The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865–1877

Lincoln’s Second Inaugural

• March 4, 1865• Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this

mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

• 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, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

• April 1865- Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse

• April 14, 1865- Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth

• Andrew Johnson became President

• Johnson pardoned all rebel leaders in 1868

Freedmen Define Freedom

• Many southerners tried to resist emancipation through various means

• Northern soldiers enforced emancipation• Many former slaves took advantage of their

new-found freedom, leaving their former masters

• Baptist and African Methodist Episcopal Churches increased dramatically in size

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The Freedmen’s Bureau

• March 3, 1865• Led by Oliver O. Howard, a Union general• Its goal was to provide food, clothing, medical

care, and education to freedmen• 200,000 educated• Bureau not as successful in distributing land to

former slaves• Expired in 1872

Andrew Johnson

• Democrat• Refused to secede when his state, Tennessee,

did so• When Union armies took over Tennessee, he

became war governor• He was a champion of both states’ rights and

the Constitution

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Presidential Reconstruction

• Lincoln operated under the assumption that the Southern states had never left the Union

• Lincoln’s “10 percent” Reconstruction plan• A state should be reintegrated into the Union

when 10% of its voters in the presidential election of 1860 had taken an oath of allegiance to the U.S. and pledged to abide by emancipation

• Republicans in Congress feared the restoration of the planter aristocracy

• Wade-Davis Bill (1864)- required 50% of a state’s voters to take the oath and demanded stronger safeguards for emancipation

• Lincoln pocket-vetoed it

• Radical Congressional Republicans believed the Southern states had left the Union and forfeited all of their rights

• They should be readmitted only as “conquered provinces”

• They wanted the planter aristocracy destroyed and freed blacks protected by federal power

Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan• May 29, 1865• Leading Confederates were disfranchised

(they could petition for pardons)• Special state conventions would have to be

held to repeal ordinances of secession, repudiate all Confederate debts, and ratify the 13th Amendment

Stages of Reconstruction

• Presidential Reconstruction ended in 1866– 11 Southern states had been readmitted; ex-

Confederates had been returned to power; Black Codes had begun to be passed

• Congressional Reconstruction- 1866-1867– Reaction to what were seen as overly lenient

policies by Johnson– Harsher policies toward Southern whites and

greater protections for African Americans– Civil Rights Act of 1866

-Fourteenth Amendment passed by Congress-Joint Committee- June 1866- issued a report recommending that the former Confederate states were not yet entitled to representation in Congress

• Radical Reconstruction- 1867-1877-Reconstruction Act of 1867-Civil Rights Act of 1875

-guaranteed equal accommodations in public places- poorly enforced

Table 22-1 p471

Black Codes

• First passed in Mississippi in November 1865• Designed to ensure a stable and subservient

labor force• Harsh penalties on those who broke their

labor contracts• Laws prevented blacks from voting and serving

on a jury

• . . . the said Cooper Hughs Freedman with his wife and one other woman, and the said Charles Roberts with his wife Hannah and one boy are to work on said farm and to cultivate forty acres in corn and twenty acres in cotton, to assist in putting the fences on said farm in good order and to keep them so and to do all other work on said farm necessary to be done to keep the same in good order and to raise a good crop and to be under the control and directions of said IG Bailey and to receive for their said services one half of the cotton and one third of the corn and fodder raised by them on said farm in said year 1867. . . – Contract between I.G. Bailey and Cooper Hughs and Charles

Roberts, January 1, 1867

• Many blacks and poor whites became sharecroppers

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• Alexander Stephens, the former vice-president of the Confederacy, and other Confederates entered Congress representing the newly reconstituted Southern states (many as Democrats)

• African Americans in the South now counted as a person (as opposed to 3/5ths) when apportioning representation in the House and the Electoral College

• December 6, 1865- Johnson declared that the Southern states had satisfied his conditions and that the Union was restored

• February 1866- Johnson vetoed a bill to extend the existence of the Freedmen’s Bureau (it was later repassed)

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Congressional Reconstruction

• March 1866- Congressional Republicans passed the Civil Rights Bill

• Gave African Americans the privileges of American citizenship

• Johnson vetoed the bill on Constitutional grounds, but his veto was overridden

• Johnson and Congress clashed as a result of their different views on Reconstruction

14th Amendment

• Conferred civil rights, including citizenship, on freedmen

• Reduced the representation of a state in Congress and in the Electoral College if it denied African Americans the right to vote

• Disqualified from federal and state office former Confederates

• Guaranteed the federal debt and repudiated all Confederate debts

The Congressional Election of 1866

• Johnson hoped to gain a majority in Congress sympathetic to his policies

• He made an unsuccessful speech tour• Republicans won a two-thirds majority in both

houses of Congress

Radical Republicans

• Led by Charles Sumner in the Senate– Sumner wanted freedom and racial equality

• Led by Thaddeus Stevens in the House• Wanted to keep the Southern states out of the

Union as long as possible and use federal power to bring about drastic social and economic transformation

Moderate Republicans

• Accepted the principles of states’ rights and self-government

• Wanted to restrain states from abridging citizens’ rights

• Moderates were the majority faction• Policies showed the influence of both factions

Radical Reconstruction/Military Reconstruction

• March 2, 1867 Congress passed the Reconstruction Act

• South was divided into five military districts• Many former Confederates were temporarily

disfranchised• The states had to ratify the Fourteenth

Amendment

Fifteenth Amendment

• 1869- passed by Congress• 1870- ratified• No one could be denied the right to vote

based on color• Radical Republicans believed this was the only

way to keep Southern states from taking the vote away from African Americans when the states were readmitted to the Union

• Ex parte Milligan (1866)- Supreme Court ruled that military tribunals could not try civilians even during wartime when civilian courts were open

• Supreme Court, however, did not oppose the military rule set up in the South

• By 1870 all the states had reorganized with new Republican “radical” regimes and had their rights restored

• 1877 Federal troops left the South• When troops left, “Redeemers” returned to

power (“Home Rule” regimes). These were Democratic

Map 22-1 p476

Table 22-2 p477

No Women Voters

• A connection had existed between the abolition movement and the women’s rights movement

• After the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments offended many women’s rights advocates (the 14th Amendment used the word male when referring to a citizen’s right to vote)

The Realities of Radical Reconstruction in the South

• Political participation of African Americans expanded greatly during Reconstruction– 14 Congressmen, 2 Senators, and many in state

and local positions

• “Scalawags”- white Southerners (often former Unionists and Whigs) who were accused of plundering the states

• “Carpetbaggers”- Northerners who were accused of coming to the South to seek power and profit

Radical Regimes

• Successes: Public school, better tax systems, public works, property rights for women

• Some regimes were corrupt (South Carolina and Louisiana)

Hiram RevelsFirst African American in U.S. Senate

Blanche BruceFirst African American to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate

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The Ku Klux Klan

• 1866• Terrorized African Americans and white

“carpetbaggers”• In response, Congress passed the Force Acts of

1870 and 1871

• Around 1890 African Americans were disfranchised through intimidation and fraud

• Literacy tests• Poll taxes

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Johnson Walks the Impeachment Plank

• 1867- Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act over Johnson’s veto– Required the president to get the consent of the Senate

before removing from office an appointee that had previously been approved

• 1868- Johnson dismissed Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War

• House voted to impeach Johnson for “high crimes and misdemeanors” for violating the Tenure Act. It also charged him with actions involving “disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt, and reproach”

• Johnson was found not guilty by one vote in the Senate

• A dangerous precedent was avoided

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The Purchase of Alaska

• 1867- Secretary of State William Seward signed a treaty with Russia acquiring Alaska for $7.2 million

• He was criticized by many for the purchase– “Seward’s Folly”

Map 22-2 p482

The Heritage of Reconstruction

• Many white Southerners resented Reconstruction

• Benefits for African Americans in the South proved temporary

• The Republican party vanished from the South for almost 100 years

• Frederick Douglass on Lincoln and Reconstruction, Matthew Pinsker- https://www.gilderlehrman.org/multimedia?page=1#!60071

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