Reconstruction (1865-1877)

1. Reconstruction (1865-1877) Ms. Adams

2. Key Questions 1. How do webring the Southback into the Union? 4. What branchof governmentshould controlthe process ofReconstruction? 2. How do we rebuild the South after itsdestruction during the war? 3. How do weintegrate andprotect newly-emancipatedblack freedmen?

3. What would be done with the 4 million newly freed slaves? How could sectional differences and emotional war wounds be healed so that the nation could be reunited? How could the south, which had suffered most of the war damage, resurrect itself and its economy? How would southerners be treated after the Confederate defeat? Other Key Questions for Georgians

4. While the politicians in Washington are trying to answer these questions Georgia is in a mess…

5. 1 out of 5 soldiers never came home. Those that did were often so severely wounded that they could not work. Wives were now widows, children were fatherless and many of the things that families depended on the men to do were left stranded. Railroad tracks lay twisted, bridges had been burned, cotton mills and factories were closed or had been burned down. No jobs in Georgia. Georgia after the Civil War

6. Banks were closed. The Confederacy had a war debt of 700 million, with Georgia owing 20 million. Confederate money was useless. There was not enough food and people were starving. Most white Georgians were struggling to find food to eat every day and for the men, women and children who had been freed from slavery – life was even worse. Georgia after the Civil War

7. Wartime Reconstruction

8. President Lincoln’s Plan • 10% Plan • 2 Things • 1. Pardon to all but the highest ranking military and civilian Confederate officers. • 2. When 10% of the voting population in the 1860 election had taken an oath of loyalty and established a government, it would be recognized.

9. President Lincoln’s Plan • Congress and many northerners felt the south should be punished. They believed that the Confederacy should be treated like a conquered country. In 1864, Congress passed the Wade-Davis Bill – which Lincoln saw as a Radical Republican attempt to punish the south.

10. Wade-Davis Bill (1864) • Required 50% of the number of 1860 voters to take an “iron clad” oath of allegiance (swearing they had never voluntarily aided the rebellion ). • Required a state constitutional convention before the election of state officials. • Enacted specific safeguards of freedmen’s liberties. SenatorBenjaminWade(R-OH) CongressmanHenryW. Davis(R-MD)

11. Wade-Davis Bill (1864) • President Lincoln simply refused to sign it. He let it die quietly. This action signaled that there would be a fight over Reconstruction. Lincoln, however, was not part of the fight. PocketVeto PresidentLincoln Wade-DavisBill

12. You know the story – so I won’t tell it again. Why do you think that the assassination of Abraham Lincoln did more harm to the south than good? Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

13. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, the only southern U.S. Senator not to resign his seat in 1861, was Lincoln’s Vice President at the time. He assumed the presidency, determined to carry out Lincoln’s program. Who Would Become President?

14. President Andrew Johnson • Jacksonian Democrat. • Rags to Riches story. • White Supremacist. • Agreed with Lincolnthat states had neverlegally left the Union.

15. President Johnson’s Plan (10%+) • Everyone was pardoned except: Confederate civil and military officers and those with property over $20,000 • In new constitutions, they must accept minimumconditions rejecting slavery (13th Amendment) & secession and accepting state debts • Named provisional governors in Confederate states and called them to oversee elections for constitutional conventions.

16. 13th Amendment • Ratified in December, 1865. • Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction. • Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

17. Slavery is Dead?

18. Although the 13th Amendment abolished slavery, it did not abolish discrimination. By 1865, most of the southern states including Georgia, had passed a number of laws known as Black Codes – which were designed to restrict the rights of the freedmen. Black Codes

19. Black Codes • Regulations: • Occupation regulations: some states said that Blacks could only work agricultural jobs and couldn’t raise their own crops. • Permitted whipping as punishment • Established labor periods as sunrise to sunset, 6 days a week • Jobless Blacks were put in prison – forcing many Blacks to work jobs for little pay • Forced many blacks to become sharecroppers[tenant farmers].

20. Under this system, the landowners provided land, a house, farming tools, and animals, seed, and fertilizer. The workers agreed to give the owner a share of the harvest. Until they sold their crop, the owners often let them have food, medicine, clothing, and other supplies at high prices on credit. These farmers often did not understand money or interest owed. Sometimes they were charged as much as 70% interest on money owed to landowners for goods. Example: $1000.00 owed with 70% = $1700 at the end of the year. Example: Crops worth $1000 owner gets %70 SAME AS SLAVERY!! Sharecropping

21. Sharecropping

22. The only difference is that the tenant usually owns some farm equipment and maybe a mule or animal. They also bought their own seed and fertilizer. At the end of the year the tenant would either give the landlord an amount of money for the rent or a share of the crop. They sometimes didn’t have enough crops left over to feed their families. Even though they may have made a very small profit – they were just as doomed as the sharecroppers. http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/T/TE009.html Tenant Farming

23. Northern Republican Radicals are not happy. • Radicals were at first willing to go along with the plan because Johnson offered a reward for Jefferson Davis. After he was caught they began to not like the plan again. And because… • Johnson granted 13,500 special pardons. • Republicans were outraged that planter elite were back in power in the South! • Some of the south’s laws threatened to disenfranchise the freedman. (Black Codes, sharecropping, KKK, etc…) • They felt that the South needed further punishment.

24. Congress Breaks with the President • Congress bars SouthernCongressional delegates. • Joint Committee on Reconstruction created. • February, 1866  Presidentvetoed the Freedmen’sBureau bill. • March, 1866  Johnsonvetoed the 1866 Civil Rights Act. • Congress passed both bills over Johnson’s vetoes  1st in U. S. history!!

25. U.S. Military Takes Over Georgia & the South We’ll talk more about this in just a minute!

26. President Johnson named James Johnson, who opposed secession, as Georgia’s provisional Governor. He set up an election for the people of Georgia to vote people into the General Assembly. The folks elected met in October of 1865 and drafted a new state constitution and a governor for Georgia. The Assembly chose Alexander Stephens and Herschel Johnson to be the 2 U.S. senators. The Capital was placed in Milledgeville. Georgia’s New Government

27. A Federal assistance program established to assist the 4 million freed slaves in making the transition from slavery to freedom. The agency distributed trainloads of food and clothing to freed slaves. They built hospitals for the freed slaves and gave direct medical aid to more than 1 million of them. The greatest successes of the Freedmen's Bureau were in the field of education. More than 4,000 schools for freed slaves were built and staffed with qualified instructors. Freedman’s Bureau

28. Freedmen’s Bureau School

29. Freedmen’s Bureau (1865) • Many former northern abolitionists risked their lives to help southern freedmen. • Carpetbaggers: northerners who moved south after the war. Called “carpetbaggers” by white southern Democrats who claimed they toted all their possessions in a carpet bag. • Scalawags: southerners who supported the northern republicans. • Southerners hated them, especially the carpetbaggers saying they came to the south to get rich off the poor southerners. Not true.

30. Freedmen’s Bureau Seen Through Southern Eyes Plenty to eat and nothing to do.

31. Establishment of Historically Black Colleges in the South

32. 1. Georgia’s Atlanta University 2. Morehouse College (still there) 3. Clark College (still there) 3 Reconstruction Schools in in Atlanta founded to Educate the Freedmen

33. Radical (Congressional) Reconstruction Now that the Radical Republicans have taken control in Congress – they really start passing some laws!!!

34. 14th Amendment • Ratified in July, 1868. • Provide a constitutional guarantee of the rights and security of freed people. • Insure against neo-Confederate political power. • Enshrine the national debt while repudiating that of the Confederacy. • Southern states would be punished for denying the right to vote to black citizens!

35. The Balance of Power in Congress

36. 1866 • Radical Republicans took power in both houses of Congress and told the southern states that they would have to ratify the 14 amendment before they could rejoin the Union. All the southern states refused, except Tennessee. So the U.S. sent the military in to sign up all eligible black and white MALE voters who swore allegiance to the United States. • The people that the United States allowed to vote chose delegates to go to the state capital to hold a constitution convention so that a new state constitution – which ratified the 13th & 14th amendment – could be drafted.

37. Reconstruction Acts of 1867 • Military Reconstruction Act • Restart Reconstruction in the 10 Southern states that refused to ratify the 14th Amendment. • Divide the 10 “unreconstructed states” into 5 military districts.

38. Black & White Political Participation

39. “Regional Balance?”

40. Black Senate & House Delegates

41. This was the first year that Blacks could vote in Georgia. As delegates convened in Milledgeville it turned into a fiery mess! Black representatives were refused rooms at local hotels. Riots broke out. General Pope requested the convention to be moved to Atlanta – which led to the city becoming the states permanent capital. Georgia Constitutional Convention of 1867 Atlanta Becomes the Capital.

42. Once in Atlanta – a lot got done… A new constitution, which gave civil rights to ALL state citizens, approved free public education for all children, and allowed women to control their own property was written. Georgia was the first state to allow women to do this. I love Georgia!!!! Georgia chose Rufus Bullock as governor and after Georgia met readmission requirements for the 2nd time – troops left the state. Georgia Constitutional Convention of 1867

43. 69 African Americans served as delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1867 or were elected as members of the state legislature (29 House / 3 Senate). Jefferson Franklin Long is Georgia first Black state legislator. The 3 most prominent black legislators during Reconstruction were Aaron A. Bradley, Tunis Campbell and Henry McNeal Turner. Who were Georgia’s first VERY brave African American Congressmen?

44. For the first time, many Blacks realized that power of voting. Thousands would show up to the polls to vote in order to keep the republicans in power. Republican carpetbaggers helped them get to the polls and continued to support their efforts for civil rights. African Americans in Politics

45. A secret organization that tried to keep freedmen from exercising the new civil rights. Began in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1865 as a social club for returning soldiers. It quickly turned into a force of terror. The members dressed in hoods and robes. They terrorized and intimidated African American voters to keep them from voting and by doing so return the state to the control of the Democrats. KKK – Ku Klux Klan

46. The “Invisible Empire of the South”

47. Freedmen who were not frightened away from the polls were carefully watched – and those voting republican would lay in their beds at night listening to the sounds of horses around their homes – indicating the Klan was nearby. The right for suffrage could be death. The Klan’s activities were increasing and there was large evidence that they were keeping African Americans from voting. So, the Georgia Act was passed and for the third time – Georgia was returned to military control. 15th Amendment is passed. Racial Conflict

48. 15th Amendment • Ratified in 1870. • The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. • The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. • Women’s rights groups were furious that they were not granted the vote!

49. 13th Amendment: Abolished slavery 14th Amendment: Said that no citizen could denied protection under the U.S. or state laws and that every citizen had a right to civil liberties (freed slaves) 15th Amendment: Gave all males in the country the right to vote regardless of race 13th, 14th & 15th Amendment

50. Turner was born "free" in Newberry Courthouse, South Carolina . Instead of being sold into slavery, his family sent him to live with a Quaker family. Despite the law he was taught to read and write. He was the Chaplain of the first Federal regiments of Black Troops by Lincoln and later appointed to work with the Freedman’s Bureau by Johnson. During this time he moved to Georgia where he helped found the Republican Party. After getting into a legal battle with the Supreme Court, Turner became a proponent of the “back to Africa” movement. http://www.todayingeorgiahistory.org/content/henry-mcneal-turner Henry McNeal Turner