ReconstructionPositives and Negatives

Positive 1 – New Amendments

Thirteenth – Slavery is outlawed

Fourteenth – African Americans are recognized as citizens

Fifteenth – African American males are permitted to vote

Positive 2 – Freedmen’s Bureau

Government agency set up to aid the newly freed slaves

ClothesFood SchoolsHealth CareContract and Labor Relations

Positive 3 – New Schools

By 1870 more than 1,000 schools in the South

Spent over $5 million to establish schools in the South

Howard University and other colleges

Positive 4 – Black Role Models

Hiram Revels – First Black Senator (Mississippi)

W.E.B. Dubois – First Af. Am. To earn a PhD from Harvard

Booker T. Washington – valued industrial education along with academic education

Negative 1 - Sharecropping

Similar to slavery

Huge debts were rarely ever paid back

Unfair contracts, limited literacy

Negative 2 – Black CodesLaws to limit the freedom of the freed-people

No assembling without supervision

Limits on behavior toward whites

No guns

Negative 3 – Bitter FeelingsRacism and unfair treatment continue

Resentment

Hatred

Negative 4 - ImpeachmentAndrew Johnson is impeached

Violated the Tenure of Office Act

Fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton

Negative 5 – Ku Klux KlanTerrorist Organization

Burned homes

Beat and killed African Americans

Negative 6 - Lynching

Negative 7 - ScandalsGrant put former friends and army officials in

office

Most were unqualified

Most took bribes

This caused the Republicans to split apart

Negative 8 – Compromise of 1877Election of 1876 – Tilden (Dem) v. Hayes

(Rep)

Too close to call in some states (SC, FL, LA)

Democrats agree to give Hayes the victory for certain conditions