CHAPTER FIFTEEN: RECONSTRUCTION AND THE NEW SOUTH

The Aftermath of War and Emancipation

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• The Devastated South• Their economy, cities, home and families

are ruined• Confederate Dollar is worthless• 3.5 million people with no

job/home/land!

• Competing Notions of Freedom• Black Desire for Independence• The Freedmen’s Bureau

• Who created it?• What did it do? A Freedman’s Bureau School (U.S.

Military Institute, Carlisle, PA)

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Charleston, SC 1865

RECONSTRUCTION PLANS

LINCOLN’S 1863 PLAN:

10% of 1860 voters must swear allegiance to Union

Pledge to abide by emancipation

Focused on pardon of individuals by President

WADE-DAVIS BILL, 1864: 50% of 1860 voters must swear

allegiance to Union

STRONG safeguards for emancipation

Focused on pardon of states by Congress

* Pocket-vetoed by Lincoln, exposed split b/w Moderate and Radical Republicans

Taking the Oath of AllegianceThese white southerners are shown taking the oath of allegiance to the United States in 1865 as part of the process of restoring civil government in the South. The Union soldiers and officers are administering the oath. (Library of Congress)

Taking the Oath of Allegiance

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RADICAL REPUBLICANS

Charles Sumner (left), Senator from Massachusetts, and Thaddeus Stevens, (right), Congressman from Pennsylvania, led the Radical Republican faction in Congress. (Portraits from Library of Congress)

Charles Sumner

What is a Radical Republican?

Portrait of Andrew Johnson(Library of Congress)

Pres. Andrew Johnson

WHO WAS HE?

VP to Lincoln in 1864 to attract pro-Union Democrats to Union Party

Humble origins, self-educated, self-made man

From Tennessee, slave-owner

Pro-Union, appointed war time governor

Pro states’ rights

JOHNSON’S RECONSTRUCTION PLAN (1865):

HOW WAS IT DIFFERENT FROM CONGRESS’ PLAN?

Called “Presidential Reconstruction”

Same as 10% plan of Lincoln, BUT

Disenfranchised leading Confederates and Planter class ($20,000 property or more)

Special State Convention to repeal secession laws, repudiate Confederate debts, ratify 13th amendment

*Johnson granted many pardons-enraging Radical Reps.

Radical Reconstruction9

• The Black Codes• Allowed blacks to be arrested for vagrancy and forced

into labor• Johnson Vetoes Civil Rights Act of 1866• Veto Overridden

• The Fourteenth Amendment• Citizenship for African Americans• Radicals Ascendant

1866 - Radicals take over Congress• Senate: 42 Republicans, 11 Democrats• HofR: 143 Republicans, 49 Democrats

13th Amendment

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.[2]

Sample Black Codes Some Black Codes in Louisiana: Any negro found drunk, within the said parish shall pay a fine of five dollars, or in default thereof work five days

on the public road, or suffer corporeal punishment as hereinafter provided. No negro shall be permitted to rent or keep a house within said parish. Any negro violating this provision shall be

immediately ejected and compelled to find an employer; and any person who shall rent, or give the use of any house to any negro, in violation of this section, shall pay a fine of five dollars for each offence.

If any freedman, free negro, or mulatto, convicted of any of the misdemeanors provided against in this act, shall fail or refuse for the space of five days, after conviction, to pay the fine and costs imposed, such person shall be hired out by the sheriff or other officer, at public outcry, to any white person who will pay said fine and all costs, and take said convict for the shortest time.

Some South Carolina Black Codes: "No person of color shall migrate into and reside in this state, unless, within twenty days after his arrival within

the same, he shall enter into a bond with two freeholders as sureties" "Servants shall not be absent from the premises without the permission of the master" No person of color could become an artisan, mechanic, or shopkeeper unless he obtained a license from the judge

of the district court – a license that could cost $100 or more.

Douglass on the Slave Codes12

Frederick Douglass explained: "A former slave was free from the individual master, but the slave of society. He had neither money, property, nor friends. He was free from the old plantation, but he had nothing but the dusty road under his feet."

Congressional Reconstruction/ Military Reconstruction: 1867-1877

1867-1869: South divided into 5 military districts Disenfranchised former Confederates

Req. South to ratify 14th Amendment Req. South to guarantee full suffrage to Freedmen

1870-1877: Fifteenth Amendment passed to ensure suffrage Federal troops enforce Reconstruction until 1877

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Reconstruction, 1866-1877

Johnson Impeached

1867: Congress passes “Tenure of Office Act”

Johnson fires Sec. Of War Stanton, a Radical sympathizer in the Administration

House of Reps votes 126 to 47 to impeach

Senate fails to remove from office by ONE vote

NOTE: Vice Presidency still vacant – many fear Ben Wade as President, despite dislike of Johnson

REPUBLICANS IN THE SOUTH

Made up of:Scalawags:

Carpetbaggers:

Freedmen:

What were the differences?

Were these positive or negative names?

The South in Reconstruction17

• Education• Establishment of Black Schools• Who helped establish these

schools?• White southerners didn’t want to

give many blacks ideas of “equality”

• Land Ownership and Tenancy• Many Freedman gained land

temporarily. • How?• What happened to it?

• Still 25% of people did not own land.• Many were sharecroppers, or had to

deal with the crop-lien system• What is sharecropping?

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South in Reconstruction21

• Incomes and Credit• Work hours decreased by a third,

incomes raised• Many were still stuck in poverty

though

• Blacks left plantations for families• Looked for lost loved ones, fell

into traditional family roles

Grant Administration Grant – Popular soldier, inept

(corrupt?) politician

Grant’s Cabinet and Administration famous for graft, corruption and nepotism (his wife’s family)

Despite, numerous scandals and charges of incompetence, Grant is reelected in 1872!

Handles Panic of 1873 poorly

Panic of 1873

After the war, many businesses were booming Investors borrowed too much money and went bankrupt This let off a chain reaction throughout the economy.

Greenback Party

**Within a year: 89 railroads went broke 18,000 companies folded

Within 5 years, 3 million people had lost their jobs

Map: The Presidential Election of 1876 and the Compromise of 1877

The Presidential Election of 1876 and the Compromise of 1877In 1876 a combination of solid southern support and Democratic gains in the North gave Samuel Tilden the majority of popular votes, but Rutherford B. Hayes won the disputed election in the electoral college, after a deal satisfied Democratic wishes for an end to Reconstruction. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Compromise of 1877: AKA the Hayes-Tilden deal

America has to deal with Southern redemption Republicans controlled the electoral commission, and gave

election to Hayes.

To avoid conflict, North/Republicans offer to withdraw federal troops from Louisiana and South Carolina.

Freedmen are abandoned for Northern political interests

This creates home rule What is Home Rule? Who did it favor, Democrats or

Republicans?

IMPORTANT RESULT: RECONSTRUCTION OFFICIALLY OVER

OPPOSITION TO RECONSTRUCTION

KU KLUX KLAN

Formed in 1866

“secret” society

Used violence and intimidation

Used economic warfare What is economic

warfare?

Mississippi Klansman, 1871Members of the Ku Klux Klan devised ghoulish costumes to heighten the terror inspired by their acts. This photograph shows the costume of a Mississippi Klansman from 1871.

News Stories

Harper's Weekly, November 7, 1868, page 707 News was received at Washington on the 25th of the assassination of Hon. James Hinds, Member of Congress from the Third District of Arkansas, and the wounding of the Hon. Joseph R. Brooks, of the same State by members of the Ku-Klux Klan.

Harper's Weekly, April 18, 1868, page 243 (News Brief) News Items General Meade has issued orders for the suppression of the Ku-Klux Klan and other incendiary organizations in his military district. Newspaper publishers who print the mystic warnings of the Klan are to be tried by military commissions.

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African Americans and the New South

Booker T. Washington Tuskegee Institute Atlanta Compromise How did he think

African Americans would be able to adapt to society?

Plessy v. Ferguson What happened? Why is it so important? “separate but equal”

Black Disenfranchisement

Literacy Tests Poll Tax Grandfather Clause

Jim Crow Laws What were they?

Ida B. Wells Tried to begin an anti-

lynching campaign

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Jim Crow

minstrel character

a white man made up as a black man sang and mimicked stereotypical behavior.

Sample Jim Crow Laws

Georgia Marriage It shall be unlawful for a white person to marry anyone except a white person. Any

marriage in violation of this section shall be void.

Public Facilities No colored barber shall serve as a barber [to] white women or girls. All persons licensed to conduct a restaurant, shall serve either white people exclusively or

colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room or serve the two races anywhere under the same license.

It shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the Negro race, and it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the white race.

Reconstruction fades….. 14th Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the

jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Only protects rights as citizens of the U.S., most basic civil

rights were obtained through citizenship of the state. Supreme Court says this does not give the Fed. Govt. the right

to punish whites who oppress blacks

15th Amendment: “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.” Supreme Court says it does not “confer the right to vote upon

anyone” but merely lists grounds on which states cannot deny suffrage.

Why are these interpretations SO important to African Americans in the South?