Post Civil War Reconstruction.

At the close of the Civil War

On April 15, 1865 President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. This changed the course of reconstruction drastically. President Lincoln wanted to aid the South’s recovery from the mass destruction of the civil war.

After his assassination Vice President Andrew Johnson was promoted to United States President and the course of reconstruction changed. The death of Lincoln

inaccurately portrayed in a lithograph.

Economic Changes

Things to look for.

• Share croppers

• Tenant Farmers

• Landowners

• Freed Slaves

• Visions for the South

Economic Changes

The Civil War caused tremendous damage to the South. During reconstruction, the federal government, and private northern investors also known as Carpet Baggers pumped large amounts of capital in the southern economy. This money was used to begin to develop a more diversified economic base. The hope was that the south would expand beyond agriculture and move towards industrialism.

Economic ChangesSouthern fears circulated in the form of Rumors that the federal government would be granting freed slaves “forty acres and a mule” upon emancipation. While some Radical Republicans did discuss land redistribution this did not become a reality. Instead freed slaves were generally left with no belongings and remained on the land that they served on.

Economic ChangesAfter the war former slave owners kept their land but had no capital to pay for labor, while freedmen could provide the labor but had no land. The result was the rise of sharecropping and tenant farming agreements. These were contracts that would allow land owners to advance supplies so that poor white and freedmen can farm but had to surrender a substantial part of the crops (typically 2/3). Typically this left the sharecropper or tenant farmer deeper in debt every than when he started.

Economic ChangesCharles Dudley Warner, “The South Revisited” Harper’s Weekly New Monthly Magazine (March 1887).“When we come to the New Industrial South the change is so marvelous, and so vast and various that I hardly know where to begin… Instead of a South devoted to agriculture and politics, we find a South wide-awak to business, excited and even amazed at the development of its own amount of resources in metals, marbles, coal, timber, fertilizers, eagerly laying lines of communication, rapidly opening mines, building furnaces, foundries, and all sorts of shops for utilizing native riches. It is like the discovery of a new world.

Economic Changes

Questions :

1. Define Sharecropping2. What was a significant economic change after the civil war? 3. What was the vision of for the South after the civil war? Did it

happen?

The Black Codes

Things to look for.

• The Black Codes

• Examples of the Black Codes

• Reasons for enacting the Black Codes

The Black Codes

Under the lenient Reconstruction policies of President Andrew Johnson, white southerners reestablished civil authority in the former Confederate states in 1865 and 1866. They enacted a series of restrictive laws known as “black codes” which were designed to restrict freed blacks’ activity and ensure their availability as a labor force now that slavery had been abolished.

The Black Codes

Examples of Black Codes:• Servants shall not be absent from the

premises without the permission of the master. (South Carolina)

• Prohibited whites from marrying any Negro or any descendant of any Negro to the third generation inclusive. Penalty: Felony, punishable by imprisonment in the state penitentiary up to five years. (Kentucky).

• White and black children shall be taught in separate public schools, “but there shall be no discrimination made in favor of, or to the prejudice of, either race.” (North Carolina).

The Black CodesElements of the Black Codes• Race was defined by blood; the presence of any

amount of black blood made one black.• Employment was required of all freedmen;

violators faced vagrancy charges.• Freedmen could not assemble without the

presence of a white person.• Freedmen were assumed to be agricultural

workers and their duties and hours were tightly regulated.

• Freedmen were not to be taught to read or write.• Public facilities were segregated.• Violators of these laws were subject to being

whipped or branded.

The Black Codes

Questions :

1. Define Black Codes2. Why do white southerners enact the black codes after the civil war?

The Fight for Equal Rights

Things to look for.

• Andrew Johnson

• The 14th Amendment

• The Civil Rights Act

On April 15, 1865 President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. This changed the course of reconstruction drastically. President Lincoln wanted to aid the South’s recovery from the mass destruction of the civil war.

After his assassination Vice President Andrew Johnson was promoted to United States President and the course of reconstruction changed.

The death of Lincoln inaccurately portrayed in a lithograph.

The Fight for Equal Rights

The Fight for Equal RightsAndrew Johnson was not interested in civil rights and often found himself in opposition with a congress that was dominated by Republicans. The Republican congress made the attempt to impeach the president but ultimately failed to remove him from office.

President Andrew Johnson

The Fight for Equal RightsIn 1866, congress passed the first civil rights act providing African-Americans with the guaranteed rights of U.S. citizenship. President Johnson was convinced that congress was moving too fast and discriminating against southern rights. Congress overrode the president’s attempt to veto the law.

Harper’s Weekly 1866 political cartoon

The Fight for Equal RightsCivil Rights Act of 1866

Grants citizenship and the same rights enjoyed by white citizens to all male person in the united States “with out distinction of race of color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude.”

Radical Members of the Republican Party

The Fight for Equal RightsPresident Johnson’s response to the Civil Rights Act, March 27, 1866

The bill in effect proposes a discrimination against large numbers of intelligent worthy, and patriotic foreigners, and in favor of the Negro, to whom, after long years of bondage, the avenues to freedom and intelligence have just now been suddenly opened. He must, of necessity, from his previous unfortunate condition of servitude, be less informed as to the nature and character of our institution. April 14, 1866, Thomas Nast

The Fight for Equal Rights

14th Amendment, Section 1, US Constitution (1868)

… 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. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws…”

The Fight for Equal Rights

Questions :

1. Define the 14thth Amendment.2. Define Civil Rights Act of 1866.3. How did President Johnson respond to the Republican party’s push

for civil rights? Judging by the political cartoons, what was the public’s opinion?

Assisting FreedmEn

Things to look for.

• Freedman’s Bureau

• The 14th Amendment

• The Civil Rights Act

Assisting FreedmEn

Even though Abraham Lincoln emancipated slaves they were not all freed on that proclamation. At the time President Lincoln only had power over the Union as a result during the civil war slaves were not freed in the south. It was not till the ratification of the 13th amendment that slavery was ultimately abolished.

Slaves react jubilantly to Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Published by Gale Cengage

Assisting FreedmEnEfforts to assist freedmen evolved overtime, culminating in the creation of the Freedmen’s Bureau, which officially functioned between 1866-69. The Freedmen’s Bureau was supposed to assist freed slaves by helping them find work, negotiate contract, and gain an education. It also serves as a legal advocate and provided some protection from resentful southern whites.

Historian W.E.B. Du Bois argues that the bureau was more successful in establishing black schools than it was at achieving land redistribution.

This 1866 racist poster, one of a series, attacks Radical Republicans on the issue of black suffrage and advocates

Assisting FreedmEnMary S. Battey, School Teacher, Andersonville, Georgia 1866.

“Our school begun in spite of threatenings from the whites and the consequent fear of the blacks with twenty-seven pupils, four only of whom could read, even the simplest words. At the end of six weeks, we have enrolled eighty-five names, with but fifteen to read. In seven years teachings at the North, I have not seen a parallel to their appetite for learning and their active progress. Whether this zeal will abate with time, is yet a question. I have fear that it may. Meanwhile it is well to ‘work while the day lasts.’ Their spirit now may be estimated somewhat when I tell you that three walk a distance of four miles each morning to return after the five-hour session. Several come three miles, and quite a number from two and two-and-a-half miles..”

Assisting Freedmen

Questions :

1. Define the Freedmen’s Bureau.2. How long was the Freedmen’s Bureau in operation?3. Why was the Freedmen’s Bureau necessary? What was the public’s

fear of assisting the freedmen?

Political Change

Things to look for.

• 15th Amendment

• Carpetbaggers

• Scalawags

• Republicans

• Democrats

Political Change

The 15 amendment provided the right for African-American men to vote in 1870. In the beginning African-Americans combined with northern migrants were voting in large numbers for Republican candidates.

The first vote" A.R. Waud. Wood engraving. 1867

Political ChangeMany African-Americans were elected to state and federal offices where large populations were present. This frustrated southern Democrats who claimed that the worst elements of southern society were being brought to power.

The First Colored Senator and Representatives," 1872, by Currier & Ives

Political ChangeFrustrated and disenfranchised southern Democrats referred to northern migrants as carpetbaggers and white southern Republicans as scalawags. Despite the protest from the Democrats that the new government with Republican majorities were corrupt and infective historians such as Thomas Holt found that period of government was as effective as the before.

Carpetbagger, Harper's Weekly, 1872.

Political Change

Question :

1. Define the 15th Amendment.2. Define Carpet Baggers and Scalawags.3. How did the 15th Amendment change the political landscape of the

post-civil war south? (Who was effected, what were the opinions at the time?)

The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan

Things to look for.

• The Ku Klux Klan

• The Purpose of the Ku Klux Klan

• The destruction and its recreation of the Klan.

The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan

Founded in 1866 by veterans of the Confederate Army, the Ku Klux Klan’s main purpose was to resist Reconstruction. If focused as much on intimidating carpetbaggers and scalawags as putting down the freed slaves.

Thomas Nast “The Union As it Was”. Harper’s Weekly 1874

The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan

The reaction to the Klan was rapid, as a result the Klan’s leadership disowned violence. The organization was in decline from 1868 to 1879 and was destroyed entirely in the early 1870 by President Ulysses S. Grant’s vigorous action under the Civil Rights Act of 1871.The modern KKK is a recreation from the early twentieth-century. While it continued to harass southern African-Americans, it also targeted immigrants specifically Catholics and Jews.

President Ulysses S. Grant

The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan

Question :

1. Define the Ku Klux Klan.2. Why did the Ku Klux Klan form and what was the reaction to their

method?