Transcript Reconstruction_chapter_22 notes_revised 2010

Mr. Miller
AP US History
Chapter 22 Notes
Four essential /central questions:
How to physically and socially rebuild the
south?
 How would emancipated blacks fare as free
men and women?
 How would the southern states be reintegrated
into the Union?
 Who controls the process of Reconstruction:
the southern states, the president, or Congress?

 What to do with captured Confederate leaders (e.g.,
Jefferson Davis)
 The story of the "hoopskirt, sunbonnet and calico
wrapper" had no real existence and was started in
the fertile brains of the reporters and in the
illustrated papers of the day.
1.
Physical destruction of the south
Charleston
Richmond
2. Economic conditions
•Banks, businesses destroyed by inflation
•Transportation system destroyed by Sherman's raid
and the prosecution of total war in the south
3. Agriculture
- cotton crop not up to pre-1860 levels
until after 1870.
- loss of slave labor ($2 billion)
 4.
The "lost cause" mentality
The confusing nature of emancipation
 Emancipation took place unevenly
-Slaves liberated and then re-enslaved as
Union armies marched in and out of specific localities
 Resistance of slave owners
 Illustrate complexity of the master-slave
relationship
 Some slaves exhibit loyalty to plantation
master and resist Union occupation
 Others joined Union forces in pillaging their
master's possessions
 Migration to cities for jobs in the North
 Creates conflict with immigrants, especially
Irish
 Legal status of former slave marriages?
 "Exodusters"
 (Black migration west)
Goals of the Freedmen's Bureau (a
primitive welfare agency) under Gen. Oliver
Howard
 Created by Congress on March 3, 1865.
 It was intended to provide clothing,
medical care, food, and education to
both freedmen and white refugees.
 1.
 Major successes of the Bureau
 educational advances for Blacks,
improved literacy
 . Failures of the Bureau
 corrupt/land parcels confiscated and
sold, labor contracts signed put former
slaves in negative position
 Because it was despised by the President
and by Southerners, the Freedmen's Bureau
expired in 1872.
 Andrew Johnson was elected to Congress but refused
to secede with his own state of Tennessee in 1861.
 Johnson was made Vice President (even though he was
a Democrat) to Lincoln's Union Party in 1864 in order
to gain support from the War Democrats and other
pro-Southern elements.
 Johnson was a strong supporter of state's rights and
of the Constitution.
 He was a Southerner who did not understand the
North and a Democrat who had not been accepted
by the Republicans.
 Intelligent but stubborn and hot tempered
 Basically, Johnson was a political "misfit"(not elected
Pres., not trust by either Northerners or Southerners)
The politics of Reconstruction
 Lincoln and Congress lock horns in 1863
 Lincoln's 10% Plan
 When 10% who had voted in the 1860 election had
taken an oath of allegiance to the Union, a former
slave state was eligible to be readmitted to the
Union
 Due to Republican fears over the restoration of planter
aristocracy and the possible re-enslavement of blacks,
Congress passed the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864.
 It required that 50% of a state's voters take the oath of
allegiance and it demanded stronger safeguards for
emancipation.
 President Lincoln refused to sign the bill.
 The Moderates (Supported Lincoln’s plan)
 The Radicals: the South are "conquered provinces" …
 This radical minority that felt the South should suffer
greatly before its re-admittance.
 These Radicals wanted the South's social structure to be
uprooted, the planters to be punished, and the newlyemancipated blacks protected by federal power.
 Disfranchisement of leading Confederates and those
with $20,000+ of taxable property (but they can
petition President for pardon)
 calls of state conventions in south to REPEAL,
REPUDIATE, and RATIFY in order to be
READMITTED
 Johnson’s plan was announced on May 29, 1865.
 It called for special state conventions which were
required to: repeal the decrees of secession, repudiate
all Confederate debts, and ratify the slave-freeing 13th
Amendment.
 Johnson's broad use of the presidential pardon allowed
the planter elite to regain political power in Southern
states.
 Black Codes passed by the newly formed southern
state legislatures.
 These prevented blacks from voting through
“literacy tests” and “poll taxes”
 Also prevented blacks from serving on juries
 Ensured they would remain a subservient labor force
in the south
 Created the cycle of sharecropping in the South
 Plantation owners would rent out pieces of their land to
blacks and make the cost of rent higher than the return the
land produced.
 The renters of the land were bound by contract to
continue to work the land until debts were repaid to the
plantation owner.
 Unable to repay the debts, blacks began to "jump" their
contracts.
 The codes imposed harsh penalties on blacks who
"jumped" their labor contracts, some of which usually
forced the blacks to work for the same employer for one
year.
 "whitewashed rebels" elected to offices, including
former Confederate leaders elected to Congress (e.g.,
Alexander Stephens)
 Republicans fear loss of power -- Northern Dems
and Southern Dems might unite and take control of
Congress.
 Black codes sought to restore the pre-emancipation
system of race relations.
 What was Lincoln’s plan to reconstruct the
Union following the Civil war?
 What was the Wade-Davis Bill?
 What were Black Codes and what was their
purpose?
 What was Sharecropping?
 What was Andrew Johnson’s plan and why
was he the wrong man to be president at
that time?
 Johnson provokes Congress:
 Johnson declares Reconstruction over in December
1865
 Vetoes the Freedmen's Bureau extension in 1866
 Congressional Reconstruction
 In December 1865, Southern states represented
themselves in Congress with former Confederate
generals and colonels.
 This infuriated the Republicans who were apprehensive
about embracing their Confederate enemies in
Congress.
 The Republicans had enjoyed their supreme rule in
Congress during the Civil War; but now there would
be a potentially powerful opposing Democratic
party.
 This time, the South would have much more control
in Congress due to the fact that slaves were now
counted as a whole person, not just 3/5; giving the South
a larger population.
 Republicans feared that the South would take control
of Congress.
 The Civil Rights Bill of 1866 (gave blacks basic rights
of citizenship and disqualified former Confeds).
 Fearing that the Southerners might someday repeal the




hated Civil Rights Law, This amendment:
1- gave civil rights, including citizenship, to the
freedmen
2- reduced proportionately the representation of a
state in Congress and in the Electoral College if it denied
blacks on the ballot
3- disqualified from federal and state offices former
Confederates who, as federal officeholders, had once
sworn to support the Constitution of the United States
4- guaranteed the federal debt, while the Union assumed
all Confederate debts.
Johnson and the 1866 Congressional Elections
 Johnson's "swing 'round the circle" -- he actively
campaigns against the Republicans…but contributes to
their victories with inept and confrontational speeches
 Result: Republicans secure more than a 2/3
majority in both houses -- a veto-proof hold on the
legislative branch
The Republican "Radicals"
 1.
Charles Sumner in the Senate
 2.
Thaddeus Stevens in the House
The goals of the "Radicals“…pass laws that guarantee
black freedom and racial equality
 The moderate Republicans, the majority in Congress,
preferred policies that restrained the states from
cutting citizens' rights, rather than policies that
directly involved the federal government in individual
lives.
Military Reconstruction Act (March 1867)
Divided the south into 5 military districts
 Each under a military "governor"
 20,000 troops would enforce it
Conditions for readmission to the Union
-ratification of the 14th amendment
- full male suffrage to blacks in states
Radical Republican Conditions for
readmission to the Union
-Ratification of the 14th amendment
- Full male suffrage to blacks in all the states
The 15th Amendment was passed by Congress in
1869. It granted black men the right to vote.
 The moderate Republican goal was to create voters in
Southern states that would vote those states back
into the Union and thus free the federal
government from direct responsibility for the
protection of black rights.
 No land or education guaranteed to freedmen
 Repubs. felt that creating an electorate would be
enough to protect freedmen's rights
 Questionable legality of military rule, (as the
South was no longer at war with the North but was
treaty as an occupied county.
 Ex parte Milligan case (1866) (Civilians cannot
be tried by military tribunals)
 ID’s and Outlines for the entire Unit
are due Thursday.
 Multiple Choice Test Friday and an in
class DBQ on Monday.
 EC Notes from Reconstruction video.
 HAND IN ANY EC WORK YOU DID
OVER BREAK TODAY.
 The struggle for freedom ignores
women's rights
 The 14th Amendment (extends
citizenship to black adult males but
not women)
 The 15th Amendments (black male
suffrage only)
 Freedmen and the vote
 Moderate plans (Lincoln's, Johnson's)
give way to widespread enfranchisement
in the south in 1867 and then in the
nation as a whole in 1870.
 Blacks are the majority of the electorate
(due to disqualification of former
Confederates & their large population
density) in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana,
Mississippi, and Arkansas.
 An engraving depicting an agent of the Freedman’s
Bureau as a peacemaker between blacks and
whites after the Civil War.
 only one state legislature (SC) elected a
majority of blacks in the lower house.
 no state senates had black majorities
 no black governors were elected
 most black officials were highly capable,
educated, free-born
 2 US Senators (Hiram Revels and Blanche K.
Bruce) were elected from Mississippi
 over a dozen US Congressmen elected
 State State Legislators
Alabama
Arkansas
Florida
Georgia
Louisiana
Mississippi
N. Carolina
S. Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Virginia
Total
69
8
30
41
87
112
30
190
1
19
46
633 2 15
U.S. Senators U.S.Congressmen
0
4
0
0
0
1
0
1
0
1*
2
1
0
1
0
6
0
0
0
0
0
0
 In Reconstruction era
 Senator
Party
State
Term Lifespan Former slave
Hiram Rhodes Revels Republican Mississippi 1870-1871 1822-1901 No
Blanche Bruce
Republican Mississippi 1875-1881 1841-1898 Yes
 In Modern era
 Senator
Party
State
Term
Lifespan
Edward William Brooke, III Republican Massachusetts 1 967-1979 1919Carol Moseley Braun
Democrat
Illinois
1993-1999 1947Barack Obama
Democrat
Illinois
2005-2008 1 961Roland Burris
Democrat
Illinois
2009 1937-
 Originally a pro-Union organization.
 Freedmen turned the Union League into a network of
political clubs that educated members and campaigned
for Republican candidates.
 The League also took up building black churches and
schools, representing black grievances before local
employers and government, and recruiting militias to
protect black communities from white retaliation.
 Presence of former slaves in civil service and government
 "scalawags" and "carpetbaggers“
 Scalawags" were Southerners who were accused of
plundering the treasuries of the Southern states through their
political influence in the radical governments.
 "Carpetbaggers" were sleazy Northerners who had come to
the South to seek power and profit.
 Accusations of graft and corruption
 some truth to these accusations in SC and Louisiana
 political corruption, however, not confined to the South in
these years (New Orleans after Katrina)?
Secret organizations emerge
 Ku Klux Klan is most notorious
 TN 1866 – founded by Nathan Bedford Forrest
 Intended to strike fear through intimidation
 often resorts to violence
 main goal = disfranchisement of blacks
 angered by the success of black legislators
Force Acts of 1870 and 1871
 White resistance…
 to Force Acts
 of 14th / 15th Amendments
 literacy tests reinstated in some places
The Acts came too late, though, after the
intimidation of the Klan had already been
accomplished.
In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the
Democratic party, the planter class, and all those who desired
restoration of white supremacy.
 Congressional attacks on Johnson
 accusations/mudslinging
 Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (main enemy of Johnson
and important leader of the Radical Republicans)
 Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act in 1867. It
required the president to secure the consent of the Senate
before he could remove his cabinet members once they had
been approved by the Senate. Its purpose was to keep in the
president's cabinet.
 constitutionality of measure is questionable
 When Johnson dismissed Stanton in 1868, the House of
Representatives voted to impeach Johnson for "high
crimes and misdemeanors."
 Johnson dismisses Stanton
 Impeachment vote results…126 to 47 in the House for
“crimes and misdemeanors”
 Trial and verdict
 biggest show of 1868 (a media circus)
 not guilty verdict in Senate (by one vote)
 -Significance of the trial…preserved the power and
equal station of the executive branch
Initially viewed as a failure.
 In the South…
 Segregation perpetuated.
 The pre-Civil War South was romanized in literary
works like Gone With The Wind and The Clansman
 Black rights by 1877 little better than in pre civil war
slave times
 There were more important issues than Black rights or
Reconstruction.
 Such as the growing industrial economy, further
westward expansion, an even larger influx of European
immigrants.
 Newer historical research (see pages 500-501 in Bailey)
highlighted the real tragedy of Reconstruction.
 It failed not because blacks were incapable of
governing, but because the civil rights and
equalities granted during this period were but a
passing temporary development.
 These rights would ultimately be removed, only to wait
until the 1950s and 1960s, for the rise of the Civil
Rights Movement or what is sometimes referred to as
"Second Reconstruction."
 The Alaska Purchase, historically also referred to as
Seward's Folly, was the purchase of Alaska by the
United States from the Russian Empire in 1867.
 The purchase was at the time derided as "Seward's
folly," "Seward's icebox," and Andrew Johnson's "polar
bear garden," because it was believed foolhardy to
spend so much money on the remote region.
 The purchase price set at $7,200,000, about 1.9¢ per
acre.
 Seward, the main force behind the treaty, had long favored
expansion. U.S. Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts,
the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations, agreed that the nation's strategic interests
favored the treaty.
 Russia had been a valuable ally of the Union position
during the American Civil War, while Britain had been a
nearly open enemy.
 It seemed wise to help Russia while discomfiting the
British.
 Today: Divide up Chapter 22 Apparts
(due Friday)
 Tomorrow: Review Game or Practice
Tests
 ID’s and Outlines Due (check off)
Friday: Multiple Choice Unit Test
Monday: In class DBQ
(Reconstruction).
 Finish the Unit 7 ID’s and Questions by 12/2
 Review Chapters 21, 22 and 23 in your textbook.
 Do Practice Tests
 The Final Exam will consist of about 20 matching
items (terms, people, events, etc), and 50 multiple
choice questions.
 http://college.cengage.com/history/us/bailey/america
n_pageant/11e/students/ace/index.html
 What were the advantages of both the North and the
South during the Civil War? What advantage proved most
important to each side? What disadvantage proved to be
the most difficult to overcome for the South?
 Why did the North win the Civil War? How might the
South have won? Discuss specific strategies and battles in
support of your ideas.
 Was Reconstruction a noble experiment that failed, a
vengeful Northern punishment of the South, a weak effort
that did not go far enough, or the best that could have been
expected under the circumstances? What has been the
historical legacy of Reconstruction? (Consider particularly
the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and Civil
Rights laws.)