Transcript Reconstruction: 1865-1877

RECONSTRUCTION: 1865-1877
• Central Questions:
What system of labor would replace plantation slavery?
On what terms should the Confederacy be reunited with the Union?
Who will decide these terms?
What rights would the freedmen have in the post-war South?
BATTLE OF FORT FISHER
(JAN., 1865)
RICHMOND, VA 1862
RICHMOND, VA 1865
RUINS OF WAR
CHARLESTON, 1865
DAMAGE TO RICHMOND AT THE
CLOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR (APRIL, 1865)
• The War’s End: Victory and Defeat
• 13th Amendment (Jan. 31, 1865)
Prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction.”
• Competing Visions of the New South
Freedmen
Planters’ Vision
VISION OF THE FREEDMEN
Freedom meant independence from white control and the shackles of slavery
overthrow of masters’ authority both symbolically and in real life
Withdrawal from white churches
Mass meetings
refusal to follow behavioral codes of slavery: refusal to yield sidewalks, etc.
Dress (as they liked)
Movement: over half of the former slave population on the move (2 million); within the south, from rural to
urban settings;
Reunited with families and relatives
Education and schools
Seek land and control over the conditions of their work
seek land, either to own or rent
grow food, not staple-cash crops
VISION OF THE PLANTERS
-planters recognized that ex-slaves didn’t want to work for anyone but themselves;
-understood this before the north did
-recognized problem from keeping labor on the plantations; was both a economic and a -political
problem;
Written contracts: 1 year contracts with payment at the end of the year; decrease the mobility of
ex-slaves;
restrict their movement and meetings;
Planters turned to the state to enforce contracts and desires
Black Codes
Vagrancy codes
•
Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction
Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (Dec. 8, 1863)
“10 percent” Plan
Offered full pardon and the restoration of all rights "except as to slaves" to persons who
resumed their allegiance by taking an oath of future loyalty, and pledged to accept the
abolition of slavery.
1. -excluded a few groups, including high ranking civil and military officers of
the Confederacy
2. -when in any state the number of loyal Southerners, thus defined, amounted
to 10 percent of the votes cast in 1860, this minority could establish a new
state government;
LINCOLN’S 10% PLAN
3. State constitutions must abolish slavery, but it could adopt temporary measures
regarding blacks "consistent…with their present condition as a laboring, landless,
and homeless class."
4. The 10% plan, as it came to be known, was criticized by abolitionists for it
failure to make any provision for suffrage or equality before the law, or defining
any role whatever for blacks in the Reconstruction process.
*For Lincoln, the 10% plan was not a hard and fast policy from which he was
determined to never deviate from; rather it was viewed as a measure to shorten
the war and to solidify white support for emancipation.
*Yet it marked and made clear for the first time that the definition of Southern
loyalty now encompassed not merely a willingness to rejoin the Union, but
acceptance of the slave's freedom.
PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
• Andrew Johnson and Presidential Reconstruction
Johnson’s Character and Values
Johnson was born in North Carolina and eventually moved to Tennessee; rose to
political power by portraying himself as the champion of the people against the
wealthy planter class. "Some day I will show the stuck-up aristocrats who is
running the country," he vowed as he began his political career.
Johnson accepted emancipation as one consequence of the war, but remained a
confirmed racist--"Damn the negroes" he said during the war, "I am fighting these
traitorous aristocrats, their masters."
PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
Radicals viewed his contempt for the planter elite to be so deep
that they thought he would uphold their views. At times, the new
president spoke of trying Confederate leaders and breaking up
planter's estates. On the other hand, Johnson opposed
government aid to business, and was strongly for states' rights--so
perhaps a rift with radicals would be inevitable.
PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
Johnson’s Plan (advanced May, 1865): no repeal of the ordinances
of succession, no repudiation of the Confederate war debts, no
ratification of the 13 th Amendment, no provisions for freedmen
and women.
PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
Johnson’s Plan of Presidential Reconstruction
May, 1865: Plan advanced
At first, Johnson seemed to be following Lincoln's policy of quickly restoring the southern states to their
rightful place in the Union. He prescribed loyalty oaths for ordinary white southerners, each of whom would
have to take to preserve their property, aside for slaves, and to regain their civil and political rights.
Like Lincoln, Johnson excluded high Confederate officials from this groups, but he added those with property
worth over $20,000, which included his old foes in the planter class. These groups had to apply to the
president for individual pardons.
Johnson's plan stated that loyal state governments could be formed after a provisional governor, appointed by
the present, called a convention to draft a new state constitution.
Voters and delegates had to qualify under the 1860 state election laws, take the loyalty oath.
Once the elections were held to choose a governor, legislature, and members of Congress, Johnson
announced he would recognize the new state governments, revoke martial law, and withdraw northern troops.
PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
How does this plan compare to Lincoln’s?
more lenient than Lincoln's?? not very explicit:
--no repeal of ordinances of secession
--no repudiation of Confederate debts
--no ratification of 13th Amendment
--no provisions for education of freedmen and women
FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
•
The Failure of Johnson’s Program
Southern Defiance:
Black Codes
In 1865 and 1866, Southern states passed a series of laws, often modeled on the
old slave codes that applied only to African Americans. These Black Codes did
grant some rights--they legalized marriages from slavery, permitted the holding
and selling of property in some cases, granted the right to sue and be sued--but in
general. Black Codes were designed to keep African Americans as propertyless agricultural laborers with inferior legal rights; no service on juries,
testifying against whites; restrictions on work:
SC forbade blacks from engaging in anything other than agricultural
labor;
Mississippi restricted freedmen from buying or renting farmland; most
states allowed blacks who were "vagrants" to be arrested and hired out to
landowners;
FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
State Elections of 1865 and 1866
1. Southern delegates meeting in 1865 and 1866 to construct new state governments soon
demonstrated their reluctance to follow even Johnson's lenient requirements and
recommendations. Several states not only failed to repudiate their ordinances of secession
(merely repealed), but many rejected the 13th Am. altogether, as well as demonstrated a
refusal to repudiate the Confederate war debts.
2.
3.
Additionally, not one of the new governments allowed African Americans any
political rights; most failed to make any effective provisions for the education of the
freedmen.
Southern voters under J's plan defiantly elected prominent military and political
leaders to office, including Alexander Stephens, former VP of the Confederacy, to
senate in Georgia.
Johnson could have nullified these elections or called for new under a new system of
Reconstruction, but instead he caved in.
FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
Riots of 1866: Memphis and New Orleans Riots (May, June 1866)
1. Memphis Riot
May 1, 1866, two horse-drawn carriages, one driven by a white man, the other by a black, collided
on the streets of Memphis. When police arrested the black driver, a group of recently
discharged black veterans intervened, and a white crowd began to gather. From this incident
followed three days of racial violence, with white mobs, composed in large part of the mostly
Irish policemen and firemen, assaulting blacks on the streets and invading South Memphis, an
area that included a shanty town housing families of black soldiers stationed in nearby Fort
Pickerin. Before the rioting subsided, at least 48 persons (all but two of them black) lay dead,
five black women had been raped, and hundreds of black dwellings, churches and schools were
pillaged or destroyed by fire.
One of the bloodiest outbreaks of the era, the Memphis riot had its roots in tensions that had
gripped the city for over a year. the black population had more than quadrupled during the war,
and signs of change abounded, from the black soldiers to FB hospitals and schools. What was
most threatening to local whites--the large number of impoverished rural freedmen who
thronged the streets in search of employment or the considerable group that managed to achieve
modest economic success (many of the black victims were robbed of cash, watches, tools, and
furniture). Racial altercations were frequent, and the city's press constantly abused black
residents. "Would to God they were back in Africa, or some other seaport town" declared the
Memphis Argus two days before the riot, "anywhere but here.”
FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
For black and white alike the riot taught many lessons, not least the impotence of federal
authorities, for the Bureau proved unable to aid those who crowded into its offices seeking
protection, and the army commander refused to dispatch troops of either race to assist the
families of black soldiers.
The violence exposed divisions within the black community as well--in its aftermath, a group of
better-off free men of color urged the removal of rural freedmen from the city, to reduce racial
tensions.
--The riot demonstrated as well the limits to moderate Republican policies as well. The
Tennessee Unionist's policy of disenfranchising former Confederates had as intended brought
new men to power, but the recently arrived Irish immigrants who came to dominate city politics
were no more sympathetic to African Americans than the old elite;
--Most of all, the violence discredited J's policies: as one newspaper wrote: "if anything could
reveal, in light as clear as day, the demoniac spirit of southern whites toward the freedmen...it is
such an event as this."
FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
2. New Orleans
Even worse, an outbreak twelve weeks later in New Orleans; this time the violence was a direct
result of Reconstruction politics; The growing power of former Confederates under the
administration of Governor Wells had long dismayed the city's Radicals, and alarmed Wells as
well; the state legislature reacted in early 1866 by mandating new municipal elections, which
returned to power the city's former Confederate mayor; Wells responded by endorsing a Radical
plan to reconvene the constitutional convention of 1864 to enfranchise blacks, to establish a new
state government, and to prohibit "rebels" from voting;
For weeks, opponents to reform agonized over the prospect that Louisiana might be
"revolutionized;" apparently some members of the city's police force--made up largely of
Confederate veterans--conspired to disperse the gather by force; On July 30, the first day the
delegates of the assembly was met; the assembly was joined by a procession of some 200 black
supporters, many of whom were former Union soldiers; Fighting broke out in the streets, police
converged on the area, and the scene quickly degenerated into what Gen. Philip Sheridan later
called "an absolute massacre," with black assaulted indiscriminately and the delegates and their
supporters besieged in the convention hall and shot down when they fled, despite hoisting white
flags of surrender.
FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
By the time federal troops arrived, thirty-four blacks and three white Radicals had
been killed, and well over 100 persons injured. The son of former Vice President
Hannibal Hamlin, a veteran of the CW wrote that "the wholesale slaughter and
the little regard paid to human life I witnessed here" surpassed anything he had
seen on the battlefield.
impact: the riots further discredited Presidential Reconstruction-particularly that of New Orleans where the stark fact remained that nearly
all the victims of the riot had been blacks and convention delegates, and
the police, far from preserving order, had joined in on the assault;
Most northerners agreed with General Joseph Holt's opinion: the leniency of
Johnson had unleashed "the barbarism of the rebellion in its renaissance."
FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
The Failure of Johnson's Program
Southern defiance
A. Southern State Elections of 1865 and 1866:
1. Southern delegates meeting in 1865 and 1866 to construct new state governments soon demonstrated their
reluctance to follow even Johnson's lenient requirements and recommendations. Several states not only failed
to repudiate their ordinances of secession (merely repealed), but many rejected the 13th Am. altogether, as
well as demonstrated a refusal to repudiate the Confederate war debts.
2. Additionally, not one of the new governments allowed African Americans any political rights; most failed
to make any effective provisions for the education of the freedmen.
FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
Finally, southern voters under J's plan defiantly elected prominent military and
political leaders to office, including Alexander Stephens, former VP of the
Confederacy, to senate in Georgia.
Johnson could have nullified these elections or called for new under a new
system of Reconstruction, but instead he caved in.
FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
3.
Rather, most states passed a series of laws, often modeled on the old
slave codes, that applied only to African Americans. These Black Codes did
grant some rights--they legalized marriages from slavery, permitted the
holding and selling of property in some cases, granted the right to sue and be
sued--but in general, they were designed to keep African Americans as
property-less agricultural laborers with inferior legal rights; no service on
juries, testifying against whites; restrictions on work-- SC forbade blacks from
engaging in anything other than agricultural labor; Mississippi restricted
freedmen from buying or renting farmland; most states allowed blacks who
were "vagrants" to be arrested and hired out to landowners;
FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
Johnson’s Pardons-former high Ranking Military and Civil Confederate
Leaders
Johnson aggravated these conditions in 1865 and 1866 by quickly pardoning
over 13,500 former rebels.
FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
Johnson Vetoes Extension of the Freedmen’s Bureau
Congress Overrides (July, 1866)
Extension of the life of the Freedmen's Bureau (overrode July, 1866);
gave to the Freedmen's Bureau new responsibilities of supervising special
courts to resolve disputes involving freedmen and establishing southern
schools for freedmen and their children.
A revised Freedmen's Bureau bill was passed in July, 1866; Johnson again
vetoes the legislation, Congress overrides again overrides his veto;
FAILURE OF PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
Johnson Vetoes Civil Rights Bill
Congress Overrides (April, 1866)
Johnson vetoes a civil rights bill passed by congress (overrode April, 1866); bill was
designed to overturn the more flagrant provisions of the black codes; the law made African
Americans citizens of the US and granted them the right to own property, make contracts,
and have access to courts as parties and witnesses.
--For most congressional Republicans, Johnson's veto of this legislation marked the last
straw;
--Congress's passage of the CR Act of 1866 marked the first attempt to give meaning to
the 13th Amendment; it defined all persons born in the US as national citizens and
spelled out the rights they were to enjoy equally without regard to race: making contracts,
brining lawsuits, and enjoying "full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for
the security of person and property." Added that no law or custom could deprive any
citizen of these fundamental rights.
•
14th Amendment
*Approved by both houses of Congress in June 1866
*Certified July, 1868
*Removed many matters beyond the reach of the President
*Prohibited repayment of the Confederate war debt
*Disqualified prominent Confederate leaders from holding office
*Gave Congress the right to reduce the representation of any state that did
not have impartial male suffrage
*Key Features: Citizenship Clause, Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause
*Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of
the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law
which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
*Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States
according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons
in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any
election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the
United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers
of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the
male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of
the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion,
or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the
proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole
number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
*Section 3: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or
elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military,
under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an
oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a
member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any
State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in
insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the
enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House,
remove such disability.
END OF PRESIDENTIAL
RECONSTRUCTION
Congressional Elections of 1866:
Elections brought the issue of black suffrage once again to the forefront; in many ways
the elections also became a referendum on the 14th Amendment and J's policy of
Reconstruction
President set off on a speaking tour of the East and Midwest; J. found it difficult to
convince audiences that the white southerners were fully repentant; race riots; J traded
insults with the audience, stated that the Radicals were traitors;
Republicans countered with insults, vilified Johnson as a traitor about to turn the country
over to the rebels and the Copperheads; revived bitter memories of the war; Gov. Morton
of Indiana proclaimed that “every bounty jumper, every deserter, every sneak who ran
away from the draft” was a Democrat... everyone “who murdered Union prisoners,” every
New York rioter in 1863 who burned up little children in colored asylums called himself a
Democrat. In short the Democratic party may be described as a common sewer...”
The Result: Voters soundly repudiated Johnson and his program of
Reconstruction: the result was a disastrous defeat for the President; voters
confirmed a massive Congressional majority; Reps outnumbered Democrats
and Johnson conservatives by well above the 2/3 majority necessary to override
a presidential veto.
RADICAL (CONGRESSIONAL)
RECONSTRUCTION
• Radical (Congressional) Reconstruction (1867-1876)
Reconstruction Acts of 1867 and 1868
Divided 11 Confederate states (except Tenn.) into five
military districts under commanders
Empowered commanders to employ the army to protect life
and property
Laid out new steps by which new state governments were to
be created and recognized by Congress, including: (1) new
state constitutions by new state conventions; (2) new state
constitutions to provide for universal manhood suffrage
(including guarantees for black male suffrage; (3) ratification of
the 14th Amendment; (4) new state Constitutions to be
approved by a majority of registered voters (later amended by
the 4th Reconstruction Act)
ROAD TO IMPEACHMENT
•
Tenure of Office Act (1867)
Forbid the removal of any official in government service whose appointment required Senate
confirmation
Throughout 1867 Congress routinely overrode J’s vetoes; the president had other
ways of undercutting congressional Reconstruction:
--interpreted laws narrowly
--removed military commanders who rigorously enforced Reconstruction
Acts
Congress thus passed the Tenure of Office Act; forbid the removal of any
official in government service whose appointment required Senate confirmation -this included members of the Johnson’s cabinet;
ROAD TO IMPEACHMENT
--the TOA was passed to prevent Johnson from firing Secretary of War Edwin
Stanton, a Lincoln appointee, and the only member of Johnson’s cabinet that
favored Radical Reconstruction
--the act required that Johnson issue all orders to the army through the
commanding general, Ulysses S. Grant, who was also a supporter of radical
Reconstruction
--in Aug. 1867, Johnson suspended Stanton and replaced with U. Grant; he also
replaced four Republican generals who commanded southern districts.
Fall, 1867, Grant protests, resigns and becomes enemy of the President Johnson
IMPEACHMENT OF JOHNSON
• Impeachment of Johnson (1868)
February 1868, Johnson formally challenges the constitutionality of the Tenure of
Office Act by dismissing Stanton; February 24, 1868: H of R approved articles of
impeachment;
--The House by huge margin (12847) brings 27 counts of criminal misconduct, 9
dealing with the act itself;
Charges: violation of Tenure of Office Act
Systematic obstruction of Reconstruction legislation
The eleven week trial ended in May 1868; the Senate failed to convict Johnson by a
vote of one short of the necessary 2/3 majority vote (35-19); Seven moderate
Republicans had broken ranks, voting for acquittal along with 12 Democrats;
IMPEACHMENT
Reasons for Acquittal??--partly a recognition that the trial was politically
motivated; Moderates felt that Johnson had broken the law, but saw the real issue
as one over policy, not law— J’s political views, his administration of the
Reconstruction acts, and incompetence.
--another reason for no conviction? the issue of replacing Johnson -- the VP
position remained unfilled following J’s entrance into office --thus, had Johnson
been convicted, the president pro temp of the Senate would have replaced
Johnson; this individual was Benjamin Wade, a Senator from Ohio--a radical
republican known for his anti-business stands: high tariff, soft money, and
liberal—pro-labor views. Moderates feared the political and economic policies
that might be pushed under a Wade presidency.
--failure of conviction a key indication that the power of the radicals was waning -and the first sign of northern disillusionment with Reconstruction begin to set in.
ELECTION OF ULYSSES S. GRANT
Election of Ulysses S. Grant (1868)
An important election year that further demonstrated that the power radicals held
in Congress, within the Republican party, and throughout the country at large was
fading.
(1) Radical Republicans not only failed in their effort to convict Johnson, they
suffered a second defeat in their failure to get B. Wade placed on the Rep. ticket
in the Presidential election of 1868.
(2) Instead, the party nomination went to the preeminent Union war hero -Ulysses S. Grant; Grant’s nomination demonstrated the growing influence of
conservatives within the party—Grant lacked political experience and because his
early promoters were conservative, business interests from New York (who feared
that a Democratic victory would reopen Reconstruction, whereas a Grant
administration would promise moderation, fiscal responsibility, and stability
favorable to investment in the South).
ELECTION OF GRANT
(3) Election results:
Grant won a very narrow margin of victory over Democratic opponent Horatio Seymour,
a former governor of New York; --in the face of rising violence in the South, Seymour and
the Dem. Party received little support for their claim that the government should let
southern state governments reorganize on their own.
--Nonetheless, Grant’s victory was only by a small margin--about the same share of the
northern vote (55%) that Lincoln had in 1864; Republicans were shocked that despite
Grant’s great military stature, his popular margin of victory was only by about 300,000
votes; and this was with the help of an estimated 450,000 Republican votes cast in the
south, and a majority of whites in the South voting Democratic.
Congressional elections of 1868, Reps retained their 2/3 majority in both houses of
Congress.
15TH AMENDMENT AND THE
ISSUE OF WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE
2. 15th Amendment (Feb. 1869) and Women’s Suffrage
Grant’s narrow election victory in 1868 helped convince Rep. leaders that an
amendment was necessary for securing black suffrage throughout the nation.
TODAY’S LESSON
US History
VVHS/STC
TEKS: 8.113.20.20.B.16.B: TLW
understand the process of changing
the Constitution and the impact of the
amendments on
American society…including the 13,
14, 15th Amendments;
11.113.41.C.9: TLW will understand the
impact of the Civil Rights
Movement…trace the historical
development of the CR
movement…including the 15 th
Amendment.
Agenda
•Sponge Activity
•Introduction and Lecture
•Group Activity
•Short Individual Writing
Assignment
SPONGE ACTIVITY
Examine the photo from
the handout above.
Discuss in your group
what you see as significant.
What do you think the
voter in the picture is
thinking? What do you
believe the other two
individuals are thinking?
THE 15TH AMENDMENT
• 15th Amendment (February, 1869)

Grant’s narrow election victory in 1868 helped convince Republican
leaders that an amendment was necessary for securing black suffrage
throughout the nation

Defined voting rights as a central right of citizenship

Eliminated the use of race (or skin-color) as the basis for denial of
voting rights

Undermined by violence and other legal and extra-legal tactics across
the American South that prevented African-Americans from exercising
their full voting rights following its passage

The 15th amendment acted as a partial guarantee for black male
suffrage: the amendment forbade states to deny their citizens the
right to vote on the grounds of race, color, or “previous condition
of servitude.”
15TH AMENDMENT AND WOMEN’S
SUFFRAGE
•The Amendment required that the unreconstructed states of Va., Mississippi,
Texas, and Georgia to ratify it before their readmission to the Union;
•The amendment left legal loopholes that eventually allowed southern states
to disfranchise African Americans and northerners to disenfranchise others;
•Finally ratified in March 1870.
15TH AMENDMENT
The Amendment’s ratification ruptured the women's movement as well.
Former abolitionists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony had
formed the American Equal Rights Association in 1866.
The Amendment’s discussion triggered a movement for universal suffrage;
Stanton and Anthony broke from the Rep. Party after passage of the the
15th and form the National Women Suffrage Assoc. in 1869 [another group
remained loyal to the Rep party, headed by Lucy Stone and Fred. Douglass,
the New England Women Suffrage Association, that later becomes the
Women’s Suffrage Association.
15TH AMENDMENT
Most important, the 15 th Amendment was not simply gender
biased; it also contained no restrictions on:
•property ownership
•literacy tests to disqualify blacks as voters
Mass and Conn used literacy as requirement for voting; California
as well--restrict votes of Chinese and Mexicans