Reconstruction1863-1877

2.1 mil Number of Northerners mobilized to fight for the

Union army 880,000 Number of Southerners

mobilized for the Confederacy 2 out of 3 Number of Civil War deaths

that occurred from disease rather than battle

360,000 Federal soldiers killed 260,000 Confederate soldiers killed

Civil War statistics

To determine the social, political, economic status of 4 million ex-slaves

The Task at hand

“To Bind Up the Nation’s Wounds”◦ Lincoln’s second inaugural address deep

compassion for the enemy guided his thinking about peace

◦ Lincoln’s plan for reconstruction (1863) was designed to shorten the war and end slavery

◦ His Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, which included full pardons for rebels willing to renounce secession and accept the abolition of slavery, angered abolitionists

Wartime Reconstruction

demanded that half of the voters in a rebel state take an oath of allegiance to the US before reconstruction could begin;

prohibited ex-Confederates from participating in drafting new state constitutions,

and guaranteed the equality of freedmen before the law

Wade-Davis Bill

Lincoln endorsed suffrage for Southern Blacks for the first time four days before his assassination

Lincoln refused to sign this bill

Biggest problem facing the South was transition from slave labor to free labor

What to do with federally occupied land? Jan 1865, Gen Sherman set aside part of the

coastal land south of Charleston for black settlement

He wished to be rid of the thousands straggling after his army

Land and Labor

distributed food and clothing to destitute Southerners and eased the transition of blacks from slaves to free persons Congress also authorized the agency to divide

abandoned and confiscated land into 40-acre parcels, to rent them to freedmen, and eventually sell them

By June 1865 the bureau had situated nearly 10,000 black families on a half million acres abandoned by fleeing planters

Freedmen’s Bureau

◦Wartime reconstruction failed to produce agreement about whether the president or Congress had the authority to devise and direct policy

Who Has the Authority?

Freedmen wanted economic independence, restoration of family life, literacy, freedom of worship

Whites believed that without the discipline of slavery, blacks would be lazy, wild and irresponsible

African American Quest for Autonomy

Johnson’s Program of Reconciliation◦ He was the only senator from a Confederate state

to remain loyal to the Union◦ Held the planter class responsible for secession◦ Republicans did not like him as he had been a

slave owner and a defender of slavery, only a begrudgingly acceptance of emancipation

Presidential Reconstruction

President Andrew Johnson

Johnson’s plan was similar to Lincoln’s: reconciliation, restoration of civil government in the South, pardoning most ex-rebels

He differed from Lincoln in that he required the states’ citizens to renounce the right of secession, refuse to disown their Confederate war debts, and ratify the Thirteenth Amendment

Johnson instructed military and government officials to return to pardoned ex-Confederates all confiscated and abandoned land, even if it was in the hands of freedmen.

Johnson’s Plan

Summer 1865 delegates gathered across the South to draw up new state constitutions

They wished to shape reconstruction rather than the victorious Northerners

State governments adopted a series of laws known as the Black Codes, which kept blacks subordinate to whites by subjecting black to every sort of discrimination and attempting to limit them to farm work or domestic service

White Southern Resistance

Johnson refused to intervene and personally pardoned 14,000 wealthy or high ranking ex-Confederates and he accepted new southern state governments even when they failed to satisfy his minimal demands for re-admittance to the Union

Elections in the fall of 1865, Southerners chose former Confederates to represent them in Congress

Southerners miscalculated and assumed Republicans would accept everything Andrew Johnson accepted

The black codes became a symbol of the South’s intention to restore all of slavery but its name; Republicans remained distrustful of ex-Confederates

Moderate Republicans did not champion black equality, but they did wish slavery and treason to be dead

Expansion of Federal Authority and Black Rights

Southern obstinacy forged unity among Republicans

Republicans drafted two bills to strengthen protection for the newly emancipated

Johnson vetoed the first bill, an extension of the Freedmen’s Bureau, and Congress failed to override the veto by a narrow margin.

Johnson’s veto galvanized support for the second bill, the Civil Rights Act, which nullified Black Codes.

Republicans Unite

Johnson vetoed the bill again; Congress overrided Johnson’s veto

Congress also submitted another bill to extend the life of the Freedmen’s Bureau and successfully overrode the president’s veto.

All native born and naturalized persons deemed citizens; equal protection of the laws

dealt with voting rights, giving Congress the authority to reduce the congressional representation of any state that withheld suffrage from some of its adult male population.

Republicans stood to benefit by gaining black votes or by lessening representation where black suffrage was rejected

The suffrage provisions ignored women

Fourteenth Amendment

introduced the word “male” into the Constitution; it provided for punishment for any state denying suffrage on the basis of race but not sex

Johnson advised southern states to reject the Fourteenth Amendment

He made it the overriding issue of the congressional election of 1866—the opponents of the Fourteenth Amendment gathered into a new conservative party, the National Union Party

Fourteenth Amendment (cont’)

Fourteenth Amendment and escalating violence

June 1866 Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment; two years later it gained the necessary ratification of three-fourths of the states

Congressional Reconstruction

Whites in several southern cities when on rampages against blacks, shocking north and making it suspect southerners still could not be trusted

Congressional 1866 election overwhelming Republican victory

Every southern stated except Tennessee voted down Fourteenth Amendment

March 1867 Congress overturned the Johnson-approved southern state governments and initiated military rule of the South

The Military Reconstruction Act divided the ten unreconstructed Confederate states into five military districts and place a Union general in charge of each district to oversee political reform, which including drawing up new state constitutions and guaranteeing black suffrage.

Radical Reconstruction and Military Rule

When voters of each state had approved the constitution and the state legislature had ratified the Fourteenth amendment, the state could submit its work to Congress

The Military Reconstruction Act of 1867 disappointed those who advocated the confiscation and redistribution of southern plantations to ex-slaves.

Johnson vetoed the Military Reconstruction Act; Congress overrode his veto on the same day, dramatizing the shift in power from the executive branch to the legislative branch of government

Power Shift