Transcript AP US Unit 8: Reconstruction, the New South

AP US Unit 8:
Reconstruction, the New
South, and the Grant
Administration
Test on Unit 7 and Unit 8 on Friday
Main Questions for Unit 8
1. How would the south be rebuilt?
2. How would the liberated blacks fare as
free men and women?
3. How would the Southern States be
reintegrated into the Union?
4. Who would direct the process of
Reconstruction – Southern states,
Congress, or the president?
Day 1 Early Reconstruction
Chapter 23 pages 487-497
Documents 1-3
Effects of the Civil War on the South
• End of an age (Antebellum is over)
• Socially and Economically broken
– Cities burned
– Railroad tracks destroyed
– Banks failed from inflation
– Factories dismantled
– Agriculture damaged
• took until 1870 to produce the cotton crop of 1860
and much of this came from new farms in the SW
What was Freedom?
• The Union army brought freedom, but it
often left when they did
• Different reactions: loyalty to masters and
violence as well
What was Freedom?
• When freedom finally came:
– Many left to test freedom or find family
• Exodusters were an example of whole
communities that left looking for opportunity
– Church became the focal point of the black
community
– Education and literacy became very important
• needed black teachers…built colleges to train
black teachers or accepted northern, white
teachers
Establishment of Historically
Black Colleges in the South
13th Amendment

Ratified in December, 1865.

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
except as punishment for crime whereof
the party shall have been duly convicted,
shall exist within the United States or any
place subject to their jurisdiction.

Congress shall have power to enforce
this article by appropriate legislation.
Freedmen’s Bureau
• Was supposed to provide food, clothing,
medical care, and education to freedmen
and white refugees
• Taught 200,000 blacks how to read
• Often resented by the white south, though
in some areas it conspired against the
freedmen…
Freedmen’s Bureau Seen Through
Southern Eyes
• “Plenty to eat
and nothing to
do.”
Freedmen’s Bureau School
Reconstruction – The Second Civil War
Scenes 5 and 8-10
• Chapter 5: 23:00 – 27:45 : Tunis Campbell and
the Sea Islands
• Chapter 8: 39:00 – 43:30 : St. Catherine’s and
Freedmen’s Schools
• Chapter 9: 43:30 – 52:37 : Kate Stone returns
home; white vs. blacks; Land returned to planters
• Chapter 10: 52:37 – 1:00:00 : No land for blacks
– desire to return South to cotton; Black Codes
• 26 min total
Presidential Reconstruction
Lincoln’s 10% plan
• Simple restoration of the CSA to the
Union because Lincoln felt that they had
never legally withdrawn
• Pardon to all but the highest ranking
military and civilian Confederate officers.
• When 10% of the voters in the 1860
election took an oath of allegiance to the
US and pledged to abide by
emancipation, a state government would
be created and the state would re-enter
the Union
Reaction to Lincoln’s 10% plan
• Radical Republicans freaked out that white
planters would take back over and blacks
would be re-enslaved
– Passed the Wade-Davis Bill through Congress
in 1864
• Required a 50% oath of allegiance and demanded
stronger safeguards for emancipation
• Lincoln pocket-vetoed it (shelved it)
Reaction to Lincoln’s 10% plan
• Republicans in Congress refused to seat
delegates from LA in 1864 after that state had
met the criteria of the 10% plan
• Controversy revealed deep differences between
Pres and Congress
– Many in Congress believed that the CSA could only
be readmitted as conquered provinces
– Differences between Moderate Republicans
(majority and like Lincoln) and Radical Republicans
President Andrew Johnson

Jacksonian Democrat.

Anti-Aristocrat.

White Supremacist.

Agreed with Lincoln
that states had never
legally left the Union.
Damn the negroes! I am fighting these
traitorous aristocrats, their masters!
Johnson and Presidential Reconstruction
• Important to remember about Johnson:
• Humble beginnings, southern and poor
• Lincoln was shot and Johnson reinforced
Lincoln’s 10% plan with a few changes:
– Certain leading Confederates (and those with
property over $20K) were disenfranchised and
would have to petition for a personal pardon
– State conventions had to repeal secession,
repudiate CSA debts, and accept the 13th
Amendment
Problems with
Reconstruction
Black Codes
• Imposed by states, counties, or cities
• Maintained a stable and subservient labor force
– Were not free laborers – could not leave contracts
without a system like slavery being put into place
(working to pay off a fine for leaving…)
• Blacks could not serve on a jury
• Blacks could not rent or lease land
• If a freed black was found without a job, they would
have to work on a chain gang
• No suffrage
Slavery is Dead?
Sharecropping
• Having nothing but labor, many blacks
turned to sharecropping, which benefited
rich whites who had nothing but land
– Sharecropping is where a farm worker will
receive a piece of land from a planter to farm
on in exchange for a portion of the crops
grown on that land
– While theoretically a good system of barter,
planters managed to keep their sharecroppers
in constant debt and therefore tied to the land
Sharecropping
Republicans in Congress Angry with
the South
• Most of the delegates who arrived in Congress in
December 1865 were former Confederate leaders
– Republicans shut the door in their face
• The freeing of blacks made them now count as 5/5 of
a person
– 12 more seat in Congress and 12 more presidential votes
• Radical Republicans feared that the combination of
Democrats in the South and North would dismantle
the economic program Republicans had forced
through during the war and would also perpetuate
the Black Codes to virtually re-enslave the blacks
Day 2 – Congressional
Reconstruction
Chapter 23 pages 497-508
Documents 4-5
Problems with Johnson and Congress
• Johnson began to veto
all progressive bills put
through congress by the
Radical Republicans
– Extending the
Freedman’s Bureau
– The Civil Rights Bill of
1866
• Congress overturned his
veto on all of these
Congress Passes 14th Amendment
• Made citizenship for freedmen a part of the
Constitution:
– Freedmen were citizens
– States that denied the right to vote to freedmen would
have their representation in Congress and the
Electoral College reduced
– Former Confederates who had previously been federal
officeholders were now disqualified from holding
federal and state office
– The federal debt to pay off the war was guaranteed
while the USA would not pay off the CSA’s debt
“Swing round the circle”
• Johnson stumped for the Congressional
Candidates of the Democrats in 1866
– Made Johnson and Democrats look like idiots
– Republicans won a 2/3 majority in the House
and Senate
Johnson’s “Swing around
the Circle”
Congressional
Reconstruction
Leaders
• Charles Sumner (now recovered) led the RR’s in
the Senate
• Thaddeus Stevens (PA) led the RR’s in the House
• Radicals and Moderates had a veto proof majority,
but had to work out differences between
themselves
– Radicals wanted federal control of the Southern
states
– Moderates wanted states rights but preservation of
civil rights
Reconstruction Act (March 2, 1867)
• South was divided into 5 military districts
– Each district was commanded by a Union general and
20,000 Union troops were stationed in the South
• Tens of thousands of former Confederates were
temporarily disenfranchised
– Means they couldn’t vote
• To become a state again, states had to ratify the
14th Amendment and enfranchise black men
(pass 15th Amendment)
• Did NOT give freedmen land or an education
Reconstruction Acts of 1867
Military Reconstruction Act
*
*
Restart Reconstruction in the 10 Southern states that
refused to ratify the 14th Amendment.
Divide the 10 “unreconstructed states” into 5 military
districts.
More about Congressional
Reconstruction
• Radical Republicans worried about
freedmen suffrage and passed the 15th
Amendment (passed 1869 and ratified
1870)
• By 1870 the southern states had been
readmitted, but political power turned back
over to the “Good Ole Boys” once the
federal military left
Civil Rights During
Reconstruction
Black Suffrage
• Freedmen participated in the state
constitutional conventions
• Between 1868-1876 there were 14 black
Congressmen and 2 black senators (both
of them from Mississippi)
– Hiram Revels (Senator) was elected to
Jefferson Davis’ former seat!
Black Senate & House Delegates
African
American
Rule
in the
South?
Blacks in Southern Politics
●
Core voters were black veterans.
●
Blacks were politically unprepared.
●
Blacks could register and vote in states since
1867.
•
The 15th
Amendment
guaranteed
federal voting.
15th Amendment
●
Ratified in 1870.
●
The right of citizens of the United States to
vote shall not be denied or abridged by the
United States or by any state on account of
race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
●
The Congress shall have power to enforce
this article by appropriate legislation.
●
Women’s rights groups were furious that they
were not granted the vote!
No Women’s Suffrage
• Women had fought for emancipation,
hoping that this would lead to rights for
blacks and women…but no
• Frederick Douglass had said that this was
“the Negro’s hour”
Reconstruction – The Second Civil War
Scene 14
• Disc 1 Chapter 14: 1:19:10 - 1:23:30 :
Freedmen get the right to vote – what this
means to blacks and whites in the South
Whites against whites
• Scalawags – southern Republicans
• Carpetbaggers – Yankees who traveled
south to make a profit
Legislative Progress
• Women were given property rights
• Public schools were set up in the south as
well as public works projects
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
• Group of whites that
used anything from
scare tactics to
murder to prevent
blacks from becoming
leaders or even
voting
– Also used against
scalawags and
carpetbaggers
The “Invisible Empire of the South”
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
• Congress passed the Force Acts of 1870
and 1871 that allowed federal troops to go
after the Klan, but they weren’t very effective
• KKK maintained itself in the South
• 14th and 15th amendments were not followed
– grandfather clauses
– literacy tests
The Civil Rights Act of 1875
•Crime for any individual to deny full &
equal use of public conveyances and
public places.
•Prohibited discrimination in jury
selection.
•Shortcoming -> lacked a strong
enforcement mechanism.
•No new civil rights act was attempted
for 75 years!
Johnson and Impeachment
Once upon a time…
• The Radical Republicans were tired of
Johnson and wanted him out of office. So
with their Congressional majority, they
passed the Tenure of Office Act in 1867,
requiring that the president obtain the
consent of Congress before removing any
of his appointees
– The point was to keep Edward M. Stanton,
secretary of war and spy to the RR’s, in office
but Johnson dismissed Stanton in 1868
And then….
• The House used their trap and voted 126 to
47 to impeach Johnson
– But since the Senate has to vote on actually
kicking someone out…
• 7 Republican senators voted not guilty –
missed 2/3 margin for impeachment by 1 vote
– Opposition to abusing checks and balances
– Successor would have been RR, president pro
tempore of the Senate, Ben Wade
– Johnson hinted that he would stop obstructing
Republican policies if he could stay in office
The Senate Trial
 11 week trial.
 Johnson acquitted
35 to 19 (one short of
required 2/3s vote).
Alaska
• Russians had sold all of the fur from Alaska
(poor seals) and wanted to unload the area
instead of letting it fall to the British in case
of war
– Russia wanted America to have it because
Russia hated England so much
• Secretary of State Seward bought it in 1867
for $7.3 million
– Great price
– Many called it Seward’s Folly or Seward’s
Icebox or Walrussia
Day 3 Grant and the
Compromise of 1877
Chapter 24 pages 512-522
Documents 6-7
Election of 1868
• Grant was run by the Republicans –
“waving the bloody shirt”
– Grant often said “let us have peace”
• Democrats ran Horatio Seymour
(conservative former gov of NY)
– Some Dems wanted repayment (repudiation)
of war bonds in greenbacks – to keep money
in circulation and therefore help farmers
• Seymour went against this
The 1868 Republican Ticket
The 1868 Democratic Ticket
Waving the Bloody Shirt!
Republican “Southern
Strategy”
1868 Presidential Election
Election of 1868
• Grant won 214 to 80, BUT only won with
300,000 popular votes
– Miss, Tex, and VA were not counted since
they were un-reconstructed
– 500,000 freedmen voted for Grant – and won
him the election, Republicans would have to
keep up Congressional Reconstruction to stay
in power
Era of Good Stealings
Population leap during this time –>
immigration
Morally, US was low – waste,
extravagance, speculation, graft
Fisk and Gould
• Jim Fisk and Jay Gould – brawn and brains of
fraud – tried to take the edge on the gold market
– Needed federal government not to release gold from
the Treasury
• Grant said he wouldn’t and his brother-in-law received
$25K
– On Black Friday (9/24/69) they bid the price of gold
upward, but the bubble broke when the Treasury
released gold
– Grant was “clean but stupid”
Boss Tweed
• Got about $200 million out of NYC – graft,
bribery, and fraudulent elections
• Thomas Nast fought against him with
cartoons – even Tweed’s illiterate followers
could understand cartoons
• NY Times got damning evidence in 1871
and released it (even though Tweed
offered them $5mill to stay quiet!)
Who Stole the People’s Money?
Credit Mobilier
• Internal group of the Union Pacific RR
formed the Credit Mobilier railroad
construction company and paid CM $50K for
what only took $30K to build per mile
• Dividends paid 348% - many shares of stock
were gifted around Washington to prevent
the government from blowing the whistle
• Were exposed in 1872 though began in
1867
– 2 members of Congress were censured
– VP accepted 20 shares and some dividends
Whiskey Ring
• Whiskey manufacturers had not paid the
Treasury millions in excise taxes
• Grant wanted them all caught until his
private secretary turned up as one of the
culprits
• Grant helped him get off
Indian Ring
• Secretary of War William Belknap
– In 1876, he was found to have pocketed $24K
for selling the privilege of disbursing “supplies”
(crap) to the Indians
– He resigned
Grant was seriously tainted
Election of 1872
• Liberal Republicans and Democrats nominated
newspaper editor Horace Greely (who had
often attacked Democrats)
• Republicans re-nominated Grant
• Nasty election
• Liberal Republicans left something behind (like
most 3rd parties)
– Political disabilities were removed from all but 500
former Confederates
– High Civil War tariffs were reduced
– Civil service reform was implemented to clean up
the Grant administration
1872 Presidential Election
Grant won 286-66
Popular Vote for President: 1872
Panic of 1873
Panic of 1873
• Over production and over speculation
• Banks fell
– Freedman’s Savings and Trust Co. made
unsecured loans to risky companies and lost
out. Those who had money in the bank lost
over $7 million
• Injured African American economic development
and trust in savings institutions
Panic of 1873
• Caused desire for paper money (to help
debtors) – greenbacks
• Hard money supporters won
– Grant vetoed a bill in 1874 to print more paper
money
– Resumption Act of 1875
• Government would withdraw all greenbacks from
circulation and exchange paper money for gold at
face value beginning in 1879
Panic of 1873
• Debtors turned to pro-silver ideas
– Silver was valued at higher than the Treasury was paying
for it in the early 1870’s, so no one sold it to the Treasury,
so the Treasury stopped coining silver in 1873
– Then new silver was found later in the 1870’s, which
dropped the price
– Those who wanted silver to be coined by the Treasury
called this the “Crime of 73”
• In preparation for redemption in 1879, government
practiced contraction to amass gold
– Caused deflation
– 1:1 ration of value by the time redemption came around so
few actually redeemed their easier to carry greenbacks
Panic of 1873
• Bland-Allison Act 1878
– Made by “Silver Dick” Bland of Missouri. Hah!
– Treasury would buy and coin between $2-$4
million in silver every month
– Treasury stuck to the minimum
• Results of Republican hard money policy:
– Democrats won House in 1874
– Greenback Party 1878
Boring Political Parties
– Not much difference between them politically or
economically; both into patronage
– VERY different culturally
Republicans
Puritanical
•Personal morality
•Government should
regulate the economy
and the morality of the
community
•Midwest and small town
Northeast and freedmen
in the South and the GAR
•
Democrats
Immigrants
•Accepted imperfections
and didn’t want the
government to impose a
moral standard on
society
•South and Northern
industrial cities
•
Republicans faced factional split
• Stalwarts
– Roscoe Conkling (NY)
– Yay spoils
• Half-Breeds
– James Blaine (ME)
– Kind of wanted civil service reform; really
wanted to hand out the spoils themselves
The Abandonment
of Reconstruction
Northern Support Wanes
•
•
“Grantism” & corruption.
Panic of 1873 (6-year
depression)
Concern over westward
expansion and Indian wars.
Key monetary issues:
•
•
•
•
Should the government
retire $432m worth of
“greenbacks” issued during the Civil War?
Should war bonds be paid back in specie
or greenbacks?
1876 Presidential Tickets
Republicans run an obscure
candidate – Rutherford B. Hayes
•Obscurity was to deal with the factionalism
•Was from Ohio
Democrats ran Samuel J.
Tilden
The guy who took on Boss
Tweed
“Regional Balance?”
1876 Presidential Election
The Political Crisis of
1877
– Irregular returns sent
this to Congress
– Compromise of 1877
• Democrats agreed
that Hayes could
win if federal troops
left the South (they
were still in LA and
SC)
“Corrupt Bargain”
Part II?
Hayes Prevails
Alas, the Woes of
Childhood…
Sammy Tilden—Boo-Hoo! Ruthy Hayes’s got my
Presidency, and he won’t give it to me!
A Political Crisis:
The “Compromise” of 1877