Transcript Lincoln

Reconstruction
The rebuilding of
the United States
after the Civil War
EFFECTS OF CIVIL WAR
• Human toll of the Civil War: The North lost 364,000
soldiers. The South lost 260,000 soldiers.
• creation of a single unified country
• abolition of slavery
• increased power to fed. gov't – killed the issue of
states rights
• U.S. now an industrial nation
• a stronger sense of nationalism
• w. lands increasingly opened to settlement
• South was economically and physically devastated,
w/ the plantation system crippled…
• a deep hatred of the North remained...
Reconstruction
• South lay in ruins
• What? Created a plan that would repair the
damage to the South and restore the southern
states to the Union.
• When? 1865 to 1877
• By Who? The federal government will carry it
out
The struggles in the South
By the end of the Civil War…
• Black Southerners began lives as newly freedmen in a
poor region with slow economic activity.
• Plantation owners lost slave labor worth $3 billion.
• Poor white Southerners: job competition due to newly
freedmen.
• Economy: war had destroyed 2/3 of South’s shipping
industry + 9,000 miles of railroad.
The Problem/Dilemma
• What Now?
Big Questions Left to Answer
1. How and when should southern states be
allowed to resume their role in the Union?
– Should they be pardoned or punished?
2. Now that black southerners were free
would they have equal rights?
– If so, How would these rights be
protected?
Proclamation of Amnesty and
Reconstruction
• 1863 he issued the Proclamation of Amnesty
and Reconstruction
– His policy on how he would deal with the South and
reunite the once united states
– This was called his “10 Percent Plan”
How do you think he hoped the N and
S would react to this proclamation?
• North: gather support
• South: Confederates would surrender
Reconstruction Plans
Lincoln’s 10% Plan
• A southern state could be readmitted into the
Union once 10 percent of its voters swore an oath
of allegiance
– Voters then could elect delegates to revise the state
constitution
Reconstruction Plans
Lincoln’s 10% Plan
• Offered a pardon (an official forgiveness of a
crime) to any Confederate, who would take
an oath of allegiance to the Union and accept
federal policy on slavery.
– He would protect their property, except slaves
– He DID NOT PARDON high-ranking Confederate
army officers and government officials
• DOES NOT FOCUS ON CIVIL LIBERITIES
FOR NEWLY FREEDMEN
• (please add to ppt)
Lincoln’s plan was forgiving
• In Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address March,
1865, he said the following:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all,
...let us strive on to finish the work we are in,
...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just
and lasting peace among ourselves and with all
nations.”
Congress’s Reaction to Lincoln’s
Reconstruction Plan
• Moderate Republicans agreed at first!
• Radical Republicans:
– Lincoln was too easy on the south
– saw it as a threat to their Congressional Authority.
• It’s Congress’s job to make laws, not the president’s!
Lincoln “should confine himself to his executive duties—to
obey and execute, not make the laws…and leave political
reorganization to Congress.”
Radical Republicans emerge with a NEW
PLAN!
• Radical Republican Party believed Lincoln’s Reconstruction
Plan because was too lenient and the south needed to be
punished
• They wanted to…
– Redistribute land
– Develop industry
– Guarantee civil rights to former slaves
• Although a minority in Congress, they swayed many
moderate republicans
Thaddeus Stevens:
Leading radical in the
House
Charles Sumner: Leading
radical in the Senate
The Radical Republicans Introduce
The Wade-Davis Act
• In July, 1864, Congress passed a stricter
Reconstruction plan, the Wade-Davis Bill.
– Southern States could rejoin the Union if 50% of
voters took a loyalty oath.
– Gave blacks civil liberties EXCEPT not the right to
vote
– Promised to redistribute southern land
What happened to the Wade-Davis
Bill?
• Lincoln let the bill die in a pocket veto.
• How does a pocket veto occur?
– Typically, if president does not sign bill within 10
days it automatically becomes law
– But….if Congress adjourns/leaves within those 10
days and is not signed then it does not become
law
How a bill is passed
Congress creates a law
Congress votes on law (majority)
President of U.S.
Yes
Pocket Veto
President ignores
10 days Congress goes
into recess bill “dies”
Veto (no)
Congress
2/3 vote
override
Why use a pocket veto?
• Re-elections are
coming up
• Doesn’t get
accused of saying
“No”
• Can’t go back to
Congress for 2/3
override
How were things left before Lincoln
was assassinated?
• No decisions were made
• At the end of the Civil War, in the spring of
1865…
Lincoln and Congress were on the brink of a
political showdown with their competing plans
for Reconstruction…….and then….
Lincoln’s hopes of forgiveness end
• Weeks after his Second Inauguration, April 14,
1865, Lincoln was assassinated at the Ford’s Theater
by John Wilkes Booth
• John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confed soldier
plotted with others to first kidnap Lincoln and
exchange him for prisoners. Failed
• Vice President Andrew Johnson replaced Lincoln as
President
MONDAY THERE WILL BE AN OPEN
NOTE QUIZ SO BRING YOUR NOTES!
The Conspirator: The Plot to Kill
Lincoln
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSpiHnp
x9M&feature=related
• Videon: 46min long