Transcript Slide 1

Reconstruction Deconstructed
Lincoln’s 10% plan (1863)
• 10% of voters
pledged loyalty to
Union
• State would
– Form a new state
government
– Create a new state
constitution that had to
ban slavery
• Encouraged
Southerners who
supported Union to
take control of
government
• Believed that
punishing the South
would only delay the
healing of the nation
– Reconciliation
Lincoln’s 10% plan
• Amnesty to all white
Southerners except
Confederate leaders.
• African Americans
could vote only if
– Educated
– Served in Union army
• Would not force
Southern states to
give same rights as
white Americans.
• 3 states occupied by
Union army, LA, AK &
TN all created
governments under
Lincoln’s plan
• The Problem???
– Congress would not
recognize those
state’s
representatives
because Congress
was controlled by…
THE RADICAL REPUBLICANS
The Radical Republicans
• Believed in
– Abolition of slavery
– Total equality of the races
– Lincoln’s plan was too “soft”
• Wanted to
– Prosecute those involved in the Confederacy
– Faster destruction of slavery
– Destroy the idea of Confederate
nationalism??? – The mindset and
Wade-Davis Bill
• Much harsher than
Lincoln’s plan
• 50% of white males
swear allegiance to
Union
• State constitution
could only be voted
on by white males
who swore never to
held arms against the
union.
• Former Confederates
(soldiers) could not
hold public office
• New constitution that
abolishes slavery
• 1864 – CONGRESS
PASSES the BILL!!
• Lincoln vetoes the bill.
• DUM DUM DUMM!!
Freedman’s Bureau
• Formed 1865 – last
weeks of war
• Developed by
Congress; part of the
army
• Helped transition
slaves to “free life”
• Also helped
Southerners who
supported the Union.
• Provided
–
–
–
–
Food
Clothing
Medical services
Transportation to labor
• Helped to get fair
wages
– Education
• Staffed with teachers
from North
• Aid to newly formed
colleges
Lincoln’s Assassination
Lincoln’s Assassination
• Three Targets
– President Lincoln
(killed)
– William Seward
(seriously injured)
– V.P. Andrew Johnson
(“chickened out”)
• Booth
– Accomplished
Shakespearean actor
– Tremendous racist
• Why??
• 1864 – Booth &
others plan to capture
Lincoln (hospital visit)
& take him to
Richmond
– Ransom him for
Confederate prisoners
of war.
– Never Happened Lincoln’s schedule
changes at last
minute.
JWB - From captor to killer
• 2 weeks after Appomatox, Lincoln gives
speech about Blacks getting voting rights
• Booth is in crowd & gets so upset that he
vows to kill Lincoln.
Lincoln’s Death
• Shocks nation
• Not popular as president because of his
divisive stances
• Many southerners upset because they
wanted Lincoln’s plan to work
• Americans shocked and outraged.
• Lincoln becomes martyr & a hero.
• 1-4 Americans view his body in D.C. or on
train route.
Funeral Train Route
The Tolls of Presidency
• Life Mask 1860
• “Death” Mask (1865)
History
Channel
Excerpt
th
14
Amendment
 Ratified in July, 1868.
*
Provide a constitutional guarantee of the
rights and security of freed people.
*
Insure against neo-Confederate political
power.
*
And other stuff too…
*
Let’s take a closer look at the language.
14th Amendment
• 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.
• Fisher v. University of Texas (2013 Sup. Court
ruling)
14th Amendment
• 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.
14th Amendment
• Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or
Representative in Congress, or elector of President and
Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under
the United States, or under any State, who, having
previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or
as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any
State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of
any State, to support the Constitution of the United
States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion
against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies
thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of
each House, remove such disability.
14th Amendment
• Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the
United States, authorized by law, including debts
incurred for payment of pensions and bounties
for services in suppressing insurrection or
rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither
the United States nor any State shall assume or
pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of
insurrection or rebellion against the United
States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation
of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and
claims shall be held illegal and void.
• Union will not pay any debts.
14th Amendment
• Section 5. The Congress shall have
power to enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article.[
The Balance of Power in Congress
State
White Citizens
Freedmen
SC
291,000
411,000
MS
353,000
436,000
LA
357,000
350,000
GA
591,000
465,000
AL
596,000
437,000
VA
719,000
533,000
NC
631,000
331,000
Reconstruction Acts of 1867
 Military Reconstruction Act
*
*
Restart Reconstruction in the 10 Southern states
that refused to ratify the 14th Amendment.
Divide the 10 “unreconstructed states” into 5
military
districts.
Reconstruction Acts of 1867
 Command of the Army Act
*
The President must issue all
Reconstruction orders through
the commander of the military.
 Tenure of Office Act
*
The President could not remove
any officials [esp. Cabinet members]
without the Senate’s consent, if the
position originally required Senate
approval.
 Designed to protect radical
members of Lincoln’s government.
 A question of the
constitutionality of this law.
Edwin Stanton
President Johnson’s Impeachment
 Johnson removed Stanton in February, 1868.
 Johnson replaced generals in the field who were
more sympathetic to Radical Reconstruction.
 The House impeached him on February 24
before even
drawing up the
charges by a
vote of 126 – 47!
The Senate Trial
 11 week trial.
 Johnson acquitted
35 to 19 (one short of
required 2/3s vote).
Sharecropping
Tenancy & the Crop Lien System
Furnishing Merchant
 Loan tools and seed
up to 60% interest
to tenant farmer to
plant spring crop.
 Farmer also secures
food, clothing, and
other necessities on
credit from
merchant until the
harvest.
 Merchant holds
“lien” {mortgage} on
part of tenant’s
future crops as
repayment of debt.
Tenant Farmer
 Plants crop,
harvests in
autumn.
 Turns over up to ½
of crop to land
owner as payment
of rent.
 Tenant gives
remainder of crop
to merchant in
payment of debt.
Landowner
 Rents land to tenant
in exchange for ¼
to ½ of tenant
farmer’s future
crop.
Black & White Political Participation
Colored Rule
in the South?
Blacks in Southern Politics
 Core voters were black veterans.
 Blacks were politically unprepared.
 Blacks could register and vote in states since
1867.
 The 15th
Amendment
guaranteed
federal voting.
15th Amendment
 Ratified in 1870.
 The right of citizens of the United States
to vote shall not be denied or abridged by
the United States or by any state on
account of race, color, or previous condition
of servitude.
 The Congress shall have power to enforce
this article by appropriate legislation.
 Women’s rights groups were furious that
they were not granted the vote!
Change in the South
• New ruling party
– Antebellum South = large landowners &
wealthy
– Postbellum = merchants, bankers &
industrialists
• Opposed Northern interference & wanted Southern
economic development
– Called “Redeemers” b/c they “redeemed the
South” from Republican rule
Redeemers
• Lower taxes
• Little gov’t spending
• Eliminated social programs started by the
Radical Republicans during Reconst.
– Most notably PUBLIC EDUCATION!!
New Southern Economy
• After Civil War
– South remained a poor, rural economy
• 1880’s
– “Out Yankee the Yankees”
– Industries based on
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•
•
•
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Coal
Iron (Alabama)
Tobacco (James Duke/North Carolina) Irony???
Cotton (New Southern textile mills)
Lumber
Other available resources
Why Quick Growth?
• Cheap & reliable workforce
– Long Hours & low wages
• Factory workers & even children
• African Americans were NOT part of this
– Received the lowest paying and worst jobs (if that)
• Rebuilt & Expanded railroad system
• North was still industrializing more quickly
• South remained a primarily agricultural
economy
New Southern Rural economy???
• The Hope – No more sprawling plantations
• Small farms growing a variety of crops
• No one giant farm growing just cotton.
• The Reality
– Large landowners kept property (some broken
up)
– Land went to tenant farming & sharecropping
• NOT PROFITABLE
Sharecropping & Cash Crops
• Credit / Debt cycle of sharecropping
• Cash Crops = a way to get out of debt
• Didn’t work b/c of supply & demand!!
-Supply equal to Demand = price
remains steady.
-Too much supply / not enough
demand = Price goes down.
-Too much demand / not enough
supply = Price goes up.
Voting?? You sure?
• Check out the following picture link &
follow the steps you would have to
undergo if you were a freedman and
wanted to vote really, really badly (psst…
the local governments didn’t make it easy
for you)
The Culture of Jim Crow
• Segregated society
• Plessy V. Ferguson – 1876 Supreme
Court Decision
– Legal as long as there were separate but
equal
– Lasted until the 1950’s & 1960’s
Closing thoughts
• Reconstruction
– Big mess
– Had good hopes
– Helped South recover from war, but the
majority of the economy was the same (rural,
poor)
– Temporary improvement for freed slaves, but
not long lasting
– Resulted in a segregated society.