Transcript Reconstruction

Reconstruction
Intro
• “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved
back again toward slavery.” W.E.B. Du Bois
• Reconstruction, originally intended to mean the rebuilding of …
turned into a period which saw a complete redefinition of the … and
...
• Reconstruction would have profound consequences both
in its success and failures that are still part of America
today.
The Meaning of Freedom
• African Americans and the Meaning of Freedom:
• African-Americans’ understanding of freedom was shaped by … and
observation of the … around them.
• African Americans relished the opportunity to demonstrate … from the
regulations associated with ...
• Families in Freedom:
• The family was central to the ...
• Freedom subtly altered relationships within ...
• Emancipation increased the power of … within the family.
• Black women withdrew from work as … and … to the domestic sphere.
The Meaning of Freedom
• Church and School:
• The rise of the independent black church redrew the religious map of the
South.
• Black ministers came to play a major role ….
• Blacks of all ages flocked to schools established by …, the …, and groups of ...
• Political Freedom:
• The right to vote inevitably became central to the former slaves’ desire for ...
• Being denied suffrage meant “the stigma of inferiority.”
• To demonstrate their patriotism, blacks throughout the South organized ...
The Meaning of Freedom
• Land, Labor, and Freedom
• Former slaves’ ideas of freedom were directly related to ...
• Many former slaves insisted that through their … they had acquired a right to the land.
• The victorious Republican North tried to implement its own vision of ...
• Free labor
• The Failure of Land Reform:
• African Americans wanted land of their own, not ...
• President Andrew Johnson ordered nearly all land in federal hands returned...
• Because no land distribution took place, the vast majority of rural freed
people remained … and without … during Reconstruction.
The Meaning of Freedom
• The Freedmen’s Bureau:
• The task of the Bureau
• establishing …
• providing aid to the …
• settling …
• This was daunting, especially since it had fewer than how many? agents.
• The Freedmen’s Bureau was to establish a working ...
• The Bureau’s achievements in some areas, notably … and …, were striking.
Toward a New South
• The South’s defeat was complete and demoralizing.
• Planter families faced profound changes.
• Most planters defined black freedom in the narrowest manner, as a …
not ...
• The aftermath of the war hurt ...
• New types of agricultural labor systems:
• Sharecropping came to dominate the cotton South and much of the tobacco
belt.
• Sharecropping initially arose as a compromise between blacks’ desire for …
and planters’ desire for ...
Toward a New South
• New types of agricultural labor systems:
• Crop-lien system
• White farmers increased cotton cultivation, cotton prices plummeted, and
they found themselves ...
• Both black and white farmers were caught in sharecropping and crop-lien
systems.
• The Urban South:
• Southern cities experienced … after the Civil War.
• Rise of a new middle class
Toward a New South
• Aftermaths of Slavery:
• The Reconstruction-era debates over transitioning from … to … had parallels
in other Western Hemisphere countries where emancipation occurred in the
nineteenth century.
• Planters encouraged or required former slaves to work on plantations, while former
slaves sought to assert … in their daily lives.
• Planters sought other laborers to replace their slave forces (British Caribbean planters
brought workers from India, while southern U.S. planters recruited some workers from
China).
• Only in the United States did former slaves gain ...
The Making of Radical Reconstruction
• Andrew Johnson would implement the beginnings of what is known
as …
• Johnson identified himself as the champion of the “honest yeomen”
and a foe of ...
• Johnson lacked Lincoln’s … and keen sense of ...
• Johnson believed that African-Americans had no … in
Reconstruction.
The Making of Radical Reconstruction
• The Failure of Presidential Reconstruction:
• Johnson’s plan for Reconstruction offered pardons to ...
• Johnson’s plan allowed the new state governments a free hand in ...
• The Black Codes:
• Southern governments began passing new laws that restricted the freedom
of...
• These new laws violated … and called forth a vigorous response from the ...
The Making of Radical Reconstruction
• The Radical Republicans:
• Radical Republicans called for the dissolution of Johnson’s … and establish
new ones that did not have “rebels” in power, and which gave ...
• The Radicals fully embraced the … of the federal government.
• Charles Sumner
• Thaddeus Stevens
• Thaddeus Stevens’s wanted to confiscate the land of disloyal planters
and divide it among former slaves and ...
• His plan was too radical for most others in Congress.
The Making of Radical Reconstruction
• The Origins of Civil Rights:
• Most Republicans were moderates, not radicals and ...
• Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois proposed two bills to …
• Extend the life of the Freedmen’s Bureau
• Civil Rights Bill (equality before the law was central; it sought to overturn Black Codes)
• Johnson … both bills.
• Congress passed … over his veto and later extended the life of the ...
The Making of Radical Reconstruction
• The Fourteenth Amendment:
• Granted citizenship to all persons born in the United States and … the federal
government to protect the ...
• It did not provide for black suffrage.
• The Fourteenth Amendment produced an … between the parties
• Arguably had the most positive impact on American history. This amendment
cited most often when the Supreme Court extended freedom and equality
(such as Brown v. Board of Education and Obergefell v. Hodges)
The Making of Radical Reconstruction
• The Reconstruction Act:
• Johnson campaigned against … in the 1866 midterm elections.
• In March 1867, over Johnson’s veto, Congress adopted the … which:
• Divided the South into five military districts
• Called for creation of new southern state governments, with black men given the vote
• The Reconstruction Act thus began Radical Reconstruction, which lasted
until...
Radical Reconstruction
• Impeachment and the Election of Grant:
• To demonstrate his dislike for the Tenure of Office Act, Johnson removed the
… from office in 1868.
• Johnson was … and the Senate fell one vote short from ...
• Ulysses S. Grant won the 1868 presidential election.
• The Fifteenth Amendment:
• Congress approved the Fifteenth Amendment in 1869.
• It provided for ...
• Had many loopholes (states could discriminate on bases other than race: illiteracy,
inability to pay a tax, etc.)
• Did not extend suffrage to women
Radical Reconstruction
• The Great Constitutional Revolution:
• The laws and amendments of Reconstruction reflected newly empowered …
and the idea of a … with equality before the law.
• Before the Civil War, American citizenship had been ...
• Naturalization Act of 1790 had limited naturalization process to whites.
• Dred Scott decision of 1857 had denied blacks U.S. citizenship.
• The new amendments also transformed the relationship between ...
The Limits of Radical Reconstruction
• Boundaries of Freedom:
• That the United States was a “white man’s government” had been a … before
the Civil War.
• Reconstruction Republicans’ belief in … also had its limits.
• Asian immigrants were still excluded from the naturalization process.
• The Rights of Women:
• The destruction of slavery led feminists to search for ways to make the …real
for women.
• Other feminists debated how to achieve “liberty for married women.”
The Limits of Radical Reconstruction
• Feminists and Radicals:
• Talk of woman suffrage and redesigning marriage found few ...
• Some feminists (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony) opposed the …
because it did not enfranchise women; other feminists (Abby Kelley and Lucy
Stone) supported the … as a step toward ...
The Limits of Radical Reconstruction
• Feminists and Radicals:
• Divisions led to the creation of two hostile women’s rights organizations that
would not reunite until the 1890s.
• National Woman Suffrage Association (led by Stanton)
• American Woman Suffrage Association (led by Stone)
• Despite their limitations, the … and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 marked a
… in American and world history.
Radical Reconstruction in the South
• Among the former slaves, the passage of the Reconstruction Act
inspired an ....
• Blacks used direct action to remedy ...
• The Union League aided blacks in the public sphere.
• By 1870, the Union had been restored and southern states had ...
Radical Reconstruction in the South
• African Americans in Government:
• How many? African-Americans occupied public offices during Reconstruction.
• Most were elected to …
• Fourteen elected to U.S. House of Representatives
• Two elected to U.S. Senate
• The presence of black officeholders and their white allies made a ...
Radical Reconstruction in the South
• Southern Republicans in Power:
• Southern Republican governments established the South’s first ...
• The new governments also pioneered ...
• Republican governments took steps to strengthen the … and to promote the
South’s ...
• Carpetbaggers were northern-born white Republicans who often held … in
the South.
Radical Reconstruction in the South
• Scalawags were southern-born white Republicans.
• Some were wealthy (e.g., James Alcorn, a Mississippi planter)
• Most had been up-country non-slaveholders before the Civil War and some had been
Unionists during the war.
• The Quest for Prosperity:
• During Reconstruction, every state helped to finance ...
• Investment opportunities in the West lured more … than … and economic
development remained ...
The Overthrow of Reconstruction
• Reconstruction’s Opponents:
• … did exist during Reconstruction, but it was not confined to a race, region, or
party.
• Opponents could not accept the idea of former slaves
• ?
• ??
• ???
• “A Reign of Terror”:
• Secret societies sprang up in the South with the aim of … and destroying the
organization of ...
The Overthrow of Reconstruction
• “A Reign of Terror”:
• The Ku Klux Klan was organized in 1866.
• It launched what one victim called a “reign of terror” against Republican leaders, black
and white.
• Example: Colfax, Louisiana, massacre (1873)
• Congress and President Grant, with the passage of three Enforcement Acts in
1870 and 1871, put a formal end to the Ku Klux Klan by 1872.
• The organization did not go away
The Overthrow of Reconstruction
• The Liberal Republicans:
• The North’s commitment to Reconstruction waned ...
• Some Republicans, alienated from Grant by … in his administration, formed
the Liberal Republican Party.
• Horace Greeley
• Liberal Republicans believed that … should be returned to the region’s
“natural leaders.”
• The North’s Retreat:
• The Liberal attack on Reconstruction contributed to a resurgence of ...
• The … also distracted the North from Reconstruction.
The Overthrow of Reconstruction
• The North’s Retreat:
• The Supreme Court whittled away at Congress’s guarantees of black rights.
• Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)
• United States v. Cruikshank (1876)
• The Triumph of the Redeemers:
• Redeemers claimed to have “redeemed” the …, misgovernment, and ...
• Violence occurred in broad daylight.
The Overthrow of Reconstruction
• The Disputed Election and Bargain of 1877:
• The election between Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican) and Samuel Tilden
(Democrat) was very close, with disputed electoral votes from Florida,
Louisiana, and South Carolina.
• Congress set up a special Electoral Commission to determine ...
• Behind the scenes, Hayes made a bargain to allow … to control the South if his
election was accepted.
• The compromise led to Hayes’s election and the Democrats’ having a free
hand in the South.
The Overthrow of Reconstruction
• The End of Reconstruction:
• Reconstruction officially ended in 1877.
• In addition to what was listed in the compromise of the election of 1876, this
also signified the removal of the last remaining occupying forces from the
South.
• Even while it lasted, however, Reconstruction revealed some tensions
inherent in the nineteenth-century discussions of freedom.