1. Reconstruction
United States History
Mr. Sean W. Simon
This presentation contains copyrighted material, is prepared
for educational purposes only, and may not be duplicated.
2. Reconstruction
Reconstruction can be divided into Presidential
reconstruction and Congressional reconstruction. The
process of reconstruction would be plagued by an intense
debate between the Executive and Legislative branches
over how to bring the rebel states back into the Union,
how to treat ex-confederate leaders, and what to do to
help the emancipated slaves. Meanwhile, the South’s
infrastructure and economy had been seriously
incapacitated by total war and would need completely
rebuilt.
1. Reconstruction refers to the process of
readmitting and rebuilding southern states,
and assimilating and assisting freedmen.
3. Forty Acres and a Mule
These land grants were to come from the millions of acres
abandoned by southern planters, or from lands
confiscated by the federal government. Sherman believed
the allotment of forty acres was sufficient to support a
family. Many believed this would also help restore the
southern economy, and provide employment and income
for freedmen. The plan lost support however because
many northerners worried that it was unconstitutional to
confiscate or give away private property.
2. During the war, General Sherman
recommended that the Union provide all
emancipated slaves with forty acres and a
mule.
4. Ten Percent Plan
President Lincoln started formulating his Proclamation of
Amnesty and Reconstruction, better known as the Ten
Percent Plan, well before the end of the Civil War. It was
considered a very lenient approach to reunification and
reconstruction. Lincoln considered the Union to be
unbreakable, and therefore concluded that the southern
states had never actually separated from it, in this way
justifying his plan for their quick and easy return. His
Ten Percent Plan required that readmitted states abolish
slavery and provide education for Africans Americans in
order to regain representation in Congress. It also
included the pardoning of former Confederates and
financial compensation to Confederates for lost lands.
Furthermore, it did not require any guarantee of social or
political equality for African Americans. This marked the
beginning of Presidential reconstruction.
3. President Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan
required 10% of each state’s voters to take
a loyalty oath to the Union before
rejoining.
5. Radical Republicans
Although Lincoln's party controlled Congress, they did
not agree with him about how to handle reunification and
reconstruction. They insisted that the confederates should
be treated as criminals for enslaving African Americans
and for entangling the nation in war. Thus they favored
punishment and harsh terms for the South. The lead
spokesmen for the Radical Republicans were
Representative Thaddeus Stevens and Senator Charles
Sumner.
4. Radical Republicans thought President
Lincoln’s plan too lenient, and wanted full
citizenship and suffrage for freedmen, as
well as Sherman’s land grants.
Thaddeus Stevens Charles Sumner
6. Wade Davis Bill
The Wade Davis Bill also required guarantees of equality
for African Americans. President Lincoln blocked the bill
though with a pocket veto. Lincoln’s resistance of the
Wade-Davis Bill created a major rift between Congress
and the President.
5. The Radical Republicans passed the
Wade Davis Bill in 1864, requiring a
majority of each state’s prewar voters to
take the loyalty oath.
Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio
7. Freedmen's Bureau
A Freedmen’s Bureau School in North Carolina
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned
Lands, also known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, was one
thing that the President and Radical Republicans did
agree on. It also helped by reuniting families separated by
slavery and war, providing certificates to legalize
marriages and legitimize children, negotiating labor
contracts to guarantee fair wages and treatment, and
representing African Americans in courts (thus setting the
precedent that blacks had legal rights).
6. The Freedmen’s Bureau was created to
provide food, clothing, healthcare, and
education to black and white refugees in
the South.
8. Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was from Tennessee, and became the
only Southern Senator to refuse to join the Confederacy
when his home state seceded in 1861. He became
Lincoln’s Vice President in 1864. As President he had
little sympathy for African Americans, supporting neither
black equality or suffrage. But he also carried a true
dislike of the South’s wealthy planter class.
7. Andrew Johnson became President when
Lincoln was assassinated in April of 1865,
and mostly continued Lincoln's plan for
reconstruction.
9. Thirteenth Amendment
Emancipation by Thomas Nast
During the last months of the Civil War, Lincoln and
Congress were already working on the Thirteenth
Amendment. By then the South was in a desperate
situation and was trying to negotiate a peace settlement,
but this effort failed because they refused to accept an
amendment ending slavery. When the amendment was
finally ratified after the war and after Lincoln’s death, it
left many issues unaddressed. It did not grant African
Americans the privileges of full citizenship, such as voting
rights and access to free public education. These were
privileges that even most northern blacks still did not
enjoy. Southerners especially resisted these privileges for
blacks because they did not want them to undermine
white power and status in society.
8. In December 1865 the Thirteenth
Amendment abolished slavery.
10. Black Codes
Convict labor
By the end of 1865 most Confederate states had met
Johnson’s requirements for readmission to the Union.
Although Congress was concerned about the lack of
African American suffrage, they hoped that political
rights would soon follow. However, black codes dashed
those hopes. These laws kept blacks in servant and labor
jobs. Some known as vagrancy laws allowed for the arrest
and imprisonment of unemployed blacks, where they
would be forced to do hard labor while incarcerated. All
this took place despite the South being militarily occupied
by the North.
9. Southern states passed laws known as
Black Codes to limit the rights of blacks
and keep them landless.
11. Civil Rights Act of 1866
Southern reaction to Freedmen’s Bureau
Before this Act, President Johnson had vetoed a bill to
renew the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1866. These vetoes
together created further tensions between the President
and Congress. When Congress overruled the Presidents
veto of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, it was the first time
that such a two-thirds majority had ever been collected to
pass legislation over a President. This marked the
beginning of Congressional reconstruction.
10. President Johnson vetoed a bill to
renew the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1866.
Then Congress overruled his veto of the
Civil Rights Act of 1866, guaranteeing civil
rights for blacks.
12. Primary Terms
1. Reconstruction
2. Forty Acres and a Mule
3. Ten Percent Plan
4. Radical Republicans
5. Wade Davis Bill
6. Freedmen’s Bureau
7. Andrew Johnson
8. 13th Amendment
9. Black Codes
10. Civil Rights Act of 1866
Focus Questions
1. What were the primary concerns of southern reconstruction?
2. How did General Sherman contribute to reconstruction?
3. What were the characteristics of President Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan?
4. Compare the Freedmen’s Bureau to Black Codes.
5. Link the 13th Amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
13. Fourteenth Amendment
Under the Fourteenth Amendment, if any state refused to
allow black people to vote, that state would lose the
number of seats in the House of Representatives that were
represented by its black population. It also countered the
Presidents pardoning power by barring leading
Confederates from holding federal or state offices.
11. Congress passed the Fourteenth
Amendment in 1866, guaranteeing equality
under the law for all citizens.
14. Military Reconstruction Act
The Districts and their Governors
The Military Reconstruction Act of 1867 also forced
southern states to guarantee black suffrage and to ratify
the Fourteenth Amendment before they could rejoin the
Union.
12. The Military Reconstruction Act of
1867 divided the South into 5 military
districts governed by former Union
Generals.
15. Tenure of Office Act
Edwin Stanton
Presidents had always exercised the right to both appoint
and remove their own cabinet members. However, with
Congress and the President at such odds over
Reconstruction, President Johnson had removed all of the
Radical Republicans on his cabinet, except for one.
Congress passed this act to protect Secretary of War
Edwin Stanton.
13. Congress passed the Tenure of Office
Act in 1867, requiring Senate approval for
the removal of presidential cabinet
members.
16. Impeachment Trial
President Johnson
The impeachment was based on the grounds of
Presidential wrongdoing in office. The House of
Representatives however was one vote short of the
necessary two-thirds majority needed to impeach.
14. When Johnson defied the Tenure of
Office Act, Congress moved to impeach
him but failed.
17. Election of 1868
President Grant
In this election, although Horatio Seymour lost the overall
vote, he had actually won a majority of the white vote.
That demonstrated to the Republicans the extreme
importance of retaining African American suffrage, so as
to ensure that it remained a determinant in future
elections.
15. Republican Ulysses S. Grant defeated
Democrat Horatio Seymour in the 1868
Presidential Election.
18. Fifteenth Amendment
The First Vote
The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were both
ratified by 1870, but both contained loopholes that left
room for evasion. States could impose voting restrictions
based on literacy, property qualifications, grandfather
clauses, or poll taxes, which in effect would exclude most
African Americans.
16. The Fifteenth Amendment forbid the
denial of suffrage on the grounds of race,
color, or previous servitude.
19. Southern Politics
During Reconstruction, the Republican Party grew and
dominated the southern state governments.
17. Scalawags were white Republicans who
joined the party after the war, while
Carpetbaggers were white and black
northern men who relocated to the South
for economic and political opportunity.
20. Black Politicians
The period of Congressional reconstruction saw
considerable African American involvement in the
southern government. Over 1500 blacks served as county,
city and state officials. By 1877 two blacks served as
Senators and 14 as Representatives. The South Carolina
legislature ironically became the first and only with a
black majority. In the North by comparison, there were
no black Congressmen until the 1900’s.
18. Hiram Revels was the first black
Senator ever.
Hiram Revels
21. Public Education
Tax funded public education was one of the great
achievements of the Reconstruction South. However, it
would be tainted by the policy of segregating blacks and
whites instead of integrating them. This segregationist
policy would carry over into most other areas of the
South’s culture.
19. Reconstruction provided free public
education, but unfortunately it was
segregation based.
23. Primary Terms
11. 14th Amendment
12. Military Reconstruction Act
13. Tenure of Office Act
14. Impeachment
15. Ulysses S. Grant
16. 15th Amendment
17. Scalawags
18. Carpetbaggers
19. Hiram Revels
20. Segregation
Focus Questions
6. Compare the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments.
7. What were the characteristics of the Military Reconstruction Act?
8. What was the purpose and result of the Tenure of Office Act?
9. Compare scalawags and carpetbaggers.
10. How involved were blacks in southern politics during reconstruction?
24. Sharecropping
Blacks were stuck in this system because they had little if
any money or job skills, and so could not break off on
their own. They had to grow what the landlord wanted,
and purchase seed and supplies only from the landlord,
usually at unfair prices on credit, thus inescapably
indebting them to the landlord. Share-tenancy was
similar to sharecropping, but the farmer could choose
what crops to grow and could buy his supplies from
whatever supplier he wanted, thus seeking out fairer
rates.
21. Blacks typically became sharecroppers,
tied to the land they worked, managed by
their landlords, and paying their landlords
a share of the crops grown.
25. Tenant Farming
Tenant farmers did not even have to live on the land that
they rented.
22. Some blacks became tenant farmers,
renting farmland but managing it
completely on their own.
26. Ku Klux Klan
Comprised of dozens of loosely organized groups, the
KKK sought to terrorize African Americans and their
white supporters. They dressed in white robes and hoods,
and did most of their work at night. They burned homes,
churches, and schools. They beat, maimed and killed
blacks and white sympathizers. Gangs on horseback
scared potential black voters away from the polls.
23. The Ku Klux Klan emerged in
Tennessee in 1866, and used terror and
violence to keep blacks in subservient roles.
27. Enforcement Acts
One Vote Less
This law targeted the KKK and its terror tactics.
Hundreds of clansmen were indicted for violating it, and
violence in the South dramatically decreased in time.
24. The Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871
made it a federal crime to interfere with
voting.
28. Slaughterhouse Cases
Attorney John Campbell
Although the Fourteenth Amendment gave citizens
certain national rights, the Slaughterhouse Cases
determined that the federal government would have no
control over how a state chose to define rights for the
citizens who resided there.
25. The Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873
restricted the scope of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
29. United States v. Cruikshank
Cruikshank was a member of a group that wanted to
restore white supremacy in Louisiana. A mob of these
men killed over a hundred blacks in a violent attack, but
Cruikshank’s conviction was overturned.
26. United States v. Cruikshank ruled that
the 14th Amendment only protects citizens
from states, not individuals.
30. Redeemers
A cartoon by Thomas Nast depicting the Democratic
Party’s new emergence in the South
Redeemers earned their nickname from their desire to
redeem the South from northern domination. This
coalition helped the Democratic Party regain its power
position in the South. The Republican Party then lost its
control over the House of Representatives in 1874.
27. The Redeemers were a new coalition of
southern Republicans and Democrats.
31. Civil Rights Act of 1875
Despite this act, subsequent Supreme Court civil right’s
cases ruled that decisions about who could use public
accommodations was a local issue, governed by state or
local laws. Southern governments then used these rulings
to deny blacks the use of public accommodations.
28. The Civil Rights Act of 1875
guaranteed blacks the rights to public
transportation and facilities.
32. Compromise of 1877
President Hayes
The Compromise of 1877 included the removal of federal
troops from the South, the rebuilding of southern
railroads and ports with federal monies, and the
appointment of southerners into high federal positions.
29. In 1876 the disputed presidential
election between Republican Rutherford B.
Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden was
resolved when the Republicans took the
Whitehouse in exchange for agreeing to
end Reconstruction in the South.
33. New South
30. The idea of a New South called for
industrialization and modernization
alongside the South’s traditional
agriculture.
34. Primary Terms
21. Sharecropping
22. Tenant Farming
23. KKK
24. Enforcement Act
25. Slaughterhouse Cases
26. US v. Cruikshank
27. Redeemers
28. Civil Rights Act of 1875
29. Compromise of 1877
30. New South
Focus Questions
11. Compare sharecropping and tenant farming.
12. What purpose and tactics characterized the KKK?
13. How did legislation and court rulings weaken the 14th Amendment?
14. What was the cause and consequence of the Compromise of 1877?
15. What characterized the New South?
