RECONSTRUCTION The restoration of the former Confederate states to the Union 1865-1877.
-
Upload
samson-arnold -
Category
Documents
-
view
214 -
download
0
Transcript of RECONSTRUCTION The restoration of the former Confederate states to the Union 1865-1877.
RECONSTRUCTION
The restoration of the former Confederate states to the Union
1865-1877
What Could Have Happened: chaos and vengeance• imprisonment of Confederate leaders• former rebel troops wage a guerilla war• slaves rage a racial war
What Did Happen: political stalemate• political conflict with some violence• Constitutional Amendments and legislative reform• impeachment crisis
“It is intended to revolutionize their principles and feelings… a radical reorganization in Southern institutions, habits, and manners…or all our blood and treasure have been
spent in vain.”~ Thaddeus Stevens, Pennsylvania Representative
Questions to Consider
• What issues (both short and long term) need to be addressed?
• What other issues do you assume exist? Pre-existing conflicts – are they addressed?
• Who is capable of and responsible for addressing them?
• What are the priorities of reconstruction? Who decides what the priorities are?
• Who or what is expendable or can be sacrificed in this process?
• How can you measure the efficacy or success of the recovery plan? Pragmatism vs. ideology
• When does it end?
Lincoln’s 10% Plan
“With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God
gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the
nation's wounds. “
1863 Proclamation ofAmnesty and Reconstruction
• Oath of allegiance and acceptance of emancipation by 10% of 1860 voters
• Excluded Confederate officials and officers
• Excluded blacks
Attempt to undermine the Confederacy and build a southern Republican Party
Radical RepublicansWade-Davis Bill
Passed by Congress in July of 1864, introduced by Radical Republicans, OH senator Benjamin F. Wade and MD representative Henry Winter Davis
• majority of eligible voters required to swear oath of allegiance to the Union• repeal secession• abolish slavery
Pocket-vetoed by Lincoln
AndrewJohnson
Southern Senator, remained in Congress
Anti-Confederate
Military governor of TN
Self-educated Jacksonian
Anti-agricultural elite
Supporter of emancipation
Johnson’s PlanMay 1865: AL, FL, GA, MS, NC, SC and TX still not readmitted
Leniency Requirements and Powers
Pardon and amnesty for southerners taking oath of allegiance
Elect delegates to state conventions
All property except slaves returned
Call regular elections
Confederate civil and military leaders and wealthy property owners disqualified from taking the oath
Proclaim secession illegal
Power to the “humble men, the peasantry and yeomen of the South”
Ratify the Thirteenth Amendment
Governments of Southern Statesstatus quo ante bellum
Confederate officers and large planters assumed state officesFormer Confederate congressmen won election to Congress
BLACK CODESInsure a landless, dependent black labor force through contracts
Legalized segregation
Banned intermarriage, jury service by blacks, testimony againstwhites
Defended by Johnson
Southern law allowed marriage to blacks, ownership of property and right to testify against other blacks
Congressional Reconstruction
Democrats;Radical, Moderate and Conservative
Republicans
1865 – extend Freedmen’s Bureau
1866 (March) – Johnson vetoed it:the Constitution did not sanction military trials of civilians in peacetime, nor care for “indigent persons”
1866 (February) – Congress passed Civil Rights Act of 1866 guaranteeing African American citizenship
Vetoed by Johnson;Overridden by CongressFreedmen’s Bureau Act then passed over a presidential veto
Midterm Election 1866: Republican LandslideRadical Republican Agenda:African American suffrageFederal support for public schoolsConfiscation of Confederate estatesExtended military occupation of the South
Three Reconstruction Acts passed over Presidential Veto
Reconstruction Act of 1867All Reconstruction governments except TN were invalidatedRemaining 10 states divided into 5 military districtsBlack males and enfranchised whites elect delegation for new constitutionGrant African American suffrage and ratify 14th Amendment to be re-admitted
Temporary military occupationNo prosecution of Confederate leadersNo confiscation or redistribution of property
Impeachment CrisisMarch 1867Congress passed Tenure of Office Act which prohibited the president from removing any executive officer confirmed by the Senate without Senate approval. (Eventually the law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.)
February 21st, 1868, Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the last of several pro-Radical military officers Johnson had fired
House approved 11 articles of impeachment, 9 based on Tenure of Office and 2 others for unbecoming conduct
7 Republican Senators voted with the Democrats and Johnson was spared conviction by one vote
Reconstruction Amendments
Amendment and date of Congressional passage
Provisions Ratification by the States
ThirteenthJanuary 1865
Prohibited slavery in the United States
December 1865
FourteenthJune 1866
• Citizens are all persons born or naturalized in the U.S.• loss of congressional representation for states that denied suffrage to any male citizens• disqualified prewar Confederate officeholders from holding state or national office
July 1868 after Congress made ratification a prerequisite for re-admission of ex-Confederate states to the Union
FifteenthFebruary 1869
Prohibited denial of suffrage due to race, color or previous condition of servitude
March 1870; ratification required of VA, TX, MS and GA for readmission to the Union
Carpetbaggers and ScalawagsAccording to Democrats, there were three types of Republicans
Scalawags – poor, ignorant, white southerners who supported the RepublicansSome former Whigs; mostly small farmers from the mountains (NC, BA, AL, AR); former Unionists who didn’t
support the planter elite seeking their own economic improvement; no interest in black rights
Carpetbaggers :northerners who had come south for wealth and powerFormer Union soldiers seeking land, factories, RR work or warmer climate; they held 1 in 3 political offices; recruited the black vote to the polls
Hordes of uneducated freedmen:Backbone of southern Republicanism; 8 out of 10 Republican votesSought land, education, civil rights and political equalityHeld only 1 in 5 political officesNo black governors; only 2 Senators; 6% House members were black
Black lawmakers sought equal rights; most freedmen sought land
White CounterattacksEx-Confederates decried the “horror of Negro domination”
NC constitutional convention delegates called “Ethiopian minstrelsy…baboons, monkeys, mules…and other jackasses” by democratic newspapers
Political Tactics – employed after readmission• contested elections• backed dissident Republican factions• elected Democratic legislators• lured away scalawags
Violent Vigilantism• shooting, murder, rape, arson, and “severe and inhuman beating”• 1866 six Confederate veterans formed KKK• by 1868 the Klan was a domestic terrorist organization targeting black voters
EmancipationUrban black population tripled as blacks left farms
seeking lost family members and economic opportunity
Black Churches:worship, relief, schools, political activism
Education:Freedmen’s Bureau schools, Howard, Atlanta, Fisk Universities and Hampton Institute
By 1877, 80% of blacks remained illiterate
Sharecropping – Crop Lien Economy40 acres and a mule1866 Southern Homestead Act
Obstacles to Black Landownership:Lack of capitalWhite opposition to selling to blacksPreservation of a captive labor force
The Abandonment of ReconstructionThe Election of U.S. Grant, 1868
• popular candidate but incompetent President• surrounded by fraud, bribery and corruption (“Grantism”)
Liberal Revolt• radicals and others revolted; formed Liberal Republican Party• Horace Greeley 1872 Candidate for President• civil service reform, end to “bayonet rule”, qualified leaders
Panic of 1873• Railroad speculation caused bank failure and five-year depression• bankrupt businesses, 3 million unemployed, labor violence• sound money vs. easy money and repayment of the debt• Specie Resumption Act, 1875 (Senator John Sherman)• Bland-Allison Act, 1878
End of ReconstructionThe Supreme Court
• Ex Parte Milligan (1866)• Texas v. White (1869)• Slaughterhouse decision (1873)• U.S. v. Reese (1876)• U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876)•Invalidated the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and the KKK Act of 1871 (1883)• Plessy v. Ferguson (1898)
Redemption: the return of Democrats to power• Republican coalition crumbled• Democrats rewrote state constitutions• cut budgets, lowered taxes• eliminated social programs• limited rights of tenant farmers and sharecroppers• directed at blacks severe penalties for misdemeanors• restored conditions of slavery and prompted black exodus
Election of 1876: Hayes (Republican) vs. Tilden (Democrat)• Contested electoral outcome• Decided by electoral commission, certified by the House
“When you turned us loose, you turned us
loose to the sky, to the storm, to the
whirlwind, and worst of all… to the wrath
of our infuriated masters… The
question now is, do you mean to make
good to us the promised in your
Constitution?”
Frederick Douglass
Don’t forget…• What issues (both short and long term) need to be addressed?• What other issues do you assume exist? Pre-existing conflicts –
are they addressed?• Who is capable of and responsible for addressing them?• What are the priorities of reconstruction? Who decides what the
priorities are?• Who or what is expendable or can be sacrificed in this process?• How can you measure the efficacy or success of the recovery
plan? Pragmatism vs. ideology• When does it end?
Choose AT LEAST three to address in your next journal entry…