Chapter 15

Lecture Preview

• The Meaning of Freedom• The Making of Radical Reconstruction• Radical Reconstruction in the South• The Overthrow of Reconstruction

The Meaning of Freedom

Focus Question:

What visions of freedom did the former slaves and slaveholders pursue in the postwar South?

The Meaning of Freedom: After Slavery

• Blacks and the Meaning of Freedom– African-Americans’ sense of freedom was rooted in their

experience of slavery and knowledge of free society. Freedom, above all, meant escaping the horrors and injustices of slavery and enjoying the rights and opportunities of American citizenship. Many freed slaves moved to the cities.

The Meaning of Freedom: Black Institutions

• Families in Freedom– Searched for loved ones separated from them– Gained government pensions for black soldiers

• Church and School– Started community black churches– Black colleges founded– Ability to participate in politics

The Meaning of Freedom: Political and social

• Political Freedom– Petitioned and demanded right to vote– Celebrated 4th of July—previously excluded

• Land, Labor, and Freedom– Freedoms were similar to that of white Americans—

including land owners, self-ownership, family stability, religious liberty, political participation, and economic independence

The Meaning of Freedom: Labor

• Masters without Slaves– White landowners physical labor due to loss of slaves– Tried to seek “old control” of freed slaves– Hierarchy and mastery still common role

• The Free Labor Vision– Planters wanted a labor system as close to slavery as

possible. Former slaves wanted economic autonomy and access to land.

The Meaning of Freedom: Land

• The Freedmen’s Bureau• The Failure of Land Reform

African Americans in the Immediate Post-Civil War South

A. Freedmen’s Bureau (created in 1865 byCongress)

1. Headed by Gen. Oliver O. Howard

-- Many Northerners risked their lives to help freedmen in the South; one of several groups called “carpetbaggers” by

Southern white Democrats.

2. Purpose: To help unskilled, uneducated, poverty-stricken ex-slaves to survive.

3. Provided food, clothing, medicine, & education to ex-slaves & poor whites.

a. Taught about 200,000 blacks how to read; many freedmen eager to read the Bible.

b. Negotiated labor agreements between freedmen &

planters.

4. Authorized “40 acres and a mule” from confiscated or abandoned land to black settlers.

a. Certain areas – Bureau distributed no land

b. Sometimes collaborated with planters in expelling blacks from towns & forcing them to sign contracts to work for former masters.

5. Southern violence against “carpetbaggers” & blacks was significant

a. Anyone aiding African American rights in the South during Reconstruction risked being a victim of Southern violence.

b. In Louisiana 1868, white Dems killed 1081 people, mostly

black people or

white Republicans.

6. Bureau expired in 1872; Johnson had tried to kill it (he

was a white-supremacist)

The Meaning of Freedom: New Labor System

• Toward a New South– Forced many blacks to be sharecroppers

(tenant farming)* Result: A level of indentured servitude; generations; remained on one plot of land, indebted to plantation owner.

• The White Farmer– “Crop lien” –farmers had to borrow supplies from merchant;

used property as collateral

The Meaning of Freedom: The South after slavery

• The Urban South– Cities grew, railroads increased northern trade– New middle class of merchants

• Aftermaths of Slavery– Planters tried to grow the same crops– Former slaves sought independence and land ownership to

escape white control– Blacks gained the right to vote

The Making of Radical Reconstruction

Focus Question:

What were the sources, goals, and competing visions for Reconstruction?

The Making of Radical Reconstruction: Johnson

• Death of President Lincoln• Andrew Johnson• The Failure of Presidential

Reconstruction

Lincoln Assassinated (on night of April 14, 1865)

        A.  5 days after Lee’s surrender,         Lincoln assassinated at Ford’s         Theater by John Wilkes Booth 

        B.  Lincoln died at the apex of his         fame, thus becoming a martyr. 

        C.  Although initially jubilant over his death, the South    came to view it as calamitous. 

            1.  Lincoln’s approach to reconstruction was   moderate compared to the later actual 

policy. 

            2. Increased bitterness in the North against the South  (rumors that Jefferson Davis plotted it.)

The Making of Radical Reconstruction:

Opposition to Johnson• The Black Codes• The Radical Republicans

Were they sliding back again to the “bad old days” of the South?

White Southern action provoked Congress:

1. Former Confed leaders elected to high offices

a. Alexander Stephens, VP of the CSA, was now a senator from Georgia!

b. Confed. generals elected to high office.

c. Black codes passed (see below)

d. Violence against blacks * KKK founded in Tennessee

Black Codes

Designed to regulate affairs of freedmen as slave codes did pre-Civil War.

Not allowed to vote

“Vagrancy” laws - “idle” blacks couldbe sentenced to work on a chain gang.

The Making of Radical Reconstruction:

Civil Rights and legal equality

• The Origins of Civil Rights• The Fourteenth Amendment

Congressional Reconstruction

A. GOPs furious that many ex-Confederates had been elected to Congress

1. Did not allow Dems in at first

a. Feared losing political advantage that had led to Homestead Act, Morrill Tariff, etc.

b. Feared Southerners might win control of Congress by uniting with N. Dems

* Black codes could then be passed at the federal level or slavery reinstated.

B. Civil Rights Bill of 1866

1. Reaction to Johnson’s presidential reconstruction and veto of Freedmen’s Bureau.

2. Defined all persons born in the United States as citizens and rights they enjoyed, regardless of race.

a. Equality before the law; no Black Codes b. Free labor values

1) prohibited laws denying citizens’ rights to make contracts, bring lawsuits, or enjoy protection of person and property.

C. 14th Amendment (Gave Citizenship to Blacks)

1. GOPs: make Civil Rights Bill an Amendment as protectionagainst future Southern takeover.

Fourteenth AmendmentAll persons born or naturalized in the United States 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 any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The Making of Radical Reconstruction: Politics

• The Reconstruction Act• Impeachment and the Election of Grant

Military Reconstruction

1. Military Reconstruction Act 1867

a. South divided into five military districts, each policed by Union army (20,000 total)

b. Disenfranchised many former Confeds.

c. Seceded states must ratify 14th Amendment before being allowed back into Union.

d. Required full suffrage for blacks in states.

2. Stopped short of giving freedmen land or education at federal expense.

MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION

Presidential Reconstruction

A. Andrew Johnson

1. Champion of poor whites against planter aristocrats

as a politician in Tennessee; yet, he owned slaves.

2. Refused to secede with TN; remained in the Senate.

3. Lincoln’s VP candidate in 1864; appealed to War Dems & other pro-Southern groups (he was a Democrat).

4. Perhaps the most overtly racist US president

5. Johnson was impeached (GOPs wanted him out; set a trap for him)

a. Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act over Johnson’s veto.

* Said President couldn’t fire Senate- approved appointees without Senate

OK.

b. Purpose of Tenure bill: keep Secy. of War Edwin Stanton in Johnson’s Cabinet (Johnson wanted to fire him; he was a spy for Radical GOPs)

* Provoke Johnson into breaking the law, laying foundation for his impeachment

MAD!

The GOPs knew that Johnson

would take the bait and fire

Stanton….if for no other reason

than pure stubborness!

c. Johnson defied Congress and fired Stanton.

d. House voted to impeach Johnson for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

-- Main issue was Johnson’s violation of the Tenure of Office Act.

e. Johnson was acquitted by one vote.

f. Outcome was probably best for the country:

-- Johnson’s removal may have set a destructive

precedent, weakening the Executive Branch.

Ulysses S. Grant as President

A. Most popular figure to emerge from Civil War

1. Voters wanted someone who was non-political.

2. Grant accepted many gifts (houses, $$) as if country owed him for winning the war.

B. Presidential election of 1868

1. Grant - the GOP nominee

a. Platform: continue military Reconstruction

b. Supporters during campaign began “waving the bloody shirt” (blaming

the South for the war)

2. Dems nominated Horatio Seymour on a platform denouncing military Reconstruction.

-- Money (gold vs. greenbacks) a huge issue; would dominate politics during 1870s.

vs.

The Making of Radical Reconstruction:

Constitution• The Fifteenth Amendment

• The “Great Constitutional Revolution”– Changed the relationship between states and federal govt.– The Bill of Rights had assumed that the central government

threatened liberties, but the Reconstruction amendments assumed that only the national government could protect individual rights.

– They made the Constitution an instrument by which vulnerable minorities could make claims for freedom and against government misconduct at all levels.

15th Amendment (1869, during Grant’s presidency)

a. Ensure black suffrage if southerners took control of Congress again.

b. Strengthen GOP control of South.

c. Poll taxes, literacy tests, & property requirements not

addressed in the 15th Amendment (used by South)

-- Literacy tests given unfairly to favor whites.

Dem. dominance in South!!!

Fifteenth Amendment

Section 1. 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.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation

The Making of Radical Reconstruction: Women

• Boundaries of Freedom– Allowed Blacks citizenship but not Asians

• The Rights of Women– Women excluded from 14th/15th amendments

• Feminists and Radicals– Split between women groups

• Division: American Women Suffrage Association and National Women Suffrage Association over 15th amendment

Radical Reconstruction in the South

Focus Question:

What were the social and political effects of Radical Reconstruction in the South?

Radical Reconstruction in the South: Black Political

activity• “The Tocsin of Freedom” (bell ringing)

– Southern blacks voted in large numbers• Politically active in elections and public meetings

• The Black Officeholder– Radical shift in power in the South

• Senators, House, governor, state legislatures, sheriffs, tax assessors and policemen

Radical Reconstruction in the South: Economics

• Carpetbaggers and Scalawags• Southern Republicans in Power• The Quest for Prosperity

Radical Reconstruction in the South – How was it?

A. Hypocritical suffrage policy; most northern states denied blacks suffrage until 15th Amendment was passed.

B. Corruption in state legislatures

1. “Scalawags” - (term coined by white Southern Dems)

a. Former S. Unionists & Whigs; cooperated with the “Yankees.”

b. Hated by former Confeds who exaggerated their corruption.

2. “Carpetbaggers”

a. Mainly Northern GOPs who came South to

seek their fortune.

b. Mostly Union soldiers, teachers, businessmen.

c. Resented by white South as federal interference;

significant violence waged against them.

C. Quest for Prosperity

1. Attempts to establish adequate public schools.

2. Tax system improved.

3. Public works projects launched, especially in transportation.

4. Property rights for women guaranteed.

5. Apportionment made more equal in statelegislatures. (representation)

6. Property requirements eliminated forholding office.

The Overthrow of Reconstruction

Focus Question:

What were the main factors, in both the North and the South, for the abandonment of Reconstruction?

The Overthrow of Reconstruction:

Opposition• “A Reign of Terror”

Rise of the Ku Klux Klan

A. Rebellion against “radical” rule; was the terror wing of the Democrat Party.

1. Goal: Overthrow Reconstruction GOP state governments in South & replace them with white supremacy Dem governments.

2. KKK, the “Invisible Empire of the South," founded in Tennessee in 1866.

3. Consisted of whites from all classes.

B. Used terrorism (with white sheets) to intimidate blacks, Carpetbaggers & Scalawags.

1. Flogging, mutilation, or murder.

2. Effective in discouraging blacks from pushing for their rights.

C. Destroyed GOP organization in many areas.

D. Force Acts of 1870 & 1871 (also called Enforcement Acts)

1. Federal troops were sent to stop KKK

2. Moderately successful in destroying KKK, yet KKK had already had an effect.

The Overthrow of Reconstruction: Northern

critics• The Liberal Republicans

– Angered by Grant’s administration corruption– Criticism of Radical Republicanism

• The North’s Retreat– Northerners more and more felt the South should solve its

own problems without continuous federal involvement– Democrats were widely successful in the 1874 elections

and took control of the House of Representatives.– Supreme Court retreated on legal and civil rights in states

The Overthrow of Reconstruction: Election

of 1876• The Triumph of the Redeemers• The Disputed Election and Bargain

of 1877

Redeemers: coalition of prewar Dems & Union Whigs

1. Confederate veterans & other individuals interested in industrial development.

-- Rise of many ex-plantation owners (sometimes called “Bourbons”)

2. Sought to undo changes in the South brought about by the Civil War.

3. Won many local elections in 1870s; vowed to dismantle “corrupt” Reconstruction system

4. Policies affected blacks & poor whites alike; made class strife & resentment worse.

End of Reconstruction – North grows weary

a. By 1870, all former Confederate states had reorganized state governments and had re-entered the Union.

-- Once state governments seemed on solid footing, Union forces were removed.

-- Whites again dominated Southern politics.

b. Northerners were now concerned with other issues rather than the freedmen.

c. Panic of 1873-1879 focused politics oneconomic issues.

Compromise of 1877

-- Election between GOP Rutherford B. Hayes & Dem Sam Tilden was inconclusive; no electoral vote winner.

-- 20 electoral votes disputed due to fraud/violence.

-- Compromise: Dems would vote for Hayes (House vote) if he would remove last federal troops from

South….

….DEAL!

The Overthrow of Reconstruction:

Aftermath• The End of Reconstruction

Rise of the “Solid South” (definition: South wassolidly Democrat)

A. White supremacist South dominated by Dems

1. Remaining GOP state governments collapsed.

2. GOP party dead in the South for next 100 yrs.

3. “The Lost Cause”: Southern resentment & humiliation would last for generations.

-- Resulted in increased violence & discrimination toward blacks.