Reconstruction

How would the South be rebuilt?

How would liberated blacks fare as free people?

How would the southern states be reintegrated into the Union?

Who would redirect the process of Reconstruction? Congress, the president, or the southern states?

Questions following the War

Southern problemsBanks, businesses,

factories had been destroyed.

The transportation system was gone.

Agriculture was crippled.

Many southerners remained defiant.

Emancipation was a rocky road, many southern planters resisted.

Many slaves began travelling to get away or look for relatives.

From 1878-1880 about 25,000 blacks migrated to Kansas. (Exodusters)

Many blacks began to learn how to read and write for the first time.

Emancipation

The Freedmen’s Bureau

Founded to help get former slaves on their feet with necessary skills; primitive welfare agency.

Achieved greatest success through education.

Letter to My Former Master

Lincoln’s 10% PlanA state could be

reintegrated once 10% of the voters took an oath of allegiance to the U.S. and pledged to abide emancipation.

50% of a state’s voters take an oath of allegiance and demanded stronger safeguards for emancipation.

Plans

Wade-Davis Bill

Harsh penalties were imposed on blacks who left their labor contracts early, violators could be captured and forced to work to pay off their fines.

Blacks could not serve on juries, vote, or even lease land.

Many blacks and poor whites began working as sharecroppers.

Black Codes

In December of 1865 southern congressman who had been in office before secession returned.

The Republicans were scared of losing the power in Congress to the South and having emancipation overturned.

On December 6, 1865 President Johnson announced that the rebellious states had been restored.

Congress

Amendments of Reconstruction13th Amendment-

Slavery prohibited (1865)

14th Amendment-Civil Rights for ex-slaves (1868) pg. 489

15th Amendment-Suffrage for blacks (1870)

Reconstruction Act of 1867Divided the south into 5

military districts commanded by a General and soldiers; 20,000 total.

Requirements for reentry: ratification of the 14th Amendment, Southern constitutions had to grant full suffrage to former slaves,

Reconstruction Act

Suffrage Falls ShortWomen had played a

major role in emancipation before and during the war.

Suffrage leaders like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony wanted the fifteenth amendment to include women, but it would be fifty years before that happens.

The Ku Klux KlanIn 1866 the KKK was

established in TN to terrorize blacks and pro black whites.

They used violence and intimidation to keep blacks “in their place.”

In 1867 the Tenure of Office Act was passed requiring the president to get the Senate’s approval before he removed his appointees.

Shortly after Johnson fired Edwin Stanton and the House impeached Johnson for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

The senate failed to muster the two-thirds majority to remove Johnson by one vote.

The impeachment of Johnson

Seward’s FollyIn 1867 Secretary of

State, William Seward purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million.

Many people were upset by this purchase but the investment would eventually pay off because of the natural resources it contained.

End of Reconstruction

Rutherford B. Hayes was inaugurated in 1877 and removed troops from the South ending reconstruction.