What was Reconstruction?
• When the American Civil War ended in 1865, the South was in ruins.
• The Southern Economy was ruined
• Social Systems were destroyed
• Over 250,000 Confederate Soldiers had been killed.
Northern View on Reconstruction
• Most Northerners believed that Reconstruction was necessary because of conditions in the Southern States, but few agreed on what should be done.
• Many also disagreed about how to ensure freedom and civil rights of former slaves.
What was the impact of the Civil War on the politics and
government of Virginia?
Politics: the methods involved in managing a government
Abraham Lincoln, United States President during the Civil War
Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America
What was the political impact of the Civil War on Virginia?
Political: having to do with governmentAndrew Johnson, President of
the United States during Reconstruction
When the Civil War was over, Virginia had no functioning government.
•Virginia had belonged to the Confederacy (Confederate States of America), which no longer existed.
President Lincoln reviews Union Artillery troops, Washington,D.C.,
May, 1865.
•Virginia had to adopt a new constitution which banned slavery and gave African American men
the right to vote.
impact: the effect of one thing on another
economy: how a country manages its resources
Sheet music by James Bland, an African American composer
Economic: producing, developing, managing wealth and resources
Sharecropper child working in a cotton field
Life for Virginians was difficult during
Reconstruction.
Sharecropper’s cabin
Sharecroppers picking cotton
The economy of Virginia had
collapsed.
•Plantations could no longer raise cotton, tobacco, and other products, because
owners could not afford to pay former slaves.
•Plantation owners had invested all their money in the Southern Armies. There was no way to get their money back. Their country was no more.
•Many Southern men had been killed or injured in the Civil War.
Even if they were well and young,they could not work on
hundreds of acres of land to raise a cash crop without many workers.
Civil War hospital
The Freedman’s Bureau provided The Freedman’s Bureau provided (gave) the newly freed slaves help in (gave) the newly freed slaves help in several ways.several ways.
Beaufort, SC