Transcript Rival Plans for Reconstruction

RIVAL PLANS FOR
RECONSTRUCTION
Chapter 12 Section 1
How will Southern States Rejoin the
Union
• Should Confederate leaders be tried for treason or should
they be pardoned so the nation can heal as quickly as
possible?
• How should southern representatives be allowed back
into Congress?
• Constitution did not give direction on this issue
• Whose job was it to decide? President or Congress?
• Many thought the South should have to meet certain
stipulations before being allowed to return
How Will Southern Economy Be Rebuilt?
• See description on P. 403
• Gen. Sherman proposed “Forty Acres
and a Mule” – give abandoned farm
land to former slaves
• Southern landowners rejected this
idea
• Some northerners thought this might
violate Constitution
What Rights Will African Americans
Have?
• 13th Amendment freed slaves but it did
not give them full citizenship
• Former slaves wanted voting rights
and access to education
• Many Republicans supported
extending full citizenship rights, but
most in the South opposed the idea
Ten Percent Plan Offers Leniency
• 1863 – issues Proclamation of Amnesty and
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Reconstruction (known as the Ten Percent Plan)
As soon as ten percent of a state’s voters took a loyalty
oath to the Union, the state could set up a new
government
If the state’s constitution abolished slavery and provided
for education for African Americans, the state would
regain representation in Congress
Also made concessions to southern whites – granted
pardons to former Confederates, considered
compensating them for lost property
Lincoln wanted Union reunited as quickly as possible
Radicals Oppose the Ten Percent Plan
• some within Lincoln’s party did not like his plan
• “Radical Republicans” led by Thaddeus Stevens and
Charles Sumner, wanted Congress to punish
Confederates for the crimes they had committed
• Advocated full citizenship for African Americans, including
the right to vote
• Supported Sherman’s plan to confiscate land and give
farms to freedmen
• Congress passed the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864
• Required that a majority of a state’s prewar voters swear loyalty to
the Union before they could come back in
• President Lincoln destroyed this plan with a “pocket veto”
– withholding signature past 10-days
Government Aids Freedmen
• Freedmen’s Bureau – created to provide food, clothing,
healthcare, and education for both black and white
refugees in the South
• Helped reunite families
• Represented African Americans in court
• Continued until 1872
Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan
• Lincoln’s assassination made Andrew Johnson president
• Johnson seeks to restore the Union
• wanted to do so as quickly as possible
• offered pardons and the restoration of land to almost any
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Confederate who swore allegiance to the Union and the
Constitution
Required each state to ratify the 13th Amend.
Johnson still expected the United States to have a
“government for white men”
Did not want African Americans to have the vote
Favored states’ rights
Southerners Aim to Restore Old Ways
• Many states tried to restore things to the way they were
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before the war.
All states instituted black codes – laws that sought to
limit the rights of African Americans and keep them
landless
Required them to work in limited occupations
Some prohibited owning land
Vagrancy laws
White southerners used violence and intimidation to
enforce the black codes
Congress Fights Back
• Congress refused to let southerners to take their
seats
• 1866 – political situation got worse
• President Johnson accused Radicals of trying to
“Africanize the southern half of the country”
• Congress tried to overturn the black codes by
passing the Civil Rights Act of 1866
• Created federal guarantees of civil rights and
superseded any state laws that limited them
• Johnson used his veto power to block the law
• Johnson was now openly defying Congress
Radical Reconstruction Begins
• Radicals in Congress spent nearly a year
designing a new Reconstruction program
• Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment
• Guaranteed equality under the law for all citizens
• Any state that banned blacks from voting would lose
number of seats in Congress
• Barred leading Confederate officials from holding
federal or state offices
• Congress passed legislation over Johnson’s veto
with the ratification of the Military Reconstruction
Act of 1867
(continued)
• Act divided the 10 southern states that had
yet to be readmitted into the Union in five
military districts governed by former Union
generals
• Once the state ratified the Fourteenth
Amendment, it could reenter the Union
Congress Impeaches the President
• Crisis in 1867 – to limit the President’s power, Congress
passed the Tenure of Office Act
• President needed Senate approval to remove certain officials from
office
• House of Representatives voted to impeach Johnson for
trying to fire Stanton (Sec of War)
• Had trial in Senate
• Radicals failed to remove Johnson from office by one vote
The Fifteenth Amendment Extends
Suffrage
• 1868 – Republican candidate, Ulysses S.
Grant was elected President
• 1869 – Congress passed the Fifteenth
Amendment – forbidding any state from
denying suffrage on the basis of race, color,
or previous condition of servitude
• Both 14th and 15th Amendments were
ratified in 1870