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Reconstruction,
1865-1877
United States History
Week of February 3, 2015
Aftermath of the Civil War
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The federal government’s programme to repair damage to the South and
restore states to the Union was known as Reconstruction
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Physical toll: destruction to shipping industry, railroads, farms, work
animals
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Hardships
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Blacks found themselves homeless and without work
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Plantation owners lost plantations and workers (slaves)
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Poor whites could not find work, and now competed with freed slaves
Death: 1/5th of adult white men in the South perished
Reconstruction Plan Part I: Abraham Lincoln
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Abraham Lincoln began postwar planning in 1863. After his assassination,
Andrew Johnson pursued his own plan
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Presidential Reconstruction (Lincoln)
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Pardon to confederates who take an oath of allegiance to Union
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No pardons to Confederate military, government officials
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Permitted states to create new state constitutions after 10% of voters
swear allegiance to Union
Radical Republicans opposed Lincoln’s plans — passed Wade-Davis Bill
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Bill died in pocket veto
Reconstruction Plan Part II: Andrew Johnson
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Abraham Lincoln began postwar planning in 1863. After his assassination, Andrew
Johnson pursued his own plan
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Andrew Johnson was from Tennessee, a former Democrat, and slaveholder
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Found strong support among poor white Southerners
Presidential Reconstruction (Johnson)
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Pardon to Southerners who swore allegiance to the Union
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Permitted states to hold constitutional conventions (without 10% requirement)
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States had to void secession, abolish slavery, repudiate Confederate debt
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States could hold elections and rejoin union
Plan was far more generous to South
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Ran into opposition from Radical Republicans
Freedom for African Americans
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Congress created Freedmen’s Bureau in March, 1865
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Gave clothing, medical supplies, meals to black and white war refugees
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Schools educated children
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Lacked Congressional support, was dismantled in 1869
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Many African Americans walked off plantations
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Land distribution plans
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Sherman gave some land in 40-acre plots to Blacks
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Some freedmen bought land
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Churches, trade association, and mutual aid societies emerged
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Education: 30 African American colleges founded 1865-1870
Congressional Reconstruction
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President Johnson had a weak mandate to govern, and many Republicans in
Congress opposed his policies
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As Southern states rejoined the Union, they enacted black codes
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Laws restricted freedmen’s rights: curfews, land restrictions
Congress took action against Johnson
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Passed Civil Rights Act over Johnson’s veto
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June, 1866: Congress passed Fourteenth Amendment
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Extended privileges and immunities to all Americans
Violence against freedmen galvanized Radical Republicans in Congress
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Passed Reconstruction Act of 1867
Congressional Reconstruction, a.k.a. “Radical
Reconstruction”
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Radical Reconstruction
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South under military rule, governed by northern generals
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States ordered to hold new elections
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Allowed all qualified males — including African Americans —
to vote
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Did not allow those who supported the Confederacy to
vote
Required equal rights for all, including ratification of 14th
Amendment
Andrew Johnson Impeached
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President Johnson faced two powerful members of Congress over
Reconstruction: Senator Charles Sumner (MA) and Representative Thaddeus
Stevens (PA)
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Early 1868: Johnson tried to fire War Secretary Edwin Stanton
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Johnson feared Stanton would oversee military rule in South
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House voted to impeach Johnson
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Firing violated Tenure of Office Act — Senate had to approve firing
Johnson survived by one vote
Ulysses Grant won 1868 election — height of Republicans’ power
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1870: Congress passed Fifteenth Amendment, granting blacks the right to
vote
The Republican South
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Under Amendments 13, 14, and 15, and with federal troops in the South, blacks enjoyed
civil rights protections, suffrage, and access to political offices
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Many states elected black politicians to office
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African Americans were a majority of voters in five states
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Most voted Republican; many whites did not vote
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Louisiana elected a black governor
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African Americans also elected to House and Senate
Republican South featured freedmen as well as others
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Carpetbaggers were northern Republicans who moved to the South
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Often depicted as greedy
Scalawags were white, southern Republicans
Birth of the New South
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What would the south look like without slavery?
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Changes in farming
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Many workers went north to work on railroads
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Planters had no labour; freedmen had no work
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Sharecropping: farming arrangement where farmers worked in exchange for
housing and some of the crop yield
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Tenant farming: arrangement where farmers paid to rent the land, and chose
what to plant
Effects of new farming
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Cycle of debt: few sharecropping families owned land
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Emphasis on cash crops, rise of merchants
Birth of the New South, Part II: Cities
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What would the south look like without slavery?
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Growth of cities and industry
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Major focus of reconstruction was rebuilding, extending Southern
railroads
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Much industrial growth came from cotton mills
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Also less profitable manufacturing stages
Reconstruction legislatures poured money into infrastructure — added
to southern debt
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Credit Mobilier scandal: Union Pacific gave them money to build
railroad
The End of Reconstruction
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What caused the end of Reconstruction?
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Economy: taxing and spending by legislatures put Southern states
deeper in debt. Reconstruction spending felt to many like…
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Corruption: Reconstruction legislatures symbolized for many the
corruption of Grant’s administration
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Violence: Southern white Democrats expanded their use of violence
and intimidation to prevent freedmen from voting, which led to…
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Return of Democrats to power — solid South
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Also: Supreme Court decisions (Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896),
Compromise of 1877
The End of Reconstruction: Jim Crow and Plessy v.
Ferguson (Chapter 16, Section 3)
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What did the Supreme Court think of racist laws in the South?
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Although discrimination existed across the US, it was particularly bad
in the South
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Voting restrictions: poll taxes, grandfather clauses
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Jim Crow laws mandated segregation
1896: Homer Plessy sat on a segregated railroad car
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Supreme Court ruled segregation is legal as long as black facilities
are equal to white facilities
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“Separate but equal” doctrine applied for almost 60 years
The End of Reconstruction, Part II: The KKK
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What was the KKK?
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A secret society largely in response to the defeat of the Confederacy, new freedom of
black Southerners
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Members wore robes and masks, pretended to be the ghosts of Confederate soldiers
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Defend the “social and political superiority” of the whites against “aggressions of an
inferior race”
As Reconstruction continued, Klan violence intensified, killing more than 300 Republicans,
including a United States Congressman
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Klan sought to eliminate the Republican Party in the South
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Federal response: Enforcement Act of 1870 – banned the use of terror, force, or
bribery to prevent people from voting because of their race
By 1872, the Klan were broken as an organization
The End of Reconstruction, Part II: The KKK,
Continued
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What was the KKK?
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“Lifting the Klan mask revealed a chaotic multitude of antiblack
vigilante groups, disgruntled poor white farmers, wartime guerrilla
bands, displaced Democratic politicians, illegal whiskey distillers,
coercive moral reformers, sadists, rapists, white workmen fearful
of black competition, employers trying to enforce labor discipline,
common thieves, neighbors with decades-old grudges, and even
a few freedmen and white Republicans who allied with
Democratic whites or had criminal agendas of their own. Indeed,
all they had in common, besides being overwhelmingly white,
southern, and Democratic, was that they called themselves, or
were called, Klansmen” — Elaine Frantz Parsons, "Midnight
Rangers: Costume and Performance in the Reconstruction-Era Ku
Klux Klan."
The End of Reconstruction, Part II: The KKK,
Continued
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What was the KKK?
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“In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of
the Democratic party, the planter class, and all those who
desired restoration of white supremacy. Its purposes were
political, but political in the broadest sense, for it sought to
affect power relations, both public and private, throughout
Southern society. It aimed to reverse the interlocking changes
sweeping over the South during Reconstruction: to destroy
the Republican party's infrastructure, undermine the
Reconstruction state, reestablish control of the black labor
force, and restore racial subordination in every aspect of
Southern life” — Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's
Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877