Transcript Matt Rhodes - Reconstruction Virtual Museum

Reconstruction Virtual
Museum
By: Matt Rhodes
Conditions in the South following
The Civil War
• The war changed The South forever
• It reached into families and farms
• It destroyed two thirds of the South’s shipping industry and 9,000
miles of railroads
• It also destroyed farmland, farm buildings, farm machinery, work
animals, one third of livestock, bridges and levees
• Thousands of miles of roads, factories, ports, and cities lay
smoldering
• Southern farm property plunged 70% in value
• 260,0000 soldiers were lost, a generation of young men fathers,
brothers and husbands
• Children were orphaned and brides widowed
Reconstruction Plans
• When the Civil war ended plans to reconstruct the war torn South
began
• Lincoln’s Plan:
•
•
•
•
1.Offered a pardon, an official forgiveness of a crime, to any confederate who would
take on oath of allegiance to the Union and accept federal policy on slavery
2. it denied pardons to all confederate military and government officials and to
southerners who killed African American war prisoners
3.it permitted each state to hold a convention to create a new state constitution only
after 10% of voters in the state had sworn allegiance to the union
4. states could then hold elections and resume full participation in the Union. Lincoln’s
plan did not require the new constitutions to give voting rights to black
Americans. Nor did it readmit southern states to the union, since in Lincoln’s
view, their secession had been unconstitutional.
Continued….
• When Lincoln was assassinated Andrew Johnson took over plans
fro reconstruction
• Johnson’s plan:
•
•
•
•
1. It pardoned southerner’s who swore allegiance to the union
2. it permitted each state to hold a constitutional convention (without Lincoln’s 10
percent allegiance requirement)
3. States were required to void secession, abolish slavery, and repudiate the federal
debt
4. States could then hold elections and rejoin the union
Continued….
• Radical Reconstruction:
•
•
•
•
•
Composed of Radical Republicans
Against Johnson’s reconstruction policies
Opposed the spread of the black codes
Favored the expansion of republicans in the south
Mainly focused on granting African Americans their civil rights such
as voting and equal treatment
Amendments
• 13th Amendment: officially prohibited slavery or
involuntary servitude of any kind, unless as punishment
for a crime
• 14th Amendment: states that people born or naturalized
in the U.S are citizens and no state can make or enforce
laws limiting the rights to citizens and that no state can
deprive any person’s life, liberty or property without due
process of law
• 15th Amendment : prohibits governments from denying a
persons right to vote based on skin color or previous
condition of servitude
Reconstruction Act of 1867
• Creation of five military districts in the seceded states ,
not including Tennessee which ratified the 14th
amendment to the United States constitution and was
readmitted to the union
• Requiring congressional approval for new state
constitutions which were required for confederate states
to rejoin the union)
• Confederate states give voting rights to all men
• All former confederate states must ratify the 14th
amendment
Effects of reconstruction
• The South tried passing laws limiting rights of newly
freed slaves
• Former slaves worked as sharecroppers and tenant
farmers
• Poor whites in the South struggled to get jobs from
competing with the blacks
• Plantation owners lost money by not having slaves to do
free labor
Successes of reconstruction
• Freedman’s Bureau
– Offered medical aid & education to freed slaves
• Civil Rights Act of 1866
– First Civil Rights Act passed
– Forbade enforcement of discriminatory laws (black codes)
– Granted African Americans citizenship
• -
continued
• Improved Education System
– Northerners came down to South to teach
freedmen’s schools
– Reconstruction govs built large system of
schools to educate future generations
• By 1876 over 50% of white kids and 40% of
black kids were enrolled in schools in the
South
– Black “academies” built (Atlanta University)
Failures
• Land Redistribution
– Freedman’s Bureau divvied out old plantation land to
black families in SC Sea Islands, GE, parts of MS
– Collapsed when plantation owners came back to
reclaim land and President Johnson supported them
• Could have been prevented if Johnson had
defended black families and prevented white
plantation owners from taking back their land
Continued
• Did Not Change Social Classes
– The allowance of blacks to run for office only
lasted for a while before it reverted back to
the old social classes in the South
– When the Reconstruction was over old slave
holders and rich plantation owners came back
into power
• Could have been avoided if black office
holders had protection from hate groups
and blackmailing
Continued
• The Amendments
– 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments caused the
South to come up with things to get around
them
– Causes Jim Crow laws and Black Codes
– Slaughterhouse and other Court Cases
• Could have been avoided if the North had sent
troops earlier to reinforce
Election of 1876
• Rutherford B. Hayes against Samuel J.
Tilden
• Hayes won the election by promising to
pull troops out of the south if he had won
• After he was elected troops were pulled
out dooming the blacks
End of reconstruction
• Reconstruction ended in 1877
• After the lection of Rutherford B. Hayes troops
were pulled out from the South
• And they took control of their government
• White Southerners promptly passed laws and
restrictions against blacks
South following reconstruction
• Hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan soon started
to develop and grow
• They began killing backs and other groups of
people
• The North soon passes laws against the crimes
they are committing and the numbers of clan
members start to die down but they have a
resurgence in the early 1900s
My Opinion
• I think that reconstruction is basically the time
period when the North tried to reunite the war
torn nation and make Southern society a but
more like the North. It was successful in some
ways but failed a lot too. Just like other things
we’ve learned this year the civil war and
reconstruction show that whites think they are
the better race