Transcript Ms. Susan M. Pojer Horace Greeley HS Chappaqua, NY

Ms. Susan M. Pojer
Horace Greeley HS Chappaqua, NY
With additional slides and information by
Bob Daugherty
Key Questions
1. How would the
Southern States be
? in the
re-admitted
South?
2. How do we
rebuild the
South after its
destruction
during the war?
4. What branch
of government
should control
the process of
Reconstruction?
3. How do we
integrate and
protect newlyemancipated
black freedmen?
Jeff Davis Under Arrest
What should be done with Jefferson Davis?
He was sent to Ft. Monroe prison
He served only two years in prison due to the efforts of
his wife Varina
His citizenship was not returned until the 1970s when he
and lee were pardoned by President (and Southerner)
Jimmy Carter
Robert E. Lee’s
Arlington home
had been
expropriated
by the
government
during the war
Soldiers from
the Civil war
were buried
there so that
he would never
return
Today it is…
ARLINGTON CEMETERY
President Lincoln’s 10% Plan
Predicated on Lincoln’s belief that the Southern
states HAD NEVER REALLY LEFT THE
UNION
*
Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction
(December 8, 1863)
*
Replace majority rule with “loyal rule” in the
South.
*
He didn’t consult Congress regarding
Reconstruction.
*
Pardon to all but the highest ranking military and
civilian Confederate officers.
*
When 10% of the voting population in the 1860
election had taken an oath of loyalty and
established a government, it would be recognized.
President Lincoln’s Plan
1864  “Lincoln Governments”
formed in LA, TN, AR
*
“loyal assemblies”
*
They were weak and
dependent on the
Northern army for
their survival.
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 ).
Senator
Benjamin
Wade
(R-OH)
 Required a state constitutional
convention before the election of
state officials.
Congressman
 Enacted specific safeguards of
freedmen’s liberties.
Henry
W. Davis
(R-MD)
Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
 “Iron-Clad” Oath.
 “State Suicide” Theory of
MA Senator Charles Sumner]
 “Conquered Provinces” Position
of [PA Congressman Thaddeus Stevens]
 Revealed deep differences between President and
Congress
President
Lincoln’s 10% Plan
Pocket
Veto by Lincoln
Wade-Davis
Bill
President Andrew Johnson
 Jacksonian Democrat.
 Only Southern Democrat to remain
with the Union
 Selected by Lincoln to “balance” the
“Union ticket.
 Hated Southern Planter aristocracy.
 White Supremacist.
 Agreed with Lincoln that states
could not leave Union and tried to
do what he thought Lincoln would do
 Did not know how to compromise or
bend when necessary
“Damn the negroes! I am
fighting these traitorous
aristocrats, their masters!”
President Johnson’s Plan (10%+)
 Offered amnesty upon simple oath to all except
Confederate civil and military officers and those with
property over $20,000 (they could apply directly to
Johnson)
 In new constitutions, they must accept minimum
conditions secession and state debts.
 Had to ratify 13th Amendment (ending slavery)
 Named provisional governors in Confederate states and
called them to oversee elections for constitutional
conventions.
1. Disenfranchised leading and rich Confederates.
EFFECTS?
2. Disenfranchised had to beg for pardons
3. Republicans were outraged that planter elite
were back in power in the South!
th
13
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.
 Not ratified by Mississippi until the 1990s!
Freedmen’s Bureau (1865)
 Primitive welfare agency that
would provide food, clothing,
medical care and education to
freedmen and white refugees
 Many former northern
abolitionists risked their lives
to teach help southern
freedmen.
 Headed by O.O. Howard (who
later founded Howard
University
 Greatest success in education!
Freedmen’s Bureau Seen
Through
Southern
Eyes
“Plenty to
eat and
nothing to
do.’
Another View of the
Freedmen’s Bureau
Freedmen’s Bureau School
Growing Northern Alarm!
 Many Southern state
constitutions fell short of
minimum requirements.
 Johnson granted 13,500 special pardons.
 New Governments elected many former
Confederate cabinet members and officers
 Revival of southern defiance
and belief in noble “Lost Cause”.
BLACK CODES
 Purpose:
Black Codes
*
Guarantee stable labor
supply now that blacks
were emancipated.
*
Restore pre-emancipation
system of race relations.
*
Had to commit to employer for one year
(if violated contract could be forced to
work)
*
“Idle” blacks could be forced to work on a
chain gang
*
Could not own or rent land or own a gun
*
Could not serve on juries or testify
against white people
 Forced many blacks to become sharecroppers
[tenant farmers].
Slavery is Dead?
Who really had won the war?
Congress Breaks with the President
 Congress bars Southern
Congressional delegates many of whom
are former Confederates
 Joint Committee on
Reconstruction created.
 February, 1866  President
vetoed the Freedmen’s
Bureau bill.
 March, 1866  Johnson
vetoed the 1866 Civil Rights Act.
 Congress overrides both Johnson
vetoes and passes first Civil Rights
Bills in in U. S. history!!
Former CSA
Vice-President
Alexander
Stephens
Johnson the Martyr / Samson
“If my blood is to be shed
because I vindicate the Union and
the preservation of this
government in its original purity
and character, let it be shed; let
an altar to the Union be erected,
and then, if it is necessary, take
me and lay me upon it, and the
blood that now warms and
animates my existence shall be
poured out as a fit libation to the
Union. ‘
(Andrew Johnson February 1866)
th
14
Amendment
 Ratified in July, 1868. passed because Congress
was afraid that Southerners would someday
repeal the Civil Rights Acts
*
Conferred citizenship and Civil Rights (but note vote) on
Freedman (and anyone born in the US regardless of
circumstances)
*
Southern states could be punished for denying the right to
vote to black citizens!
*
Enshrined the national debt while repudiating that of the
Confederacy.
*
Former Confederate officers could not serve in state or
federal office
*
Later would serve as the basis for guaranteeing
the Bill of Rights by the States and for the Civil
Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s
The Balance of Power in
Congress
State
White Citizens
Freedmen
SC
291,000
411,000
MS
353,000
436,000
LA
357,000
350,000
GA
591,000
465,000
AL
596,000
437,000
VA
719,000
533,000
NC
631,000
331,000
The 1866 Midterm Election
 A referendum on Radical Reconstruction.
 Johnson made an ill-conceived speaking tour around the
country to push his plan and to campaign against the Radical
Republicans
 He was frequently heckled and took to drinking
 Republicans
won a 3-1 majority in
both houses and gained
control of every northern
state.
This gives them
a veto proof
majority!
Johnson’s “Swing ‘Round
the Circle”
Radical Plan for Readmission of States
 Civil authorities in the territories were subject
to military supervision.
 Required new state constitutions, including black
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.
 Purpose was to get blacks to get the state back
in the Union and free the federal government
from responsibility for protecting black rights
Reconstruction Acts of 1867
 Military Reconstruction Act
*
Restart Reconstruction in the 10 Southern states that
refused to ratify the 14th Amendment.
*
Divides the 10 “unreconstructed states” into 5 military
districts commanded by a Union general and occupied by
Union soldiers
The Fifteenth Amendment (1869)
• Radicals were fearful that White Southerners would take
away the franchise (vote) from blacks when they
regained power
• Therefore the right had to be guaranteed by an
amendment
• States: 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.
• Women (who had played a big role in the abolition
movement) were very upset because they had NOT been
included in either the 14th or 15th Amendment
Susan B. Anthony
• “I will cut off this right arm of
mine before I will ever work or
demand the ballot for the
Negro and not the woman!”
It would be 50 years more
before the 19th Amendment
gave women the right to vote
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 could not remove
any officials [esp. Cabinet members]
without the Senate’s consent, if the
position originally required Senate
approval.
 Designed to protect radical
members of Lincoln’s government.
 Was this law Constitutional?.
Edwin Stanton
The Union League
• Originally a Pro Union NORTHERN
organization
• Educated black men in duties and
campaigned for Republican candidates
• Built black churches and schools
• Represented black employee and
government grievances
• Recruited black militias to protect against
White retaliation
Elected Black Officials
• Between 1868-1876 14
black Congressmen
and 2 black senators
were elected to the US
Congress
• Hiram Revels and
Blanche Bruce were the
first two Black Senators
• Though no black until
Douglas Wilder of
Virginia was elected as
a state governor many
served as lieutenant
governors and state
representatives as well
as mayors and sheriffs
in local government
Hiram
Revels
Accomplishments of
Reconstruction Governments
• For much of American history the Dunning School has
portrayed Reconstruction governments as inefficient and
corrupt
• However, there were many accomplishments:
• For the first time public education was made available to poor
whites (as well as blacks)
• Necessary infrastructure (bridges and roads) improvements
were made
• Property rights for woman were guaranteed
• Though taxes did go way up, tax incidence was made more fair
• Necessary prison and mental asylum reform took place
• Hospitals were built
• There are, however, many (often justified) allegations of corrupt
government
• However, it does not seem to be any worse than the corruption
occurring in the North at the time
White Southern Anger Grows
• Grew angry at former slaves
being elected to office while in
many cases they could not even
vote
• Northern whites who came down
to South to take advantage of
Southerners to “make a buck
were” called “carpetbaggers”
• White Southerners who became
Republicans were known as
scalawags
• The most famous was former CSA
General James Longstreet who
was eventually blamed for losing
the Civil War!
The Ku Klux Klan
• Formed by six CSA veterans
in Tennessee as a “social
club”
• Most were Scottish (hence
the term “clan”)
• They chose the Greek word
kyklos (κυκλος) for circle
• Initially they used theatrical
techniques to intimidate
blacks but soon turned more
violent
• CSA General Nathan Bedford
Forrest was asked to be their
first leader
• Blacks, scalawags, and
teachers were whipped,
beaten, mutilated or killed
DEATH (AND REBIRTH) OF THE KLAN
• Klan members were hard to
punish because of their
anonymity and the fact that
local all white juries were
afraid (or unwilling) to
convict them
• Eventually Congress and
Pres. Grant passed the
Force Acts and Ku Klux laws
• Forrest ordered the Klan to
disband
• In 1915 William Simmons
re-created the Klan
• Membership was slow to
grow
• UNTIL….
dW GrIFFITH’s BIRTH OF A NATION (1915)
First blockbuster full length movie
directed by film pioneer DW
Griffith (Cost $100,000 but
made millions)
Caused riots in many cities for its
portrayal of blacks as lazy,
lusty and murderous (In many
cases blacks in the movie were
actually white men in black
face!)
The film was the first ever shown in
the White House
President Wilson (a devout
Southerner) supposedly said:
“ it is like writing history with
lightning. And my only
regret is that it is all so
terribly true!”
The Philosophy of the Film
The film propounds the Dunning
School of Reconstruction
which persisted until the
1950s and Kenneth Stampp’s
scholarship
According to the film (and school):
•
Reconstruction was a
disaster, blacks could never
be integrated into white
society as equals
•
the violent actions of the Ku
Klux Klan were justified to
reestablish honest
government
•
the Ku Klux Klan restored
order to the post-war South,
which was depicted as
endangered by abolitionists,
freedmen, and carpetbagging
Republican politicians from
the North