Transcript Congressional Reconstruction and the New South

Presidential
Reconstruction
5.1
Presidential Reconstruction Plans
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Lincoln
Offered pardon to confederates
who took oath of allegiance to
Union & accepted fed. Policy on
slavery
Denied pardons to all Confed.
military/gov’t officials +
southerners who had killed
Af.Am. War prisoners
Permitted each state to create a
new state const. after 10% of
vobters had sworn allegiance to
the Union
States could then resume full
participation in the Union
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Johnson
Pardoned southerners who
swore allegiance to the Union
Permitted each state to hold a
constitutional convention
States were required to void
secession, abolish slavery, and
repudiate the Confed. debt
States could then hold elections
and rejoin the Union
Southern Response to Johnson’s
Reconstruction Plan
► Black
Codes- Laws that restricted
freedmen’s rights including:
 Curfews: could not gather after sunset
 Vagrancy laws: if convicted of vagrancy- fined,
whipped, sold for a year’s labor
 Labor contracts: year long labor contracts
 Land restrictions: could rent only in rural areas
The Civil War took a huge physical and
human toll on the South
►The
war destroyed two thirds of
southern shipping and 9000 mi. of
railroad
►The South lost 1/5 of its adult white
men
►Countless civilians died
Three major groups of people
faced hardships and fears
► Black
southerners often found themselves
homeless, jobless, and hungry
► Plantation owners lost slave labor, faced
property seizure by the federal government,
and often had to sell their property to cover
debts
► Poor whites southerners who swore
allegiance to the Union
Newly freed slaves celebrated
their new freedom
► African
Americans in the South set up their
own churches
► African American pursued an education,
especially to learn to read
► Congress created the Freedmen’s Bureau to
provide food, medicine, and other relief to
African Americans
Congressional
Reconstruction
5.2
Congress takes over Reconstruction
► Southern
defiance of Reconstruction
enraged northern Republicans in Congress
► Passed Civil Rights Act in 1866 outlawing
black codes
► Passed Fourteenth Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment- 1868
► “All
persons born or naturalized in the United
States . . . 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 . . .”
 Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1
Radical Reconstruction
► Radicals
swept into Congress by voters in
response to Johnson’s opposition of the
Fourteenth Amendment
► Leading spokesmen for the Radical
Republicans in their fight to win civil rights
for African Americans
 Charles Sumner
 Thaddeus Stevens
“reform, not revenge”
Reconstruction Act of 1867
► Put the South under military rule
► Ordered southern states to hold new
elections for
delegates to create new state constitutions
► Required states to allow all qualified male voters,
including Af.Am. to vote in the elections
► Temporarily barred those who had supported the
Confed. from voting
► Required southern states to guarantee equal rights
to all citizens
► Required the states to ratify the Fourteenth
Amendment
Power struggle between branches of
government
► 1868-
Johnson tried to fire Secretary of War Edwin
Stanton (appointed by Lincoln)
► Challenged the Tenure of Office Act just passed by
Congress in 1867 which placed limits on the Pres.
Power to hire and fire gov’t officials
► Johnson impeached- 1st Pres. In U.S. history to be
impeached
► Johnson not impeached by 1 vote!
► Sets precedent- only the most serious crimes, and
not merely a partisan dispute with Congress, could
remove a pres. From office
Grant elected
► Fifteenth
Amendment ratified in 1870
► Stated that no citizen may be denied the
right to vote “by the United States or by any
State on account of race, color, or previous
condition of servitude.”
 Leads to integration of the Capitol; 1st Af.Am.,
Hiram Revels, became the 1st Af.Am. Elected to
the senate
Birth of the “New South”
5.3
Labor
► Planters
labor
had land, but had difficulty finding
 Hard
 Little pay in comparison to other job markets
► Freedmen
had their own labor, but no land
Farming
► Labor
shortage resulted in new farming
arrangement called sharecropping
 Farmed a portion of a planter’s land and as
payment the family was promised a “share” of
the crop
 Created cycle of debt
► Tenant
Farming- leased farmland
Sharecropping and the Cycle of
Debt
Poor whites and
freedmen have no jobs,
no homes, and no money
to buy land
Sharecropper cannot
leave the farm as long as
he is in debt tot the
landlord
At harvest time the
sharecropper owes more
to the landlord than his
share of the crops is
worth
Poor whites and
freedmen sign contracts
to work a landlord’s
acreage in exchange for a
part of the crop
Land lord keeps track of
the money that
sharecroppers owe him
for housing and food
Effects on the South
► Changes
in the labor force
► Emphasis on cash crops
► Cycle of debt
► Rise of merchants
Growth of Industry
► Rebuilding
and extension of southern
railroads (40% increase of track)
► Railroads caused growth of cities!
► Major success of Reconstruction!!!
► Most southern factories did not make
finished goods- the South did not become
and industrialized, urban region like the
North!
Funding Reconstruction
► Growth
of business = better times for everyone =
gospel of prosperity
► Rebuilt infrastructure (public property and services
a society uses) such as roads, bridges, canals,
railroads, telegraph lines
► How funded?
 Some by congress and private investors
 Most through heavy taxes on individuals still in debt
from the war
► Resented
extra financial burden
► Further angered by money lost to corruption
Corruption
► Republicans
and Democrats cooperated “ . .
. whenever anything is proposed which
promises to pay”