Transcript Slide 1

Reconstruction in
Georgia
The End of the Civil War

When the Union won the
Civil War the big
questions were:



Jefferson Davis, President
of the Confederacy
http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/inte
grate/chron2.htm
What should Southern
states have to do to be
readmitted to the Union?
What should happen to
southerners who
participated in the war
effort?
What should happen to the
newly emancipated slaves?
Reconstruction in GA

What were
conditions in
GA like after
the Civil War?
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farms were in ruins
homes, railways, bridges,roads were
destroyed or in need of repair
not enough food
banks were closed – Confederate
money was worthless
the state owed $20,000,000 in war debt
25,000 Georgians had died of wounds
or disease – many more were crippled
and could not work
The Freedmen

What problems
did former
slaves face
after the war?

Problems of freedmen (former
slaves):





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homeless
hungry
uneducated
free for the 1st time
no property or goods
Many former slaves feared reenslavement
Most whites had difficulty treating
freedmen as free persons
The Freedmen’s Bureau

What was the
role of the
Freedmen’s
Bureau?

Started as the Bureau of Refugees,
Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands by
U.S. government in 1865

Its job was to help freed slaves and poor
whites with basic needs of food, clothing,
and shelter

The purpose shifted to education

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Set up 4,000 primary schools

Started industrial schools for jobs training

Started teacher-training schools
Missionaries started schools like Atlanta
University, Morehouse College, and
Clark College
Reconstruction Plan

Analyze
Lincoln’s plans
for
Reconstruction

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On March 4, 1865, President Lincoln laid
out his approach to Reconstruction in his
second inaugural address.
He hoped to reunite the nation and it’s
people.

Lincoln wanted to rebuild and return the
south to the Union as soon as possible

“Reconstruction” would have two parts:
1.
Southerners would be pardoned after taking an
oath of allegiance;
2.
When 10% of voters had taken the oath, the
state could rejoin the Union and form a state
government.
Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction
Lincoln’s plan to reconstruct the south was
challenged. Some northerners called
“Radical Republicans” thought the south
should be more severely punished.
 The Radical Republicans wanted to make
sure the freedmen retained their new rights.
 Confederate President Jefferson Davis was
captured and imprisoned.

Views of Reconstruction

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Republican leaders agreed
that slavery had to be
permanently destroyed and
all forms of Confederate
nationalism had to be
suppressed
Moderates thought this
could be accomplished as
soon as Confederate
armies surrendered and the
southern states repealed
secession and ratified the
13th Amendment
General Lee surrendering to General
Grant at Appomattox Courthouse
http://www.ct.gov/mil/lib/mil/pictures/civilwar/thesurrender.jp
g
Plans for Reconstruction

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Led by Charles Sumner and
Thaddeus Stevens, the
Radical Republicans wanted
the Southern states to be
punished for their
treasonous behavior
They called for harsh
punishment of Confederate
officers and soldiers and
equal rights for Freedmen
http://www.msp.umb.edu/afam/AfAmR
esearchQuestions.html
Lincoln is assassinated
Just six days after the war ended, on
April 15, 1865, President Abraham
Lincoln was assassinated while
watching a play.
 Lincoln was assassinated by John
Wilkes Booth, a Southerner who was
angry at Lincoln.
 Vice-President Andrew Johnson
became president.

Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan
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How did
Johnson’s
plans differ?
In addition to Lincoln’s
requirements, President Johnson
added a few more. Southern
states had to:
(ratify) the 13th
Amendment (outlawing slavery);
 nullify their ordinances of
secession;
 promise not to repay money
borrowed during the war.
 approve
Radical Reconstruction
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Lincoln’s and the Moderate
Republicans’ plan had
happened by the end of
September 1865
With Lincoln gone, the Radical
Republicans implemented a
federal reconstruction plan
They used the Army to combat
the effect of black codes and
enforce new laws that
guaranteed rights to African
Americans in Southern states
Federal reconstruction took the
vote away from 10,000 to
15,000 white men who had
been Confederate officials or
soldiers
Radical Republican Leaders
http://lfa.atu.edu/ssphil/people/ssjw/us2/presrecon.htm
Black Codes
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African American men who were
arrested for vagrancy due to
unemployment
http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/civilwar/16/reconstructi
on1.html
Purpose:
Guarantee stable labor
supply now that blacks
were emancipated.
Restore pre-emancipation
system of race relations.
Black Codes
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African American men who were
arrested for vagrancy due to
unemployment
http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/civilwar/16/reconstructi
on1.html
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White Southerners
sought ways to control
newly freed African
Americans
They wrote Black Codes
to regulate civil and legal
rights, from marriage to
the right to hold and sell
property
In many ways the codes
guaranteed African
Americans would
continue working as farm
laborers
Congressional Reconstruction

What did
Congress
want to
happen
instead?

Congress was angry about Georgia’s Black
Codes, so it passed the Civil Rights Act of
1866. This law gave:
 citizenship
 the
to all freedmen;
federal government power to intervene
any time civil rights were taken from
freedmen.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866
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The Civil Rights Act of 1866
gave rights to freed slaves
including the rights to make
contracts, sue, witness in
court, and own private property
President Johnson vetoed the
bill saying it would "operate in
favor of the colored and
against the white race“
Congress overrode the
presidential veto in April of
1866 (1st Time EVER!)
The act declared that all
persons born in the U.S. were
now citizens, without regard to
race, color, or previous
condition of servitude,
excluding Indians
Former Slaves and Wounded Union
Veterans Celebrating the Passage of
the Civil Rights Act of 1866
http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/fimage/gildedage/image.php?id=
3490
Johnson and The Radical
Republicans
Congress was angry at President Johnson
for not going along with their
Reconstruction policies.
 As a result, Congress impeached
Johnson.

Impeachment
Impeachment is the process of charging a
public official with a crime.
 The next step was to try the president in
the Senate.
 By a single vote, Republicans failed to
convict Johnson.
 The only other time a president has been
impeached was Bill Clinton.
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The 14th Amendment
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In order to ensure
permanent change
the 14th amendment
granted citizenship to
African Americans
The amendment also
guaranteed the right
to due process under
the law to African
Americans
http://www.fbi.gov/publications/leb/2005/ju
ne2005/june05leb_img_29.jpg
Congressional Reconstruction
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Congress required southern states to ratify the
14th Amendment.
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Georgia and most of the other southern states
refused.
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Congress abolished these states’ governments
and put them under military rule.
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Georgia was ruled by General John Pope.
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Pope was required to register all male voters –
black and white. These voters would elect new
representatives to form a new state government.
Constitutional Convention of 1867
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What did GA
have to do
to satisfy
Congress?
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Delegates were carpetbaggers
(northerners who had moved south),
scalawags (southerners who sided with
the Republicans), and blacks.
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Accomplishments of the Convention:
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A new constitution ensuring civil rights for all
citizens;
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Free public education for all children;
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Women were allowed to control their own
property.
Georgia had satisfied Congress, so
General Pope and his troops left the state.
The “Invisible Empire of the South”
Ku Klux Klan
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In 1866 a group of white southerners
created the Ku Klux Klan.
What is the
 Secret organization – originally started
KKK?
as a social club for men returning from
the war.
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They were opposed to African
Americans obtaining civil rights,
particularly the right to vote.
Klan members wore white robes and
hoods to hide their identities.
The KKK used violence and
intimidation to frighten blacks.
It is a fact that many Blacks were
murdered by members of the Klan.
Ku Klux Klan
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As a result,
Congress passed
“The Georgia Act”
and sent troops
back to Georgia.

The act required
Georgia to pass
the 15th
Amendment
giving all males
the right to vote.
Nathan Bedford Forrest and the KKK,
The 15th Amendment
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Granted African American
men suffrage in 1870
This did not guarantee
African American men
would be allowed access
to their local polls
Violence against African
Americans at polling
places was common
Literacy tests, poll taxes
and other voter
qualification laws became
common
The First Black Voters
http://www.harpweek.com/09Cartoon/Bro
wseByDateCartoon.asp?Month=Novembe
r&Date=14
African Americans in Politics
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Blacks in
Reconstruction
Politics

The election of 1867 was the first time
African Americans had voted.
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Several African Americans were elected to
Georgia’s General Assembly.
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Rev. Henry McNeal Turner was one of the
first black men elected in Georgia.
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The African Americans elected to the
General Assembly were expelled in 1868.
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It was argued by whites that civil rights laws
gave blacks the right to vote but not to be
elected.
Tenant Farming and Sharecropping
Sharecropping
Landowner provides a house, land,
equipment, animals, fertilizer and
seeds.
The landowner issued credit to the
worker to buy medicine, food,
clothing and other supplies.
The landowner gets a share of the
crop and crops to pay any debt
owed.
Sharecroppers rarely had any cash.
Tenant Farming
Landowner provides house and
land.
Landowner received a set amount
of cash or a portion of the crop at
the end of the season.
Tenant farmers usually made a
small profit.
The End of Reconstruction

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The African Americans who had
been expelled from the General
Assembly in 1868 were
readmitted by the Georgia
Supreme Court in 1870.

The Assembly approved the 14th
and 15th Amendments.
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Georgia was readmitted to the
Union, again, ending
Reconstruction in Georgia.
How was GA
readmitted to
the Union?