Transcript “Official” period of Reconstruction in Georgia lasted for only 5 years

I can analyze the impact of Reconstruction
on Georgia and other southern states.
Freedmen’s Bureau
 Sharecropping and Tenant Farming
 Reconstruction Plans
13th, 14th, 15th Amendments to the
Constitution
Henry McNeal Turner & Black Legislators
Ku Klux Klan
The “Official” period of
Reconstruction in Georgia lasted for
only 5 years, but the recovery from
Reconstruction took much longer...
Women in the South who had been left
to keep homes and farms going during
the war?
Freed slaves who had left
plantations after the war?
Confederate soldiers who returned
to Georgia to find ruined and burnedout homes, crops, and villages?
1) What would be done with 4 million newly
freed slaves?
2) How could sectional differences and
emotional war wounds be healed so that
the nation could be reunited?
3) How could the South, which had suffered
most of the war damage, resurrect itself and
its economy?
• Had to sell land to
get cash.
• Needed cash to pay
taxes and buy
equipment, livestock, seed, fertilizer,
and labor to rebuild.
• Sold land for a fraction of the cost.
• More small farms.
• Blacks and whites became landowners.
• Shortage of
workers.
• Many white
males had been
killed or disabled during war.
• After the war, many moved.
• Loss of large pool of slave labor.
• New work arrangement needed to be
made between blacks and whites.
• Money that had been
tied up in slaves was lost.
• Remaining capital in
the form of Confederate
money and bonds was
worthless.
• Very few farmers had money.
• The only way they could get money was to
borrow it, but many Georgia banks had
collapsed.
The Georgia in which the
War-Weary Confederate
Soldiers Returned Was Not
as They Had Left It...
• farms were in ruins
• homes, railways, bridges, roads were
destroyed or in need of repair
• not enough food
• banks were closed – Confederate
money was worthless
• the state owed $20,000,000 in war
debt
• 25,000 Georgians had died of
wounds or disease – many more
were crippled and could not work
• Problems of freedmen
(former slaves):
– homeless
– hungry
– uneducated
– free for the 1st time
– no property or goods
• Many former slaves feared
re-enslavement
• Most whites had difficulty treating
freeman as free persons
LINCOLN
PROPOSED HIS
PLAN IN 1863
RADICAL
REPUBLICANS IN
CONGRESS
JOHNSON PROPOSED
PROPOSED THEIR
HIS PLAN AFTER
PLAN
LINCOLN WAS
ASSASSINATED AND
HE BECAME
PRESIDENT
Sometimes
called the
“10%
Plan”
• Lincoln wanted to rebuild and return the
south to the Union as soon as possible
• “Reconstruction” would have two parts:
1.Southerners would be pardoned
after taking an oath of allegiance;
2.When 10% of voters had taken the
oath, the state could rejoin the
Union and form a state
government.
• Lincoln’s plan to reconstruct the south
was challenged.
• Some northerners called “Radical
Republicans” thought the south should
be more severely punished.
• The Radical Republicans wanted to make
sure the freedmen retained their new
rights.
• Gained control of
both houses of
Congress
• Maintained that
the southern
states were not
“adequately
reconstructed”
RADICAL REPUBLICANS PASSED LEGISLATION WITH
LINCOLN’S APPROVAL
13th AMENDMENT, 1865
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.
Makes
Slavery
Illegal
Designed by the Radical
Republicans
Signed into Law by Lincoln
An agency that protected the
legal rights of freed blacks.
• Its job was to help freed slaves and poor whites
with basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter.
• The purpose shifted to education:
– Set up 4,000 primary schools
– Started industrial schools for jobs training
– Started teacher-training schools
• Missionaries started schools like Atlanta
University, Morehouse College, and Clark College
Freedmen’s
Bureau
As Seen
Through
Southern
Eyes
Plenty to eat
and nothing to
do...
Freedmen’s Bureau School
PRESIDENT LINCOLN ASSASSINATED
APRIL 14, 1865
MURDERED BY JOHN WILKES BOOTH, A LOYAL
CONFEDERATE SOUTHERNER WHO BELIEVED THAT HE WAS
AVENGING THE SOUTH WHEN HE ASSASSINATED THE
PRESIDENT
As a native
Southerner, President
Johnson showed
some traditionally
southern views and
did not promote equal
right for the freedmen
or involve freedmen in
the Reconstruction
process.
• In addition to Lincoln’s requirements,
President Johnson added a few more.
Southern states had to:
– approve (ratify) the
13th Amendment
(outlawing slavery);
–nullify their ordinances of secession;
–promise not to repay money borrowed
during the war.
President Johnson
appointed James
Johnson as Georgia’s
provisional Governor.
• Governor Johnson held a Constitutional
Convention.
1) Repealed the ordinance of secession
2) Voted to abolish slavery
3) Wrote a new constitution
• Elections were held in November 1865 for a new
legislature.
• The General Assembly voted to extend rights to
freedmen.
BECAUSE OF JOHNSON’S SOFT APPROACH
TO RECONSTRUCTION, SOUTHERN STATES
PASSED RACIST LAWS DESIGNED TO
UNDERMINE AFRICAN AMERICAN’S
RIGHTS.
MANY FORMER CONFEDERATE OFFICIALS
WERE ELECTED TO STATE GOVERNMENT
POSITIONS AND PASSED A SERIES OF
LAWS KNOWN AS THE BLACK CODES.
• Black Codes were laws passed to keep
freedmen from having the same rights as
whites.
–Didn’t allow blacks: the same jobs as
whites, the right to vote, the right to marry
a white person, jury service, or the right to
testify.
–Blacks could be: whipped as punishment,
forced to work from sunrise to sunset six
days per week, or put in jail if they didn’t
have a job.
THESE LAWS CREATED THE
FOUNDATION FOR THE LEGAL
SEGREGATION OF PUBLIC
FACILITIES AND THE
TREATMENT OF AFRICAN
AMERICANS AS SECOND
CLASS CITIZENS
THROUGHOUT THE SOUTH.
EXAMPLES OF SEGREGATED FACILITIES
32
Congressional Reconstruction
• Congress was angry about Georgia’s Black Codes,
so it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This law
gave:
– citizenship to all freedmen;
– the federal government power to intervene any
time civil rights were taken from freedmen.
th
14
Amendment
Granted citizenship to freedmen and
required “equal protection under the
law.”
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.
Southern states would be punished for
denying the right to vote to black citizens!
Congressional Reconstruction
• Congress required southern states to ratify the 14th
Amendment.
• Georgia and most of the other southern states
refused.
• Congress abolished
these states’
governments
and put them
under military
rule.
MAP OF 5 MILITARY DISTRICTS
36
Georgia was ruled by
General John Pope.
Pope was required to
register all male voters –
black and white.
These voters would elect
new representatives to
form a new state
government.
Constitutional Convention of 1867
• Georgia male voters elected delegates to the
convention to create a new state constitution.
12
Conservative White
9
Carpetbaggers
36
112
African Americans
Scalawags
Carpetbaggers
 A non-southerner
who came to the
South during
Reconstruction to
take advantage of
its economic and
political situation
Scalawags
• A southerner who disgraced the south
by joining with the Republicans to enact
reforms.
Accomplishments
of the Convention
–A new constitution ensuring civil rights
for all citizens;
–Free public education for all children;
–Married women were allowed to
control their own property (1st State to
do so).
• Georgia had met the
requirements for
readmission to the Union,
and federal troops left the
state...
• But, not for long...