Chapter 17:Reconstruction

1865-1877

Section 17.1:The Beginning of Reconstruction

• Abraham Lincoln began his 2nd term as President as the war was ending

• He put together a plan to rebuild the nation• His plan said a state could rejoin the Union

when 10% of its voters took an oath to support the Union

• Lincoln offered amnesty, or pardon, to southerns– This would allow the states to rejoin the Union as

quickly as possible

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John Crittenden

Abraham Lincoln

• On the evening of April 14, 1865, Lincoln attended a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.

• John Wilkes Booth, who supported the southern cause, went to the box where Lincoln was sitting and shot the President in the back of the head

• Lincoln died the next morning, Booth was killed by soldiers a few days later

• Lincoln’s death delayed rebuilding in the South

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John Crittenden

Abraham Lincoln

Problems in the South• In the South, the damage from the war had

been great• After the war, there were many problems in

the South– Countless farms and large plantations were

ruined– Confederate money was worthless; many formerly

wealthy people had no funds– Most banks closed– Road became blocked with rubble from the war– Many bridges were destroyed– The South had few police, no judges, and no

courts

Reconstruction• Reconstruction – the rebuilding of the South –

was now in the hands of the new President, Andrew Johnson– Johnson was vice president to Lincoln

– Was not well liked by many members of Congress

• Johnson tried to follow Lincoln’s Reconstruction plan– He pardoned most southerners who took an oath

– Appointed temporary governments to help them re-form their governments and elect new representatives to Congress

• Within a few months of the Reconstruction plan, most of these states had reorganized and ratified the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery

• By the end of 1865, Johnson announced that all of the southern states but Texas were readmitted to the Union– Congress did not agree

• Members of Congress called the “Radical Republicans” opposed the Reconstruction plan– Wanted to punish the former Confederate States

for the trouble they caused the nation

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John Crittenden

Abraham Lincoln

• Radicals refused to recognize the newly formed southern governments or the recently elected representatives from them

• Some newly established state governments in the South had adopted “Black Codes”

• Under the Black Codes, former slaves, now called freemen, were restricted from voting, owning certain kinds of land, and working certain skilled jobs

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John Crittenden

Abraham Lincoln

17.1 PowerPoint Questions

1.) Under Lincoln’s plan, how could states come back into the Union?

2.) Who assassinated Abraham Lincoln?

3.) What was the South like after the Civil War?

4.) What was the importance of the 13th Amendment?

5.) What was the name of the group that was against Reconstruction?

C.T.) Do you think African Americans were really free in the South? Why or why not?