Transcript Reconstructing the South

Reconstruction Study Guide
Rebuilding the Nation
Consequences of the Civil War
• Most devastating war in
American history. Over
620,000 soldiers lost
their lives. Billions of
dollars of damage.
• Bitter feelings and
hatred builds up
between the North and
the South.
• The growth of the
National government-it
overpowers the state
governments.
• Four million freed slaves
Problems to be solved
• 1. Should the Confederate leaders be tried for
treason?
• 2. How should the new southern state
governments be formed?
• 3. How was the South’s economy to be rebuilt?
• 4. Who was going to pay for it?
• 5. What was to be done about the 4 million freed
slaves?
Two Proposed Plans For Reconstruction (1863)
Lincoln’s Plan (Leniency/10%)
• No punishing the South!
• 10% of voters swear loyalty
• Amnesty to most southerners
if they swear loyalty to the
Union
• State constitutions must ban
slavery
• Educated ex-slaves must be
given the right to vote
• Ex-slaves would not be given
equal rights
Radical Republicans
• Punish the South!
• Former Confederates
cannot hold public office
• 50% of voters must swear
loyalty to the Union
• Only white males who
swore they never fought in
the war could vote for
representatives to the
constitutional conventions
• Southern states must ratify
the 14th Amendment
Freedman’s Bureau
• March 1865
• 1st attempt to help the South after the war
• Emergency relief to people displaced by the Civil
War
• Set up schools to teach freedmen how to read
and write
• Helped freedmen find jobs, shelter, and food
• Provided courts where freedmen could go to
settle disputes between whites and blacks
The Struggle Begins
• Black Codes (1865)
• Laws passed in southern
states to keep the
freedmen from obtaining
full equality.
• They varied from state to
state.
• 13th Amendment
– Dec. 6, 1865
– Banned slavery in the United
States
• 14th Amendment
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July 9, 1868
Defined citizenship
Gave citizenship to blacks
All citizens have the same rights
• 15th Amendment
– Feb. 3, 1870
– Right to vote for any man,
regardless of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude
Presidential Reconstruction
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1865
President Johnson
Leniency toward rebel leaders.
Neglect towards former slaves.
Amnesty to all who would take an oath of
allegiance.
• Each state would have a provisional governor.
• Must have a new constitution that outlaws
slavery.
Radical Reconstruction
• Congressional Reconstruction
– Reconstruction Act of 1867
• Imposed military rule for Southern States.
• Five military districts.
• Must make new constitution that gave voting rights to
blacks.
• Must pass 14th Amendment
– Impeached President Johnson.
• 11 Charges against him.
• Most without merit.
• Senate found him not guilty!
Military Districts
The South Fights Back
• Literacy tests
– Southerners who tried to vote had to pass a “Literacy
Test” before they could vote
– Obviously, most ex-slaves could not read & write
• Poll Tax
– Southerners who tried to vote had to pay a fee
– Obviously ex-slaves could not afford such fees
• Grandfather Clauses
– Anyone in the South whose Father or Grandfather had
voted before the Civil War could vote even if they
failed the “Literacy Test”
– Obviously, no ex-slave had a father or grandfather
who had ever voted before
South Fights Back
• Ku Klux Klan
– A secret society that believed and practiced white
supremacy.
– Targeted African-American voters at first.
– Used intimidation and violence against blacks and
anyone who helped them.
– Congress passes the KKK Act of 1870.
• This outlawed the KKK!
A New President
• Ulysses S. Grant
– Elected 18th President in 1868.
– Grant appointed friends to government positions.
– Many of these friends were corrupt and greedy.
– Grant’s image was tarnished!
Democrats take control
• Slowly, the same class of former rich
plantation owners began to take control of the
South.
• Slavocracy!
• The newly empowered African-Americans are
stripped of their hard won rights.
The Election of 1876
• Rutherford B. Hayes defeats becomes the 19th president
of the United States.
• Hayes removes all federal troops from the South.
• Reconstruction ends!
African-Americans Lose Rights
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Jim Crow Laws.
Began in 1880’s.
Grew out of the old “Black Codes”.
Separation of the two races.
Separate facilities for whites and blacks…
– Restaurants, theatres, buses, trains, drinking
fountains, restrooms, waiting rooms….
Official Segregation
• 1896
• U.S. Supreme Court case
• Plessy v Ferguson.
• Homer Plessy was arrested for sitting in a “Whites Only”
railroad car in Louisiana on June 7, 1892.
• He did so intentionally to test the law (Separate Car Act).
• “Separate But Equal” doctrine.
Cycle of Poverty
• Sharecroppers
– Many poor whites and African-Americans relied
on farmers to survive.
– Many poor whites and ex-slaves had no choice to
farm a portion of someone else’s land, only to
keep a tiny portion of those crops.
– This unfair system would continue to build debt.
– Ex-slaves would live in a constant cycle of poverty
in which they could not escape.
The New South
• Remember: Reconstruction was a failure!
• The South without slavery!
• Jim Crow (legalized racial separation in public
places)
• The Federal government is going to give their
support to segregation in the South.
• Life gets worse for the African-Americans in the
South.
• Lynchings/violence/intimidation/terror increase
The Black Response
• Ida B. Wells-Barnett
– Black journalist who begins a crusade to stop all the violence and
lynchings against blacks
• Booker T. Washington
– Spokesman for the black middle class
– Urges them to learn mechanic and trade jobs to become useful to
the white man
– Urges the black man to assimilate into the “White” society by
adopting white ways and work for gradual equality
• W.E.B. Dubois
– Disagreed with Booker T. Washington
– Wanted to work for equality now
– Urged the “Talented Tenth” to go to universities to become
doctors, lawyers, and other professionals to lead the fight for
equality now!
• NAACP
– National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
• Organization to help blacks fight for equality using law suits
The Sin of Slavery
• The South would remain backwards
• Not able to catch up with the North in
agriculture or industry
• Blacks who remained in the South would
remain trapped in the cycle of poverty from
the life of sharecropping, a life deprived of
equal rights, and a society that segregated the
white and black races.
Will things ever get better?