Slides on Reconstruction, 1865-1877. Corresponds to textbook Chapter 15.

1. Reconstruction, 1865-1877

2. At the end of this presentation,
you will be able to :
• Explain what Reconstruction was.
• Identify key debates in Reconstruction.
• Select the concepts, terms, and people that
require further study in your textbook
reading.

3. Reconstruction:
Bottom Line
• Reconstruction = rebuilding nation, esp.
South, after Civil War
• Moment of hope and opportunity for newly
freed slaves
• Fails to create lasting equality
• Transforms nature of government

4. Reconstruction
• Freedpeople: How will I choose to live my
life now that I’m no longer a slave?
• Govt.: How should the country incorporate
African Americans into society as free
people?

5. Freedom: Families
• attempts to reunify
• women retreat from
labor
1/3 of enslaved children lost one or both
parents to sale in Upper South.
Image from: http://college.unc.edu/
2012/05/02/helpmefindmypeople/

6. Freedom: Church and
School
• Church: independent
black spaces for
worship and
community
• Education: freedpeople
flock to schools
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/exhibits/reconstruction/section2/section2_church.html
Baptismal ceremony at the First African Baptist Church in Richmond.
(Harper's Weekly, June 27, 1874)

7. Political Freedom
• Frederick Douglass:“slavery is not abolished until
the black man has the ballot”
• Document:Address of a convention of Negroes
held in AlexandriaVirginia August 1865
Frederick Douglass
Image: Collection of the
New-York Historical Society

8. Well, the war is over, the rebellion is "put down," and we
are declared free! Four fifths of our enemies are paroled or
amnestied, and the other fifth are being pardoned, and the
President has, in his efforts at the reconstruction of the civil
government of the States, late in rebellion, left us entirely at
the mercy of these subjugated but unconverted rebels, in
everything save the privilege of bringing us, our wives and
little ones, to the auction block. . . .We know these men-
know them well-and we assure you that, with the majority
of them, loyalty is only "lip deep," and that their professions
of loyalty are used as a cover to the cherished design of
getting restored to their former relations with the Federal
Government, and then, by all sorts of "unfriendly
legislation," to render the freedom you have given us more
intolerable than the slavery they intended for us.

9. We warn you in time that our only safety is in keeping them
under Governors of the military persuasion until you have
so amended the Federal Constitution that it will prohibit
the States from making any distinction between citizens on
account of race or color. In one word, the only salvation for
us besides the power of the Government, is in the
possession of the ballot. Give us this, and we will protect
ourselves. . . . But, is said we are ignorant.Admit it.Yet who
denies we know a traitor from a loyal man, a gentleman
from a rowdy, a friend from an enemy? The twelve thousand
colored votes of the State of NewYork sent Governor
Seymour home and Reuben E. Fenton to Albany. Did not
they know who to vote for? . . .All we ask is an equal
chance with the white traitors varnished and japanned with
the oath of amnesty. Can you deny us this and still keep
faith with us? .

10. Freedom: Land and Labor
• 40 acres and a mule: Sherman’s
Field Order 15 - abandoned and
confiscated land to freedpeople
• Summer 1865:Andrew Johnson
ordered land returned to former
owners
• Document: Committee of
Freedmen on Edisto Island, South
Carolina
Source: http://www.thepresidency.org

11. • Govt.: How should the country incorporate
African Americans into society as free
people? (Economically and politically) -
Freedmen’s Bureau.

12. Freedmen’s Bureau
The Freedmen's Bureau / Drawn by A.R. Waud.Harper's weekly,
1868 July 25, p. 473. Accessed via commons.wikimedia.org

13. Freedmen’s Bureau
• Has a huge job, with few
resources, but:
• Start 3,000 schools (150,000
students!)
• Run hospitals; provide
medical care Freedmen’s School
Source: http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/gastudiesimages/

14. • Govt.: How should the country incorporate
African Americans into society as free
people? (Economically and politically)
• The Politics of Reconstruction - tensions
between DC and the South

15. • Johnson’s plan:
• pardon Southerners and give
them back their land
• let Southern states decide
whether blacks get the vote
• richest Southerners and
important Confederates need
to apply for presidential
pardon
Johnson’s Answer:
Presidential
Reconstruction
Image source: http://whitehouse.gov

16. South under Presidential
Reconstruction
• All-white governments
quickly reformed
• Black Codes passed in state
governments
Image source: http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/
0072900423/student_view0/chapter15/image_quiz.html

17. Sec. 6....All contracts for labor made with
freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes for a
longer period than one month shall be in writing,
and in duplicate, attested and read to said
freedman, free negro, or mulatto by a beat, city
or county officer, or two disinterested white
persons of the county in which the labor is to be
performed, of which each party shall have one;
and said contracts shall be taken and held as
entire contracts, and if the laborer shall quit the
service of the employer before the expiration of
his term of service, without good cause, he shall
forfeit his wages for that year up to the time of
quitting.

18. Sec. 7....Every civil officer shall, and every person
may, arrest and carry back to his or her legal
employer any freedman, free negro, or mulatto who
shall have quit the service of his or her employer
before the expiration of his or her term of service
without good cause; and said officer and person shall
be entitled to receive for arresting and carrying back
every deserting employe aforesaid the sum of five
dollars, and ten cents per mile from the place of arrest
to the place of delivery; and the same shall be paid by
the employer, and held as a set-off for so much
against the wages of said deserting employee....

19. Thaddeus Stevens, PA
Charles Sumner, MA
Radical Republicans
• Wanted to:
• get rid of all-white “rebel”
governments in the South
• guarantee black men the
right to vote

20. Stage is set for a
showdown.
vs.
Thaddeus Stevens, PA
Charles Sumner, MA
President Johnson.
Radical Republicans.

21. Round 1: Moderates lead
• Two moderate bills, 1866:
• re: Freedmen’s Bureau
• Civil Rights Bill

22. Basic Text: Civil Rights Act of 1866
All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the
same right in every state and territory to make and enforce contracts, to
sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all
laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is
enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains,
penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and none other,
any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary
notwithstanding.
Any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation,
or custom, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any inhabitant of any
state or territory to the deprivation of any rights secured or protected by
the preceding section, or to different punishment, pains, or penalties, on
account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color or race,
than is prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be deemed guilty
of a misdemeanor [and subject to fine and imprisonment as specified in
the act].
Source: http://www.stetson.edu/law/faculty/bickel/civilrights/basic-text-of-civil-rights-acts-of-1866-and-1875.php

23. Round 2: Johnson’s response
• Surprise! Johnson vetoes both
bills, because:
• Power in hands of federal
government (instead of
states)
• Black people don’t deserve
citizenship
Cartoon,Thomas Nast for Harper’sWeekly

24. • Title: Andrew Johnson's
reconstruction and how it
works / Th. Nast.
• Creator(s): Nast, Thomas,
1840-1902, artist
• Date Created/Published:
1866 September 1.
• Medium: 1 print : wood
engraving.
• Published in Harper's weekly,
v. 10, no. 505, 1866
September 1, pp. 552-553.

25. Round 3: Congressional
Reconstruction
• Congress overrides Johnson’s
veto of Civil Rights Bill
• 14th Amendment: makes
citizenship for those born in the
U.S.; empowers federal
government to protect citizens
• Important: writes principle of
equality before the law regardless
of race into Constitution (cf. 456)
Image source: http://
14thamendment.harpweek.com/
default.asp

26. AMENDMENT XIV
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No
State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any
person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their
respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State,
excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the
choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States,
Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the
members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of
such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in
any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of
representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of
such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one
years of age in such State.

27. Round 4: 1866 Elections

28. TheVictors: Radical
Reconstruction, 1867-1877
• 1867:Tenure of
Office Act leads
to Johnson’s
impeachment
• Not removed
from office, but
de-fanged
• Title: The situation
• Date Created/Published: 1868.
• Medium: 1 print : wood engraving.
• Summary: Print shows Ulysses Grant and Edwin Stanton near cannon labeled "Congress" aimed at Lorenzo Thomas and President Johnson.
• Accessed via loc.gov

29. “Constitutional
Revolution”
• Fifteenth Amendment:
prohibited government from
denying right to vote because
of race (ratified 1870)
• Two new ideas in
constitution:
• National government that
can act in people’s lives to
support freedom
• Citizens with equal rights
before the law

30. Impact of Radical
Reconstruction in the South
• Republicans in South
reform government,
advance cause of equal
rights:
• Black Republicans
• White: Scalawags and
carpetbaggers

31. Black
Officeholders
• Black voters take power, but
highest offices almost
entirely in white hands
• Still, 2,000 African
Americans held public office
during Reconstruction:
• 14 to the U.S. House; 2
to the U.S. Senate
• Majority in SC legislature,
where blacks made up
60% of population

32. Blanche Kelso Bruce by Simmie Lee Knox; http://
www.senate.gov/artandhistory/art/common/image/
Painting_32_00039.htm
Hiram Revels (R-MS); http://
www.senate.gov/artandhistory/
history/common/image/
HiramRevels.htm
Black Senators during Reconstruction
Hiram Revels (R-MS)
Served 1870-1871
Blanche K. Bruce (R-MS)
Served 1874-1881

33. Impact of Radical
Reconstruction in
the South
• Accomplishments:
• public schools; civil rights
legislation; support for
sharecroppers
• biracial government, planters
sidelined from power
• Challenges:
• weak southern economy
• poverty of most African
Americans

34. Overthrow of Radical
Reconstruction, Pt. 1
• Planters,
merchants, and
Democratic
politicians
opposed
Reconstruction
governments
• Violence:
Founding of the
KKK 1866

37. Overthrow of Radical
Reconstruction, Pt. 2
• Support in North
fades for
Reconstruction
• Supreme Court
undermines
• Violence at the polls

38. Conclusion
• South devastated after Civil War
• Freed slaves fought to make their lives truly free
after slavery
• Struggle in politics led to some good:
Constitutional reform for civil rights; brief
flowering of black political rights
• But Southern racism, northern indifference, and
political wrangling led to the loss of many of the
gains Reconstruction promised