Reconstructing America: Key Questions and Civil Rights Struggles

1. Reconstruction (1865-1876)

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. Wartime Reconstruction

4. President Lincoln’s Plan • 10% Plan • Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (December 8, 1863) • As soon as 10% of a state’s voters took a loyalty oath to the Union, the state could set up a new government. • If the state’s constitution abolished slavery and provided education for African-Americans, the state would regain representation in Congress. • Members of the Republican party opposed the plan. • The radical-Republicans in Congress insisted that the Confederates had committed crimes and should be punished. • They advocated full citizenship, including the right to vote and taking former Confederate land and giving it to freed slaves. (Sherman’s idea) • Lincoln’s plan did not go through without support from Congress. Pocket-veto.

5. Wade-DavisBill (1864) • Congress rejected Lincoln’s plan believing it was too nice • This bill required that a majority of a state’s prewar voters swear loyalty to the Union. • Demanded the guarantee of African-American equality. SenatorBenjaminWade(R-OH) CongressmanHenryW. Davis(R-MD)

6. Jeff Davis Under Arrest

7. Freedmen’s Bureau (1865) • Created a few weeks before Lincoln’s death. • Goal was to provide food, clothing, healthcare, and education for both black and white refugees in the South. • It helped reunite families and negotiated fair labor contracts between former slaves and white land owners.

8. Freedmen’s Bureau School

9. President Andrew Johnson • Was Lincoln’s Vice-President • He offered pardons for Confederates who swore loyalty. • His deal breaker was that all states coming back into the Union would have to ratify the 13th Amendment. • Wanted major Confederate leaders to write him personally to apply for a pardon. • Anti-aristocrat- resented wealthy plantation owners. • Did not want African-Americans to be able to vote. • Wanted states to determine the freedoms of former slaves. • By December, 1865, most states had met the requirements of readmission.

10. Growing Northern Alarm! • Laws that sought to limit the rights of African Americans and keep them as landless workers. • The codes required African Americans to work in only a limited number of occupations, most often as servants or farm laborers. • Some states prohibited them from owning land and some stipulated that any black person who did not have job could be arrested and sent to work as prison labor. • A lot of Southerners used violence and intimidation to enforce the black codes. BLACK CODES

11. Slavery is Dead?

12. Congress Breaks with the President • Congress sought to overturn the black codes by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1866. • Suspended any state laws that limited African American rights. • Johnson vetoed the law. • How would anything get better if Johnson did not support Congress?

13. Radical (Congressional) Reconstruction

14. 14th Amendment • Ratified in July, 1868. • Defined citizenship and guaranteed equal rights under the law. • Protected freedmen’s rights from presidential vetoes. • Any state that refused to allow black people to vote would risk losing the number of seats in the House of Reps.

15. Radical Plan for Readmission • Civil authorities in the territories were subject to military supervision. • Required new state constitutions, includingblack suffrage and ratification of the 13th and 14th Amendments. • In March, 1867, Congress passed an act that authorized the military to enroll eligible black voters and begin the process of constitution making.

16. 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.

17. Reconstruction Acts of 1867 • Command of the Army Act • The President must issue all Reconstruction orders through the commander of the military. • Tenure of Office Act • The President needed Senate approval to remove certain officials from office. Edwin Stanton

18. President Johnson’s Impeachment • Johnson removed Stanton in February, 1868. • Johnson replaced generals in the field who were more sympathetic to Radical Reconstruction. • The House impeached him for trying to fire Stanton on February 24 before even drawing up the charges by a vote of 126 – 47!

19. The Senate Trial • 11 week trial. • Johnson acquitted 35 to 19 (one short of required 2/3’s vote).

20. The Grant Administration (1868-1876)

21. 1868 Presidential Election

22. President Ulysses S. Grant

23. 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!

24. Blacks in Southern Politics • Core voters were black veterans. • Blacks were politically unprepared. • Blacks could register and vote in states since 1867. • The 15th Amendment guaranteed federal voting.

25. Ku Klux Klan • Formed in Tennessee in 1866. • They roamed the countryside, especially at night, burning homes, schools, and churches, and beating, maiming, or killing African Americans. • Dressed in white robes and hoods, mounted on horses. • Designed to scare people away from voting.

26. The “Invisible Empire of the South”

27. The Abandonment of Reconstruction

28. Was it a failure or success? • Grant’s cabinet and administration was unknowingly corrupt. • He gave government jobs to untrustworthy friends who used their positions to make money.Spoils system? • 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments = success towards equality. • Southern opposition= failure.

29. The 1866 Bi-Election Johnson’s “Swing around the Circle” • A referendum on Radical Reconstruction. • Johnson made an ill-conceived propaganda tour around the country to push his plan. • Republicanswon a 3-1majority in both houses and gained control of every northern state.

30. The Balance of Power in Congress

31. The 1868 Republican Ticket

32. The 1868 Democratic Ticket

33. Waving the Bloody Shirt! Republican “Southern Strategy”

34. Grant Administration Scandals • Grant presided over an era of unprecedented growth and corruption. • Credit Mobilier Scandal. • Whiskey Ring. • The “Indian Ring.”

35. The Tweed Ring in NYC William Marcy Tweed (notorious head of Tammany Hall’s political machine) [Thomas Nast crusading cartoonist/reporter]

36. Who Stole the People’s Money?

37. And They Say He Wants a Third Term

38. The Election of 1872 • Rumors of corruption during Grant’s first term discredit Republicans. • Horace Greeley runsas a Democrat/LiberalRepublican candidate. • Greeley attacked as afool and a crank. • Greeley died on November 29, 1872!

39. 1872 Presidential Election

40. Popular Vote for President: 1872

41. The Panic of 1873 • It raises “the moneyquestion.” • debtors seek inflationarymonetary policy bycontinuing circulation of greenbacks. • creditors, intellectuals support hard money. • 1875  Specie Redemption Act. • 1876  Greenback Party formed & makes gains in congressional races  The “Crime of ’73’!

42. Legal Challenges • The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) • Bradwell v. IL (1873) • U. S. v. Cruickshank (1876) • U. S. v. Reese (1876)

43. Black "Adjustment" in the South

44. Sharecropping

45. Tenancy & the Crop Lien System

46. Black & White Political Participation

47. Establishment of Historically Black Colleges in the South

48. Black Senate & House Delegates

49. Colored Rulein the South?

50. The Failure of Federal Enforcement • Enforcement Acts of 1870 & 1871 [also known as the KKK Act]. • “The Lost Cause.” • The rise of the“Bourbons.” • Redeemers(prewarDemocrats and Union Whigs).