Reconstruction Policies and Problems

1. Reconstruction Policies and Problems Unit 3 USII 3b

2. Reconstruction Policies and Problems • Southern military leaders could not hold office • Northern soldiers supervised the South Jefferson Davis Robert E. Lee Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson

3. Reconstruction Policies and Problems • African Americans could hold public office In a historical twist of fate, Senator Hiram Revels took the Senate seat formerly held by Jefferson Davis, who had served as president of the Confederate States of America. by Thomas Nast,

4. Reconstruction Policies and Problems • African Americans gained equal rights as a result of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, with authorized the use of federal troops for its enforcement

5. Reconstruction Policies and Problems • Civil Rights Act of 1866-granted citizenship and equal protection under the law to African Americans Which amendments also did this?

6. Reconstruction Policies and Problems • The Freedmen’s Bureau was established to aid former enslaved African Americans in the South. • At the end of the war, the Bureau's main role was providing emergency food, housing, and medical aid to refugees, though it also helped reunite families.

7. Reconstruction Policies and Problems • Near the end of the Civil War President Lincoln pushed for the creation of a government agency called the Freedmen's Bureau.  It sent government agents into the Southern states to open offices to help the freed slaves. 

8. Reconstruction Policies and Problems • The Freedmen's Bureau also opened schools in some areas of the South for the children of former slaves. 

9. Reconstruction Policies and Problems • Later, it focused its work on helping the freedmen adjust to their conditions of freedom. Its main job was setting up work opportunities and supervising labor contracts. The Bureau also worked to settle disputes between whites and blacks over issues such as employment and pay.

10. Reconstruction Policies and Problems • Southerners resented northern “carpetbaggers,” who took advantage of the South during Reconstruction • Many people from the Northern States went South because it was so poor that there many opportunities for a person with money even a little money. • For example you could own a farm by paying the past due taxes for as little as $25. • These opportunities attracted all sorts people from honest hard working farmers, to crooks, charlatans, con artist and of course crooked politicians. • All these outsiders (identified by their Carpetbag) were called Carpetbaggers and still are in many places.

11. Reconstruction Policies and Problems • The worst Carpetbaggers were the politicians who used their positions in the corrupt Reconstruction Government to enrich themselves through bribes, graft and other despicable acts at the expense of native Southerners.

12. Reconstruction Policies and Problems“Black Codes” • Southern states adopted “Black Codes” to limit the economic and physical freedom of former slaves. • intended to secure a steady supply of cheap labor, and all continued to assume the inferiority of the freed slaves • name given to laws passed by southern governments after the Civil War. • imposed severe restrictions on freed slaves • Prohibiting their right to vote, • forbidding them to sit on juries, • limiting their right to testify against white men, • carrying weapons in public places • working in certain occupations.

13. Student Activity By Thomas Nast • Choose one of the four political cartoons and answer the questions on the Cartoon Analysis Form