Terms
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Reconstruction
Lincoln's Plan for Recon. Radical Republicans Freedman's Bureau Andrew Johnson Restoration Plan 13th Amendment Civil Rights Act of 1866 Black Codes Vagrants or Vagrancy |
Convict Leasing
14th Amendment Civil Rights Congressional Recon. Plan Military Recon. Act Tenure of Office Act Impeachment 15th Amendment Sharecropping Black Churches Wage Earner |
Ku Klux Klan
Ulysses S. Grant Panic of 1873 Rutherford B. Hayes Compromise of 1877 |
Assignments
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The Civil War between the North and the South ended in April 1865 after the surrender of the Confederate troops under the command of Robert E. Lee. A week after the end of the Civil War Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed at Ford's Theater. His assassination complicated the plans of the U.S. government and army after the war.
There were two main issues to be dealt with: What type of punishment, if any, should the North force upon the South for starting the Civil War...and, what to do about the 4 million former slaves that were now free in the South. This new era, or time, in which the North created a plan to eventually allow the South to become full members of the Union again, was called Reconstruction and it lasted from the end of the Civil War to 1876. |
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The South After the Civil War
Much of the South was destroyed or damaged from fighting a war there for four years. Property values collapsed and not many Southerners had money to spend. Cotton was worth very little, banks closed, railroads were in shambles, and many southerners were homeless. Soldiers returned home wounded, many unable to work.
Each former Confederate state would have to start new state governments, but the federal government was unsure who would be in charge of creating these new governments. Lincoln had thought that it was the duty of the President, while Congress believed it was their job. What was the future of the former slave population? Would they be complete citizens? Would they be able to vote or hold political office?
Reconstruction Plans - Lincoln's Plan (before he died) said that 10 percent of a states population had to swear allegiance to the the United States (a promise to be loyal and defend the U.S.). Lincoln's plan for reconstruction was not very harsh and did not really punish the former Confederates or their leaders, it was more of a plan to come back in the Union as quickly and peaceably as possible.
Reconstruction Plans - Lincoln's Plan (before he died) said that 10 percent of a states population had to swear allegiance to the the United States (a promise to be loyal and defend the U.S.). Lincoln's plan for reconstruction was not very harsh and did not really punish the former Confederates or their leaders, it was more of a plan to come back in the Union as quickly and peaceably as possible.
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Many in Congress agreed with President Lincoln's wishes, but a decent sized group in Congress did not, they wanted to punish the South for starting the Civil War. Called Radical Republicans, they wanted full citizenship right away for African Americans. They wanted to replace the former rich white plantation owners who had controlled much of the South before the Civil War, and replace them with smaller farms. They wanted to create an organization called the Freedman's Bureau, which helped former slaves with education, work, and any other assistance needed for former slaves to become successful citizens. Within five years the Freedman's Bureau supervised over 4,000 schools for African American children.
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President Andrew Johnson
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Andrew Johnson became president after Abraham Lincoln was killed. President Johnson was from North Carolina originally and grew up poor, he never attended school and when he was thirteen he moved to East Tennessee. Johnson was nothing like Lincoln on his views toward blacks and the South, he was openly racist and had no intention of allowing former slaves to become equals with their white neighbors. While Congress was out on recess, Johnson began his Reconstruction plan which was VERY lenient, or easy, on the South. Johnson called his plan, the Restoration Plan. The Restoration plan created a UNION officer as a governor of each former Confederate state. Each governor would make sure that the 13th Amendment, which officially freed the slaves everywhere, was passed before any state could officially rejoin the Union. His plan also said that only those blacks who owned land could vote. Union troops were placed in each state to maintain or keep order. By December 1865, Johnson declared that his Restoration Plan was complete and that Congress only needed to approve the representatives and senators it had elected to go to Congress (many of whom were former officers in the Confederate Army). The Radical Republicans refused to support such a plan and began arguing against Johnson's plan.
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In March of 1866 The Radical Republican led Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which said that ALL people born in the U.S. were full citizens entitled to all equal benefits of the Constitution and its laws. President Johnson of course, vetoed the bill which enraged Congress. Congress had enough votes to override the President's veto and did. Meanwhile in the South, violent crimes against blacks and Northerners were down south helping with the Freedman's Bureau, were often attacked and even killed. Congress blamed the president and his lenient policies for the violence.
Black Codes -
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In 1865 and 1866, all white led state governments began passing restrictive laws or ones that limited, the rights of former slaves. The purpose of the black codes was keep white supremacy over the blacks in the South. Examples of black codes were: blacks could not vote, could not serve on juries, the state military, or testify against whites in a trial. The laws varied from state to state, in Mississippi, blacks could not own land, in Alabama, blacks could not marry whites. In many states, blacks had to sign annual labor contracts that kept them bound to work for one person throughout the year, if they didn't, they were considered "vagrant," or without a way to support themselves, which was illegal. If blacks were caught out in an area of town or another town all together, the local police might arrest them if they could not provide proof they had signed a labor contract or if they did not have money, another sign they said of vagrancy. Once locked up, a local mine owner or farmer would go to the jail and pay the "fine" the black person owed for being "vagrant," which got the person out of jail, BUT they were now bound to work for the person who bailed them out of jail. This system was called convict leasing and was nothing more than another form of slavery used after the Civil War.
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Convict Leasing
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In order to guarantee the Civil Rights Act of 1866 would never be thrown out later, Congress created and passed the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which guaranteed citizenship to anyone born or naturalized in the U.S. It also prohibited (or kept from) a person's civil rights from being violated. Civil Rights are rights provided by law, such as voting, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and so on.
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During the 1866 elections, President Johnson and the Democratic Party suffered several setbacks when Radical Republicans were elected in great enough numbers to override any veto the president made on a law, with that, Congress took over control of Reconstruction. In March of 1867, Congress overrode three presidential vetos to create three new important laws were packaged together as part of the Congressional Reconstruction Plan.
1. Military Reconstruction Act: eliminated or abolished all state governments already recreated after the Civil War. Ten of the 13 original former Confederate States were put under one of FIVE Military DISTRICTS, each controlled by a Union General. This act placed Union soldiers in control of local governments. It also required that each state had to create a constitution that gave equal rights to all males. Each state constitution had to guarantee the right of African American males to vote and hold state office. General Grant was in direct control of the military in the South. 2. Tenure of Office Act - This act was passed by Congress to keep the President from firing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who was the president's most outspoken critic. 3. 14th Amendment - see above for definition. |
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Impeaching the President - By 1868, Congress was mad enough at the President that they decided that he needed to go. Impeachment is the process that Congress does to charge the president with "high crimes and misdemeanors," which in this case Congress said that since Johnson had ignored the Tenure of Office Act and fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, anyway, he had violated a law passed by Congress and thus could be impeached. The House of Representatives charged the President with impeachment, but to be removed from office the Senate must have a trial and then have 2/3 of the Senate vote for impeachment. In Feb 1868, the senate voted and was one vote short of convicting the president. While he was not removed from office, he agreed to not oppose the Radical Republicans further.
In June of 1868, the 15th Amendment was added to the Constitution by the Radical Republicans. The 15th Amendment SPECIFICALLY said that states could not deny ANY man the right to vote on the grounds of race, color, or previous condition of servitude (meaning former slaves could not be denied the right to vote). It was only enforced in the South until Reconstruction ended.
More Problems in the South
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After the Civil War, black churches became the first social institution (place of gathering for socializing), that former slaves could control, and it quickly became the center of black community life. Black ministers emerged as social and political leaders, as well as preachers, something that would remain for over a hundred years (Dr. Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, Vernon Johns, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson...all were/are ministers). Many black communities were created during this time as a method for whites to keep blacks separated from them, and for blacks to have more security or protection in groups.
Under Congressional Reconstruction, blacks mostly joined the Republican Party and as many as 600 blacks were elected to state legislatures in the South. Most of the former slaves became sharecroppers after the Civil War. In sharecropping, the landowners provided the land, seed, and tools to a farmer who agreed to raise a crop and share the money from the crop. Sharecropping kept the sharecropper in debt to the landowner, but most blacks preferred the daily independence of sharecropping over someone who was a wage earner, or worked for someone for a daily wage that was supervised most of the time. |
Sharecroppers
Sharecroppers
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In 1866, in response to control of the South by Radical Republicans, the Ku Klux Klan was formed in Pulaski, Tennessee. They had costumes and secret rituals. At first it was more of a political and social club, but soon groups of the Klan became very violent, not just against Northern "carpetbaggers," or people from the North that came South and made money or took positions of power (they carried bags made of carpet), but it also began to include blacks when they received more rights under Radical Reconstruction.
Grant Administration
Ulysses S. Grant
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Ulysses S. Grant was elected president of the United States in 1868 under the Republican Party. Grant was a proven strong military leader but not so much in politics. Grant proved to be pretty much a follower of Congress and usually did not go against them. One of Grant's biggest faults was that he trusted people to do the right thing, in two terms as president his seven cabinet positions changed twenty-four times. Most of them were fired for doing bad or illegal things while in office.
During his administration, in 1873, there was a financial panic or collapse. Railroad companies that were building at crazy speeds borrowed too much money and could not pay it back, which caused major banks to go bankrupt. The Panic of 1873 triggered a deep economical depression. Tens of thousands of businesses closed, millions lost jobs. It took the country years to get out of the economic slump. |
Election of 1877 - Rutherford B. Hayes, the three time governor of Ohio ran for president for the Republicans. The Democrats ran Samuel Tilden, a wealthy corporate lawyer and reform governor from New York. Due to both political parties cheating in the last few states to be counted, the election was determined a tie. In the end, team Tilden and the Democrats agreed to bow out and let the Republicans have the election, IF THE REPUBLICANS WOULD END RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SOUTH. Team Hayes agreed and in 1877 Reconstruction ended and Hayes became president, this was known as the Compromise of 1877.
President Rutherford B. Hayes on left.