Transcript the american people creating a nation and a society nash

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
CREATING A NATION AND A SOCIETY
NASH  JEFFREY
HOWE  FREDERICK DAVIS  WINKLER  MIRES  PESTANA
7th Edition
Chapter 16: The Union Reconstructed
Pearson Education, Inc, publishing as Longman © 2006
THE BITTERSWEET
AFTERMATH OF WAR
THE UNITED STATES IN 1865
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At the end of the war, Lincoln’s official position was that the
South had never left the Union and that the President had the
power to decide how to set relations right again
Lincoln’s opponents argued that by declaring war, the
Confederacy had broken their Constitutional ties and reverted to
a territory status which gave Congress the power to decide how
they should be dealt with
In 1865, the Republican party ruled virtually unchecked
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Democrats were in shambles though Unionist Tennessee Democrat
Andrew Johnson had been named vice president in 1864 and was
now president
The North was stronger than ever; the South lay in ruins with
many facing starvation but without a change in mind and will
HOPES AMONG THE
FREEDPEOPLE
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Blacks tested their new freedom gradually, usually by leaving the
plantation, if only for a few hours or days
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Most freed slaves made education a priority
The primary goal for these freed people was to secure land
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Some cut their ties entirely and a number went in search of family.
Many former slaves legally married
Former slaves also chose surnames
Emancipation changed black behavior around whites
They expected a new economic order and some compensation for
their years in slavery
If the other goals were achieved, many looked forward to civil
rights and the vote along with protection from vengeful
Confederates
THE WHITE SOUTH’S FEARFUL
RESPONSE
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White southerners felt outrage, loss and injustice as well as fear
of newly freed slaves and changed conditions
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Almost all societal norms in the South had been reversed as a
result of losing the war
Southern legislatures passed “Black Codes” the first year after
the war to secure white dominance
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Worst fears were of rape and revenge
Permitted blacks certain rights, but carefully circumscribed them,
and clearly outlawed a number of other rights and activities
Southern whites wanted federal troops to leave while southern
blacks looked to the troops for protection
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Whites viewed violence as another reason to return to plantation
society
NATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION
POLITICS
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Black Codes directly challenged the national
government in 1865
Dual drama of white landowners versus black
freedmen over land, labor and liberties in the
South and the national debate over
Reconstruction policy
PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION
BY PROCLAMATION
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President Johnson quickly moved to a lenient policy based on the claim the
South had never left the Union
First proclamation offered amnesty to most Confederates who would swear
an oath of allegiance to the Constitution and the Union
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Second proclamation accepted the reconstructed government of North
Carolina and prescribed steps by which others could reestablish state
governments
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Those who had been leaders or had property worth more than $20,000 would
have to apply for individual pardons
President would appoint a provisional governor who would call a state convention
composed of those loyal to the U.S.
Convention would ratify the 13th Amendment, void secession, repudiate
Confederate debts, and elect new state officials and members of Congress
All southern states had completed Johnson’s plan and sent members to
Congress by December 1865
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Unfortunately many had been leaders in the Confederacy and some were not
even pardoned yet
No state convention provided black suffrage or protection for their civil rights
CONGRESSIONAL RECONSRUCTION
BY AMENDMENT
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By late 1865, northern leaders realized few of their postwar goals were
being realized and that the Democrats might recapture power
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Congress passed a civil rights bill in 1866 to protect the fragile rights of
African Americans and extended for two more years the Freedmen’s
Bureau
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Congress refused to seat the new southern delegates and established a
Joint Committee on Reconstruction to investigate conditions in the South
Johnson vetoed both bills
Congress passed both bills over his veto
Southern racial violence erupted
Congress sent the Fourteenth amendment to the states for ratification
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Promised permanent constitutional protection of the civil rights of blacks by
defining them as citizens
The second section granted black male suffrage
Other sections barred leaders of the Confederacy from national or state
offices (except by act of Congress), repudiated the Confederate debt and
denied claims of compensation to former slave owners
CONGRESSIONAL RECONSRUCTION
BY AMENDMENT
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Johnson urged the southern states to reject the amendment and
10 immediately did so, making the amendment the main issue of
the 1866 elections
The result was an overwhelming victory for the Republicans who
passed Three Reconstruction Acts in 1867
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Divided southern states into five military districts
Defined a new process for readmission whereby qualified voters—
including blacks but excluding unreconstructed rebels—would elect
delegates to state constitutional conventions that would write new
constitutions guaranteeing black suffrage
After new voters of the states had ratified these constitutions,
elections would be held to choose governors and state legislatures
When a state ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, its representatives
to Congress would be accepted, completing readmission to the
Union
THE PRESIDENT IMPEACHED
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Congress restricted presidential powers and established
legislative dominance over the executive branch
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Johnson vetoed the Reconstruction acts, removed cabinet
officers and others sympathetic to Congress, hindered the work
of the Freedmen’s Bureau agents, and limited the activities of
military commanders in the South
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Tenure of Office Act
An initial effort at impeachment failed but succeeded in 1867 after
Johnson tried to fire Secretary of War Stanton
Johnson went through a three month trial in early 1868 and was
acquitted by one vote
As moderate Republicans gained strength in 1868 , principled
radicalism lost much of its power within Republican ranks
WHAT CONGRESSIONAL MODERATION
MEANT FOR REBELS, BLACKS, AND WOMEN
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Impeachment procedures showed that most Republicans were more
interested in protecting themselves than blacks and in punishing
Johnson rather than the South
Only Jefferson Davis was imprisoned and only the commander of the
Andersonville Prison Camp was executed
Congress did not insist on long probation before southern states
were readmitted, did not reorganize southern governments, did not
mandate a national education program for freedpeople, did not
confiscate and redistribute land, nor did it prevent Johnson from
returning land to white owners
Congress did grant citizenship and suffrage to freedmen, but not
women
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Northern states generally did not provide black male suffrage
Only changed views with passage of 15th Amendment in 1870
WHAT CONGRESSIONAL MODERATION
MEANT FOR REBELS, BLACKS, AND WOMEN
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Women, left out of 14th and 15th amendments, were
angered
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In 1869 the women’s movement split with followers of Elizabeth
Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony focusing on a national
suffrage amendment and others focusing on securing the vote
state by state
Rights of African Americans were also sacrificed as they
got the vote but not land
Southern Homestead Act of 1866 made public lands
available to blacks and loyal whites in five southern
states
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Land was poor and inaccessible
No transportation, tools or seeds were provided
Most blacks were bound by labor contracts that prevented them
from making claims before the deadline
THE LIVES OF FREEDPEOPLE
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Whites, even those supposedly there to help
blacks, continued to urge them to work, often
for their former masters
THE FREEDMAN’S BUREAU
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The Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees and Abandoned Lands controlled
less than one percent of southern land
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Most agents were Union army officers more concerned with social order
than social transformation
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Issued emergency food rations, clothes and shelter for the homeless victims
of the war and established medical and hospital facilities
Provided funds to relocate thousands of freedpeople
Helped blacks search for relatives and get married
Represented blacks in local civil courts
Most successfully ran education program for the freed slaves
Served as an early employment agency for African Americans though often
supported needs of whites for cheap labor over desires of blacks to become
independent farmers
Agents were overworked and spread too thin
In two years, the agency issued 20 million rations, reunited families and
resettled some 30,000 people, treated 45,000 for illness and injury, and
built 40 hospitals and more than 40,000 schools
ECONOMIC FREEDOM BY
DEGREES
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The failure of Congress to provide 40 acres and a mule for the freedmen resulted
in a new economic dependency on their former masters though there were major
changes in southern agriculture
A land intensive system replaced the labor intensity of slavery
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At first, African Americans signed work contracts with white landowners and
worked in gangs as if slavery still existed
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Freedpeople wanted more independence and resented having their entire families
required to work which was the major impetus for the change from the contract system
to tenancy and sharecropping
Sharecroppers remained tied to the land and tenant farmers had only slightly
more independence with both hurt by low world cotton prices
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Land ownership consolidated into huge holdings
Concentrated on one cash crop, usually cotton, and were tied into the international
market
New credit system was created which forced most farmers, black and white, into
dependence on local merchants
Debt peonage replaced slavery as a way to maintain a cheap labor force
By 1880 3-4 percent of African Americans became independent landowners and
by 1900 the number was closer to 25 percent
WHITE FARMERS DURING
RECONSTRUCTION
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Changes in southern agriculture affected poor white farmers and
planters worried they might align with blacks
Reliance on cotton meant fewer food crops and greater reliance
on merchants for provisions
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Fencing laws and hunting and fishing restrictions further undercut
poor white independence
As conditions worsened, some became farmhands while others took
low-paying jobs in cotton mills
Social life centered on an emotional religion, while their housing
and quilting reflected a marginal culture where everything was
reused
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Clung to their beliefs in white superiority and often joined the Ku
Klux Klan and other white terrorist groups that emerged between
1866 and 1868
BLACK SELF-HELP INSTITUTIONS
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Blacks decided white institutions would never meet their needs
Began by creating their own black churches or moving from white to
already existing black churches
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Desire for education led blacks to assume responsibility for schools after
the Freedmen’s Bureau stopped
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Some denominations broke with their white counterparts to form
autonomous black churches
African American ministers continued to exert community leadership
Black teachers increasingly replaced whites
By 1870 there was a 20 percent gain in freed black adult literacy
Between 1865 and 1867 several black universities were founded to train
teachers
African American schools, like churches, became community centers
White opposition to black education and land ownership stimulated
African American nationalism and separatism
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Thousands of “exodusters” moved to land purchased in Kansas
Others advocated Canada or Liberia
RECONSTRUCTION IN THE
SOUTHERN STATES
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With President Johnson neutralized, national
Republican leaders could prevail
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Local Republicans, taking advantage of the
inability or refusal of many southern whites to vote,
overwhelmingly elected their delegates to state
constitutional conventions in the fall of 1867
REPUBLICAN RULE
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Lacking strong military backing, new southern state governments faced economic
distress and increasingly violent harassment
Diverse coalitions made up the new governments elected under congressional
Reconstruction, though, except for the lower house of South Carolina, they were
predominantly white
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Old Whig elite of bankers, industrialists and others interested more in economic growth
and sectional reconciliation than in radical social reforms
Northern Republican capitalists who saw the South as an opportunity for investment and
Union veterans, missionaries and teachers inspired to help the freedmen
Moderate African Americans, many of whom were mulattos and owned land, and the
majority of whom were literate
Primary accomplishment of Republican rule in the South was to eliminate
undemocratic features from prewar state constitutions
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All states provided universal male suffrage and loosened requirements for holding office
Underrepresented counties got more legislative seats
Automatic imprisonment for debt was ended and laws were enacted to relieve poverty
and care for the disabled
Many southern states passed the first divorce laws and provisions granting property
rights to married women and lists of crimes punishable by death were shortened
REPUBLICAN RULE
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Republican governments financially and physically reconstructed
the South by overhauling the tax system and approving generous
railroad and other capital investment bonds
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The Republican coalition lasted longer in the deep South but did not
survive in general
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Providing more services, such as education, resulted in higher taxes and
increased debts
Corruption existed but not worse than in the North
In Virginia Republicans ruled hardly at all
In South Carolina, African American leaders’ unwillingness to use their power to
help black laborers, contributed to their loss of political control
Class divisions in Louisiana helped weaken the Republican regime
In Alabama, a flood of northern capital created a new industrial and merchant
class to rival the old planter aristocracy
Violence was the primary reason for the return of the Democrats to power
VIOLENCE AND “REDEMPTION”
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Mississippi and North Carolina typify the violence that permeated
the South
After losing an election in North Carolina in 1868, conservatives
waged a terrorist campaign in Unionist counties
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Courts refused to take any action
Democrats won in 1870
In the “Mississippi Plan,” local Democratic clubs formed armed
militias, marching defiantly through black areas, breaking up
Republican meetings, and provoking riots to justify killing
hundreds
Democrats called their victory “redemption”
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Succeeded with a combination of persistent white southern
resistance, including violence and coercion, and a failure of northern
will
VIOLENCE AND “REDEMPTION”
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Three Force Acts, passed in 1870 and 1871, gave the president
strong powers to use federal supervisors to ensure that citizens
were not prevented from voting by force or fraud
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The Ku Klux Klan Act declared illegal secret organizations that used
disguise and coercion to deprive others of equal protection of the
laws
Congress created a joint committee to investigate Klan violence,
filing a 13 volume report in 1872
But Republicans moved away from their support of blacks and by
1875, Grant refused to send troops to Mississippi to protect black
voting rights
The success of the Mississippi Plan was repeated in 1876 in
South Carolina and Louisiana
In two decisions in 1874, the Supreme Court threw out cases
against whites convicted of preventing blacks from voting and
declared key provisions of the Force Acts unconstitutional
SHIFTING NATIONAL PRIORITIES
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The American people were tired of battles over freedpeople
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Northern leaders focused their efforts on accelerating and solidifying
their program of economic growth and industrial and territorial
expansion
The years between 1865 and 1875 saw the spectacular rise of workingclass organizations
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The growth of these organizations spurred class tensions
As economic relations changed, the Republican party shifted from one
of moral reform to one of material interest
Grant’s administration suffered from corruption scandals
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Most Americans were concerned with starting families, finding work and
making money
Congress also suffered from scandals
In the election of 1872, “Liberal” Republicans formed a third party calling
for lower tariff and fewer grants to railroads, civil service reform and the
removal of federal troops from the South
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Grant easily won a second term
THE END OF RECONSTRUCTION
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In 1873 a financial panic caused by commercial overexpansion into
railroads, railroad mismanagement and the collapse of some eastern
banks, started a depression that lasted through the 1870s
Democrats took control of the House in 1874
1875 Congress passed a civil rights bill that was not enforced and was
declared unconstitutional eight years later
In 1876, Republicans chose Rutherford B. Hays while Democrats
backed Samuel J. Tilden, who won the popular vote and appeared to
have won the electoral vote
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However, 20 of the votes, all but one in Republican controlled Louisiana,
South Carolina and Florida, were disputed
Hayes was given the votes by a partisan vote of an election commission.
Democrats protested and the result was the Compromise of 1877 which saw
the removal of the last federal troops from the South, the appointment of a
former Confederate general to the cabinet, federal aid for economic and
railroad development in the South and the promise to let southerners handle
race relations themselves
DISCOVERING U.S. HISTORY
ONLINE
Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867
http://www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/index.html
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Freedman’s Bureau Online
http://www.freedmensbureau.com/
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Freedmen’s Bureau in Augusta County, Virginia
http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/afam/reconst.html
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The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
http://www.andrewjohnson.com/
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Images of African Americans from the Nineteenth Century
http://www.digital.nypl.org/schomburg/images_aa19/
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Reports on Black America, 1857-1874
http://www.blackhistory.harpweek.com/
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African American Perspectives, 1818-1907
http://www.memory.loc.gov/ammem/aap/aaphome.html
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