Reconstruction Lecture

1. Reconstruction
1865-1877
Successes and Failures

2. End of the War
• Surrender at
Appomattox , April 9th
• Lincoln Assassinated,
April 15

3. Consider the panic of the country when John Wilkes Booth
assassinated Lincoln.

5. Lincoln’s reburial in the early 1900s. Fears of vandalism created a paranoia ad multiple reburials.
What does this tell us about the country in the late 19th century?
Check out the memorial site, if interested.

6. • With over 600,000 dead, abuses at POW
camps…how could the country overcome this
tragedy?

8. Andersonville Prison
• Horace Greeley, a Northern Republican
reaches “across the bloody chasm” to the
Southern ex-Confederate.

9. Reconstruction
• How would you define reconstruction?
• As a senator, what would be three
issues/concerns you would have during the
post-war, Reconstruction Era?
– Who or what is the biggest concern?
– Which is most pressing?
– What does Eric Foner say?

10. • Look at the image on the next slide:
– What will the Northern Union do for the South?
– What hopes are exposed with this image?

12. Early Political Reconstruction
• Lincoln – 10% Plan- state accepted into the
Union if 10% swear loyalty.
– How is that for desperate?
• Est. a freedman’s bureau
– dealt with concerns of ex-slaves
– Set up schools for African Americans
– Health centers
– Voting
– Land reform

13. Primary Source Investigation:
Political Cartoons
• What is your gut reaction to the next two
images?
• How are whites and blacks portrayed?
• How does these images contrast with the
previous one and what does that might that
mean for the future of the United States?

16. Executive v. Legislative Branches
• Johnson vetoed many Reconstruction plans,
blocked Radicals consistently.
– Why would Johnson do that? What was his
background?
– 1866 Civil Rights Act, which created
Freedman’s Bureau
• Johnson claimed it would “breed a war of races”
and “new rebels” were in government!
• Congress overturned veto it became the 14th
Amendment

17. • Supposedly said:"There
are no good laws but
such as repeal other
laws."

18. Radical Republicans
• Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner led a
minority group of Radicals in Congress
– GOAL: War retribution, ensure rights for African-
Americans.
Stevens Sumner

19. “Radicals” Control Congress
1865-1872
– “wave the bloody shirt”
• meaning? Look this term up online.
• Associated Democrats with rebellion
• Why is this fatiguing in the political sphere?
– Wanted ex-slaves to have “40 acres and a mule”
• Compensation, reparation for slavery. (and in 2008?)
• Support for Freedman’s Bureau

20. Johnson vs. Congress

21. “The Civil Rights bill was more enormous than
the other. I have exercised the veto power,
they say. Let me say to you of the threats
from your Stevenses, Sumners, Phillipses, and
all that class, I care not for them…”

22. ….In bidding you farewell here tonight, I would
ask you with all the pains Congress has taken
to calumniate and malign me, what has
Congress done? Has it done anything to
restore the Union of the States? But, on the
contrary, has it not done everything to
prevent it?”
-Andrew Johnson “Cleveland Speech”, 1866
What does it take to keep the Union together?

23. Impeachment, 1867-1868
• In order to protect the Republicans from
Lincoln’s old cabinet, the Tenure of Office Act
was passed.
– Stated that the President need permission
from the Senate to remove a cabinet
official.
– Designed to trap Johnson, lead to
impeachment

24. • Impeach- bring formal charges against an
official for “high crimes and misdemeanor”
• Need 2/3 of Senate to find the person guilty,
remove.
• Johnson “saved” by ONE vote
• Agreement to stop blocking Reconstruction
Acts

26. • Military Reconstruction Acts-
1. Military occupation of the South, dismissed state
governments that refused the 14th Amendment
• Divided the South into five military districts, TN not
included

28. 2.States also had to write new Constitution before
reunification that included the abolition of slavery

29. Reconstruction Amendments
• 13th Amendment, Dec. 6, 1865
– Banned slavery, but did it guarantee
freedom?
• 14th Amendment, 1868,
– Provided citizenship and Due Process rights
to A.A.
– Opposed by President Johnson

30. • 15th Amendment, 1870
– granted men the right to vote, irrespective to
race.
• How did Southern states restrict voting?
– Literacy, property, “grandfather” clause
– Divided the Woman’s Suffrage Movement. Why?
What does this say about the racial element to
woman suffrage (starting in 1848 at Seneca Falls)?
– Considered by some to be the completion of
Reconstruction
• Why?

31. • Pay special attention to
who is voting!
How might this overturn
the idea of a monolithic
African American
population?

32. What a multi-ethnic utopia!

33. Success in the Political Sphere

34. Black Political Success
• 633 state legislators
• 14 US House Representatives
• 2 US Senators
• IMAGINE THAT TRANSFORMATION!

36. Short-lived Success
• After “Redemption” return to white power…
• Click on this link to see the change over time.
Black Americans in Congress
– No Senate members 1881 until 1966
• Still none from the South
– No Representatives 1887 until 1929
• none in the South until 1975

37. • Again….What does it take to maintain unity
according to Johnson and others?
• This will be very clear after reading the David
Blight essay (on BB).

39. “Worse than slavery”? Is this true?

40. Economic Reconstruction
• How to rebuild the southern economy?

41. Sharecropping
– tenants farm another’s land and share the produce as
payment/rent.
• Often worked former master’s land or nearby.
– Before the “Great Migration”
– 1910- 89% of African Americans lived in the South
– 1920- 85%
– 1940- 77%
– 1970- 53%

42. • Up to 50% of produce could be extracted by
the owner
• Owners often charged for use of tools, seed
which put workers into debt, and the need to
remain on the farm. (crop-lien system)
• Sharecropping continued until WWII in the
United States.

43. North Carolina, 1890

44. Free in Name Only
• Black codes- racist laws meant to limit the new
freedmen, ensure white supremacy
– Denied suffrage
– Work only as servants/ farm hands
– Sign contracts to work for a year- could not leave
– Vagrancy law- arrested for walking around
– Any economic future? Bank loans?

45. Mississippi Black Codes 1865
What is the end result of such codes?
SECTION 5. Every freedman, free negro and mulatto shall, on the
second Monday of January, one thousand eight hundred and
sixty-six, and annually thereafter, have a lawful home or
employment, and shall have written evidence thereof as
follows, to wit: if living in any incorporated city, town, or
village, a license from that mayor thereof; and if living outside
of an incorporated city, town, or village, from the member of
the board of police of his beat, authorizing him or her to do
irregular and job work; or a written contract, as provided in
this act; which license may be revoked for cause at any time
by the authority granting the same.

46. Southern White Response
• In addition to Black Codes which enforced 2nd class
citizenship, groups such as the KKK and the White
League operated to intimidate blacks.
• Social intimidation/ridicule increased for whites
who supported Reconstruction.
– Scalawags-whites who supported reconstruction (Rep.)
– Carpetbaggers-Northern Whites who moved to the
South to “get rich quick” during the rebuilding effort

48. • Martyrdom of the
South?

50. • What does this image
imply?

51. • See the same motif?

54. • Enforcement Acts, 1870-1871
– Designed to stop terrorism…and it does.
– But does it matter any more when the government
becomes the terrorist organization?

55. White Redeemers
• Redemption- return to white, Democratic
Party, ex-Confederate control.
– A COUNTER REVOLUTION to Reconstruction
– “The Mississippi Plan” (1875)- use violence to
redeem the South, regain political control for
whites

58. Violence Continues
• Colfax Massacre Easter Sunday, 1873 in
Louisiana.
– worst mass murder of Americans in US history
• Rival politics (R and D) led to increased violence
• Whites attacked blacks who gathered in Colfax for
protection
• 80-150 freedmen executed, mutilated.
• Despite Federal investigation, only 3 men convicted

60. Return of the Confederates
• Alexander Stevens
– Georgia representative
– VP of the CSA
– Governor of GA in 1880s

61. • Older, but still creepy!

62. Supreme Court and Reconstruction
• Although the court was heavily Republican,
the S.C. did not enforce strict Reconstruction
• How was the 14th used for something other
than ensuring black citizenship?
– Please watch the excerpt from the film:
The Corporation
• Who benefited? What did the courts preference?

63. End of Reconstruction
• 1874 “Radicals” lose control of Congress
– Disinterested public, tired of the “bloody shirt”
– Scandals of the Grant Administration
– Desire to forget war, move on and away from
black rights
– Economic Panic begins in 1873
• Impact?

65. • Election of 1877
– Initial results:
• Tilden 184
• Hayes 165
– Florida, South Carolina, Louisiana, Oregon
disputed results.
– Why charges of fraud? Who would promote it?
• Democrats?
• Republicans?

66. • What does Pyrrhic
victory mean?

67. • Hayes -“a third rate non-entity” according to
Henry Adams…one of the greatest quotes
ever!

71. Results of the Hayes Presidency
• End of Military Occupation, withdrawal of
federal outposts.
• Abdication of Federal authority
– “Redemption” just a matter of time
– States reassert their authority
– Ignore or Circumvent Reconstruction
Amendments

72. When does Reconstruction End?
• 1877 Withdrawal of military?
• Did it ever begin?
– Civil Rights Movement of 1950-1960s as a “Second
Reconstruction” of the South.