The Reconstruction Period

Looking At The Civil War Through Its Consequences

Outcomes: War Boosts the North’s Economy

The Civil War cost more money than any of its predecessors in history

A. Raising Money in the North1. 1861-Congress passes first income tax law2.Tax luxury items – carriages, jewels, etc.3. “Bond Program”: helped pool money together

B. Rising Prices

1. North needs more money to pay for the war effort2. North prints more money (more in circulation)3. Greenbacks: Green paper dollars – run off more

money4. Inflation: rise in prices caused by an increase in the

amount of money in circulation

C. Economic Boost

1. War helped North’s economy-farm production up

2. Northern manufacturers become Profiteers

3. Profiteer: overcharged the government for goods desperately needed in the war effort

The South Falls on Hard Times

Tax-in-Kind: require southern farmers to turn over 1/10 of their crops to government

A. Economy SuffersWar damaged southern economy – cotton trade

way down

B. Efforts of the Blockade1. Caused famine for civilians and soldiers2. South spent lots of $ buying weapons from Europe3. South could not get supplies through Union Army

Forces in Southern Politics1. White Southerners (scalawags) who rejoined the Union

2. Northerners (carpetbaggers)3. Freedmen: freed slavesYou should have the definitions for each Why did northerners move south? To seek their fortunes Union soldiers grew to love the land Reformers

Is change inevitable in southern society?

Why?Freedmen: men and women who

were slaves were now free.

Plans for Reconstruction• 10% Plan: a southern

state could form a new gov’t after 10% of its voters swore loyalty to the Union

• Wade-Davis Bill: required majority of white men in each southern state swear loyalty to the Union.

• Those who volunteered to fight for the Confederacy were denied rights (vote, hold office)

• Freedmen’s Bureau: Provided all of the following for freedmen:

• Food, clothing, jobs, medical care

Trouble Ahead …

April 14, 1865:• President Lincoln is assassinated at Ford’s

Theater, Washington, DC• John Wilkes Booth, and a number of other

southerners blamed Lincoln for the south’s crushing defeat

• Lincoln is replaced by Andrew Johnson• Johnson continues Lincoln’s “mild” plan for

reconstruction• Johnson vs.Congress **Congress wants south

to be punished!

Reconstruction PoliticsSouthern Goal: Keep African Americans from voting,

owning guns or serving on juries1. Black Codes: laws that limited the rights of

freedmenNorthern Goal: break the power of the rich, southern

planters2. Give freedmen the right to vote** Most people were Moderates, who wanted a strict

policy toward the south

Freedmen will begin to fight for their rights …

What rights, do you ask? 13th amendment (12/6/1865): abolished slavery

Slaves were freed at the end of the Civil War. 14th amendment (7/9/1868): granted any person

born in the United States citizenship (including African Americans); “equal protection under the law”

15th amendment (2/2/1870): promised to not deny any person the right to vote, based on their race

President Johnson is almost impeached …

• Election 1866: 14th amendment is made an election issue

• March 1867: First Reconstruction Act – abolished southern state gov’ts who did not ratify the 14th amendment

Therefore, Former Confederate states were forced to pass 14th amendment

Result: African Americans can vote!

Feb. 24, 1868: Congress votes to impeach President Johnson

• Impeachment: process of bringing formal charges of wrong doing against an elected official.

• President can only be removed by 2/3 majority vote

• Johnson is found “not guilty” by one vote!

November 1868

• Most southern states have rejoined the Union• 1868 election: 70,000 African Americans vote• General Ulysses S. Grant becomes 18th

president• Grant passes the 15th amendment

White southerners fought against changes in society …

1) Conservative white southerners agreed to allow African Americans to vote as long as they retained all the real power.

2) Ku Klux Klan: used “scare tactics” to try to keep African Americans from exercising their new freedoms and right to vote.

Still viewed the U.S. as “white man’s country”How did Congress respond to this?

Cycle of Poverty

1. Farmers already in debt ($1,000)2. Buy goods on credit ($10,000)3. Plant and harvest crops4. Harvest delivers $18,000

5. $18,000 - $9,000 to sharecropper; leaves $9,000 to landowner

6. Landowner has debt of $11,000. He pays his $9,000 which leaves him with a debt of $2,000.

**Back to #1, cycle starts all over again!

Cycle of Poverty

Farmers already in debt ($1,000)Buy goods on credit ($10,000)

Plant and harvest cropsHarvest delivers $18,000

$18,000 - $9,000 to sharecropper; leaves $9,000 to landowner.

The cycle of poverty was escalated by all the freedmen who were …

Forced to return to slavery

Many freedmen returned to slavery due to society not accepting them as free

1) Sharecropper: farmer who worked the land owned by another and gives landowner part of the harvest

2) “Another form of slavery”

3) South locked in cycle of poverty as land owners cannot pay debts!

Separate is Not Equal …Voting restrictions: poll taxes, literacy tests

and grandfather clausesYou should have the definitions of each one!Jim CrowSegregation: separation of people of

different racesJim Crow Laws passed to separate blacks

and whites

Plessy vs. Ferguson1892-96

• Segregation of blacks and whites sparked many questions regarding the 14thamendment

• 1890, Louisiana passes statue providing that “all railway companies carry passengers in their coaches … provide equal, but separate accomodations for the white and colored races …”

• Penalty for sitting in wrong compartment is either fine of $25 or 20 days in jail

The Plessy Story

• Homer Plessy, a 30 yr old shoemaker, was jailed for sitting in “white man’s car” of the East Louisiana Railroad.

• Plessy was mix of 7/8 white and 1/8 black.• The Louisiana law still considered him black,

therefore in violation of the law.• Plessy went to court arguing that the Separate Car

Act violated the 13th and 14th amendments

The Decision is … Guilty

• Plessy was found guilty of law violation

• It would not be until Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka in 1954 that “separate but equal” would no longer be the law of the land.

Reconstruction ends in 1876 …

• With the election of Rutherford B. Hayes.• Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida have disputed

electoral votes• COMPROMISE: Republicans will give Hayes the

presidency in exchange for him pulling out the military governors in the south

• South returns to conservative Democratic rule Military Reconstruction comes to an end in the south and Jim Crow (segregation) escalates as south returns to its “Old Ways”/

Success of Reconstruction1. All African Americans were finally citizens2. Laws passed, for example the 14th amendment, were

the basis of Civil Rights movements for the next 100 years

Failures:1. Southerners faced hard times2. Southerners, esp. African Americans, fell under

much hardship as their life’s rules were under constant re-evaluation