Senate confirmation-- this included members of the Johnsons cabinet; ROAD TO IMPEACHMENT

--the TOA was passed to prevent Johnson from firing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a Lincoln appointee, and the only member of Johnsons cabinet that favored Radical Reconstruction --the act required that Johnson issue all orders to the army through the commanding general, Ulysses S. Grant, who was also a supporter of radical Reconstruction --in Aug. 1867, Johnson suspended Stanton and replaced with U. Grant; he also replaced four Republican generals who commanded southern districts. Fall, 1867, Grant protests, resigns and becomes enemy of the President Johnson ROAD TO IMPEACHMENT

Impeachment of Johnson (1868) February 1868, Johnson formally challenges the constitutionality of the Tenure of Office Act by dismissing Stanton; February 24, 1868: H of R approved articles of impeachment; --The House by huge margin (12847) brings 27 counts of criminal misconduct, 9 dealing with the act itself; Charges: violation of Tenure of Office Act Systematic obstruction of Reconstruction legislation The eleven week trial ended in May 1868; the Senate failed to convict Johnson by a vote of one short of the necessary 2/3 majority vote (35-19); Seven moderate Republicans had broken ranks, voting for acquittal along with 12 Democrats; IMPEACHMENT OF JOHNSON

Reasons for Acquittal??--partly a recognition that the trial was politically motivated; Moderates felt that Johnson had broken the law, but saw the real issue as one over policy, not law Js political views, his administration of the Reconstruction acts, and incompetence. --another reason for no conviction? the issue of replacing Johnson -- the VP position remained unfilled following Js entrance into office --thus, had Johnson been convicted, the president pro temp of the Senate would have replaced Johnson; this individual was Benjamin Wade, a Senator from Ohio--a radical republican known for his anti-business stands: high tariff, soft money, and liberalpro-labor views. Moderates feared the political and economic policies that might be pushed under a Wade presidency. --failure of conviction a key indication that the power of the radicals was waning-- and the first sign of northern disillusionment with Reconstruction begin to set in. IMPEACHMENT

Election of Ulysses S. Grant (1868) An important election year that further demonstrated that the power radicals held in Congress, within the Republican party, and throughout the country at large was fading. (1) Radical Republicans not only failed in their effort to convict Johnson, they suffered a second defeat in their failure to get B. Wade placed on the Rep. ticket in the Presidential election of 1868. (2) Instead, the party nomination went to the preeminent Union war hero -- Ulysses S. Grant; Grants nomination demonstrated the growing influence of conservatives within the partyGrant lacked political experience and because his early promoters were conservative, business interests from New York (who feared that a Democratic victory would reopen Reconstruction, whereas a Grant administration would promise moderation, fiscal responsibility, and stability favorable to investment in the South). ELECTION OF ULYSSES S. GRANT

(3) Election results: Grant won a very narrow margin of victory over Democratic opponent Horatio Seymour, a former governor of New York; --in the face of rising violence in the South, Seymour and the Dem. Party received little support for their claim that the government should let southern state governments reorganize on their own. --Nonetheless, Grants victory was only by a small margin--about the same share of the northern vote (55%) that Lincoln had in 1864; Republicans were shocked that despite Grants great military stature, his popular margin of victory was only by about 300,000 votes; and this was with the help of an estimated 450,000 Republican votes cast in the south, and a majority of whites in the South voting Democratic. Congressional elections of 1868, Reps retained their 2/3 majority in both houses of Congress. ELECTION OF GRANT

2. 15 th Amendment (Feb. 1869) and Womens Suffrage Grants narrow election victory in 1868 helped convince Rep. leaders that an amendment was necessary for securing black suffrage throughout the nation. 15 TH AMENDMENT AND THE ISSUE OF WOMENS SUFFRAGE

US History VVHS/STC TEKS: 8.113.20.20.B.16.B: TLW understand the process of changing the Constitution and the impact of the amendments on American societyincluding the 13, 14, 15 th Amendments; 11.113.41.C.9: TLW will understand the impact of the Civil Rights Movementtrace the historical development of the CR movementincluding the 15 th Amendment. Agenda Sponge Activity Introduction and Lecture Group Activity Short Individual Writing Assignment TODAYS LESSON

Examine the photo from the handout above. Discuss in your group what you see as significant. What do you think the voter in the picture is thinking? What do you believe the other two individuals are thinking? SPONGE ACTIVITY

15 th Amendment (February, 1869) Grants narrow election victory in 1868 helped convince Republican leaders that an amendment was necessary for securing black suffrage throughout the nation Defined voting rights as a central right of citizenship Eliminated the use of race (or skin-color) as the basis for denial of voting rights Undermined by violence and other legal and extra-legal tactics across the American South that prevented African-Americans from exercising their full voting rights following its passage The 15 th amendment acted as a partial guarantee for black male suffrage: the amendment forbade states to deny their citizens the right to vote on the grounds of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. THE 15 TH AMENDMENT

The Amendment required that the unreconstructed states of Va., Mississippi, Texas, and Georgia to ratify it before their readmission to the Union; The amendment left legal loopholes that eventually allowed southern states to disfranchise African Americans and northerners to disenfranchise others; Finally ratified in March 1870. 15 TH AMENDMENT AND WOMENS SUFFRAGE

The Amendments ratification ruptured the women's movement as well. Former abolitionists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony had formed the American Equal Rights Association in 1866. The Amendments discussion triggered a movement for universal suffrage; Stanton and Anthony broke from the Rep. Party after passage of the the 15 th and form the National Women Suffrage Assoc. in 1869 [another group remained loyal to the Rep party, headed by Lucy Stone and Fred. Douglass, the New England Women Suffrage Association, that later becomes the Womens Suffrage Association. 15 TH AMENDMENT

Most important, the 15 th Amendment was not simply gender biased; it also contained no restrictions on: property ownership literacy tests to disqualify blacks as voters Mass and Conn used literacy as requirement for voting; California as well--restrict votes of Chinese and Mexicans 15 TH AMENDMENT

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