Transcript Document 7630303

The American People,
Chapter 16 Notes
The Union Reconstructed
Key Challenges Facing Americans
after the Civil War
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Legal status of former Confederate states
Lincoln: States had never officially left, so president
as commander in chief had authority to decide
terms.
Congress: Rebelling states had broken ties and
reverted to pre-statehood status. Congress
Constitutionally authorized to admit new states.
Bigger issue: President had assumed larger
authority, different branches were struggling to
determine new balance.
Key Challenges Facing Americans
after the Civil War
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Southern industry and society devastated by
war, while Northern industry more developed
and stronger than ever.
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Four million black freedmen redefining place
in Southern society
Hopes and Goals among the Freedmen
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Exercising newfound freedom of mobility,
getting away from the plantation
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Legalize marriage, as slave marriages were
not recognized and could be dissolved by
sale of a spouse
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Choice of last names to reflect free status
Hopes and Goals among the Freedmen
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Abandonment of airs masks and expressions
of humility to placate whites
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Education
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Most important: Acquisition of own land
Forty Acres and a Mule
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Some Union generals had placed liberated
slaves in charge of confiscated and
abandoned lands
Blacks had worked 40-acre plots in the Sea
Islands off coast of S.C. and in Georgia for
years
Control of land key to control of destiny.
Without it, no real freedom existed because
whites controlled ability to survive.
The White South’s Fearful Response
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Whites experience loss of property, even
emotional bonds with former slaves
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Fear of rape, revenge, intermarriage
(miscegenation)
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Violence by black soldiers against whites
extremely rare
The White South’s Fearful Response
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“Black codes” established by state legislatures
immediately after war to limit the new rights of
freedmen
Testimony against whites, interracial marriage, right
to bear arms, right of assembly and more severely
restricted
Regulation of labor in the black codes intended to
restore plantation-based society
Kentucky newspaper: “The tune…will not be ‘forty
acres and a mule,’ but … ‘work nigger or starve.’”
National Reconstruction: The
Presidential Plan
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Vice President Andrew Johnson, Tennessee
Unionist Democrat, assumes office of
president following Lincoln’s assassination,
April 14, 1865
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Continues Lincoln’s policy of leniency toward
South and presidential authority over
Reconstruction
National Reconstruction: The
Presidential Plan
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Pardons most former Confederates
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For “restoration of all rights of property”
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Readmission to Union requires ratification of
13th Amendment, which abolishes slavery,
voids secession, repudiates Confederate
debts
National Reconstruction: The
Presidential Plan
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All southern states readmitted and send
delegates to Congress by end of 1865
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No provision for black suffrage; very little for
civil rights, schooling, economic protection for
freedmen
Congressional Reconstruction (The
Republicans Strike Back!)
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Congressman Thaddeus Stevens and
Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts
take control, labeled “radicals”
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Congress refuses to seat new members of
Congress from old Confederate states
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Joint Committee on Reconstruction
investigates appalling treatment of freedmen.
Congressional Reconstruction (The
Republicans Strike Back!)
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Congress passes civil rights bills to protect
black rights and preserve Freemen’s Bureau,
1866
Johnson vetoes both bills, but Congress
overrides vetoes, passes version of bills with
weakened enforcement
Union army drags feet, fails to protect blacks
in 1866 race riot in Memphis, TN
Fourteenth Amendment
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Congress passes Fourteenth Amendment,
1866 (ratified by 3/4 of states by 1868)
Officially made blacks citizens of the U.S.
Federal government protected civil rights of
all citizens from violations by states for the
first time
(Previously, only federal government had to
abide by the Bill of Rights)
Fourteenth Amendment
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Made black males eligible to vote by counting
them as whole persons
Ends 3/5 compromise of original Constitution
Provision made to punish states that deny the
right to vote by reducing their representation
in Congress
Ironically, without enforcement of right to
vote, white Southerners exclude blacks but
gain even more power in Congress
Fourteenth Amendment
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Some consequences for former Confederates
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Amendment central issue in 1866
Congressional elections, Republicans gain
overwhelming majority
Reconstruction Acts
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South divided into five military districts
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Commanders have broad power to maintain
order and protect civil and property rights
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New process for readmitting a state – New
state constitutions for South
Reconstruction Acts
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Black men would participate in conventions,
unreconstructed rebels would not
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State constitutions must guarantee black
male suffrage, elections would follow
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Finally, states readmitted to Union after
ratifying 14th Amendment
Reconstruction Acts
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Johnson vetoes the acts, but overridden by
Congress again
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Johnson impeached by the House, survives
by one vote in Senate trial
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Shows moderate Republicans, less
committed to civil rights, have upper hand
What Congress Did Not Do
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Imprison Confederate leaders (with exception of
Jefferson Davis)
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Insist on long probation before readmission for
Confederate states
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Reorganize southern local governments
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Mandate national program of education for exslaves
What Congress Did Not Do
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Confiscate land and redistribute to freedmen
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Prevent Johnson from taking land away from
freedmen who had gained it during war
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Provide economic help to black citizens
(except indirectly)
What Congress Did Do
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Granted blacks citizenship and the right to
vote
Women and the Reconstruction
Amendments
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Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B.
Anthony advocate for 13th Amendment
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Shocked when 15th Amendment excludes
women from right to vote
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Frederick Douglas supported women’s rights
but pleas that this was “the Negro’s hour”
Women and the Reconstruction
Amendments
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Suffragists such as Lucy Stone agree with
Douglas
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Stanton and Anthony campaign against 15th
Amendment on principle that all citizens
should vote
The Freedmen’s Bureau
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Issued emergency food rations
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Clothed and sheltered homeless victims of
the war
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Established medical and hospital facilities
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Provided funds to relocate thousands of
freedmen and white refugees
The Freedmen’s Bureau
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Helped African Americans search for
relatives and get legally married
Helped freedmen get fair trials
Established schools staffed by blacks and
idealistic northerners
Served as employment agency, ultimately
“re-enslaving” freedmen as landless
fieldworkers
Economic Freedom by Degrees
Contact labor
Freedmen worked for white landowners for
meager wages – no land of own
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Sharecropping
Freedmen worked a certain plot of land for
white landowners and could keep half of the
harvest, but spent most to buy goods from
landlord’s store
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Tenant farming
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Much like sharecropping, but freedmen
rented the land
Agreed to sell harvest to landlord rather than
giving half of the harvest
Still heavily dependent on debt to buy goods
from landlord
Poor whites faced similar conditions; many
turned to white supremacist ideology
Black Self-Help Institutions
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Black churches held together social fabric of
community; ministers provided community
leadership
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Desire for education strong among freedmen
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Unmarried white northern women were first
teachers; sought to convert blacks to
Congregationalism, white moral values
Black Self-Help Institutions
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Successes tempered with frustration over
limited resources, local opposition,
absenteeism for fieldwork
Need for black teachers and preachers who
better understood their communities led to
founding of black universities
Opposition to black education led some black
leaders to advocate emigration
Reconstruction in the States: Republican
Rule
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In wake of Congress’s Reconstruction Acts,
Republicans dominate state constitutional
conventions in fall of 1867
The Republican Coalition in the South
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Bankers, industrialists and others interested
in economic growth
Northern Republican capitalists keen to
invest in land, railroads and new industries
Union veterans seeking warmer climate
Missionaries and teachers in Freedmen’s
Bureau schools
Black Politicians
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Often well-educated preachers, teachers, and
soldiers from the north
Often self-educated tradesmen or
representatives of the small landed class of
southern blacks
In S.C., only 15 % owned no property at all
Black politicians more interested in gaining
access to government and education than
land redistribution
Accomplishments in the States
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Universal male suffrage in all states
Republican governments financially and
physically reconstructed the South:
Built infrastructure of roads, bridges, harbors,
railroads, hospitals, asylums, etc.
Created state supported system of
(segregated) schools
Weaknesses of Republican Rule
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Corruption of “carpetbaggers” and
“scalawags” – present, but not necessarily
excessive
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Tax rates and state debts increased
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Class tensions, divisions among blacks
weakened Republicans in Louisiana and S.C.
Violence and “Redemption”
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Campaign of terror restores Democratic rule
in N.C (1870), Mississippi (1875)
President Grant (R) gets Force Acts from
Congress to protect voting rights and crack
down on KKK
Grant abandons cause when advised support
for blacks will hurt GOP in Ohio elections,
1875
Reconstruction, Northern Style
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With Grant, Republicans shift from party of
moral reform to one of material interest,
economic growth
Organized labor asserts itself as industry
expands
Republicans subsidize railroads while
abandoning Freedman’s Bureau
Corruption pervades politics in New York
(Boss Tweed) Congress (Crédit Mobilier),
and Grant Administration
Election of 1876
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Republican Rutherford B. Hayes ekes out
Electoral College victory
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Democrat Samuel J. Tilden wins the popular
vote
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Votes disputed in Florida, Louisiana and S.C.
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Stage set for showdown – another civil war?
The Compromise of 1877
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Hayes selected by Electoral College
Orders last federal troops out of the South
Supports economic and railway development
in the South
Appoints former Confederate general to his
cabinet, lets southerners handle race
relations themselves