Reconstruction1865-1877

Civil War 1861-1865

Reconstruction

Reconstruction:

• Era following the Civil War (1865-1877)• A time for rebuilding the shattered nation• 4 million men, women, and children newly freed

Meaning of Freedom?

The Central Question facing American Society:

• What did African American Freedom Mean??• Whites?• Freedom did not = equality

• African Americans?• Escaping the injustices of slavery

Visions of Freedom

• African Americans:• Immediately claimed their vision of freedom• mobilty, voting, land ownership, owning

their own labor, access to basic education• Reconstituted their families• Held political demonstrations/meetings• Established independent churches

Freedmen’s Bureau

• established by Congress• Administered by the Union Army• Helped to settle disputes between whites and blacks over

land and labor• Ensured justice in the courts• Monitored elections• Organized Schools• 500 by 1866

Visions of Freedom

• White Visions:• Defined freedom in very narrow terms• Did not want change• White freedom = mastery• Freedom = privilege not a right• Freedom did not = political or civil equality

Black Codes 1865-1866

• Illustrate White Visions of Black Freedom• Immediately passed by southern state legislatures• Outlined legal rights • Aimed at creating a subservient labor force

Reconstruction

• Two Phases of Federal Reconstruction:

• Presidential, 1865-1867• Congressional (Radical), 1867-1877

President Andrew Johnson

• Restored former Confederates to Power

• Opposed rights for freed people

• Supported State’s Rights

Congress

• Republican Party/Radical Republicans• Northern Industrialists• Free labor ideology• Pres. Johnson vetoed all attempts to extend

rights to freedmen• 1866 gained a majority in Congress/over-rule

veto

Radical Reconstruction

• Redefined black’s political & economic rights

• Supported education

• Significant for what it did & did not accomplish

Reconstruction Amendments

• First Attempt of Federal Government to define the rights of African Americans

• 13th, 14th, & 15th Amendments

• Southern states had to ratify these amendments to be readmitted to the United States

14th Amendment, 1868

• African Americans = US Citizens• Equal protection under the law• Put penalties on states that denied suffrage

to male citizens• New Role for the Federal Government

Limits of 14th Amendment

• Uses the world “male”• Difficult to enforce• Did not guarantee suffrage to African Americans• “equal protection” did not mean equality or equal

access to goods and services • Leading to “separate but equal” in Plessy

ruling 1896

15th Amendment, 1870

• Forbid states and and federal government to deny suffrage to any citizen on account of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Limits of 15th Amendment

• Does not mention gender or religion

• Does not outlaw literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clauses, property qualifications, or discrimination against women

End of Reconstruction

• Northerners grew tired of it• Finally left southern states to deal with

their “own people”• Democratic Party became the party of

White Supremacy