Chapter 11: Reconstruction
• Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction
• Smooth return for southern states
• Southern states must:
¨ Clear out the government and replace officials
¨ Re-write the state constitution
¨ Ratify the thirteenth amendment
• Abolished slavery
• Gave freedmen the rights of white men
• Was the first of three reconstruction-era amendments
¨ Repeal its act of secession
• Congress wanted harsher punishment for Civil War
¨ Congress wanted to give freedmen the right to vote
¨ Johnson said “no”
• Said “white men alone must manage the south”
• Was pro southern politician
• Former slaves decide to test their new freedom
• Tested many new freedoms, such as:
¨ Traveling
• Slaves were not aloud to travel, unless they had a pass from their master
• Many searched for loved ones whom they were separated from in slave trades
¨ Weddings
• Slaves could not marry under any circumstance
• An inspiration for them to do so was “’till death do us part.”
¨ Education
• Freedmen came flooding to schools
• Day schools were booked to no end
• So were night schools
• Many people, including older people, signed up to get an education
• “it was a whole race trying to go to school”
-Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery: An Autobiography, 1901
• Many older and younger people desperately wanted to read and learn about the Bible
¨ Being able to own land
• Many freedmen started Homesteading
• Many were desperate for land
• Thaddeus Stevens argued to split up plantations and give each freedman a mule for their years of unpaid labor
¨ Freedman’s Bureau established
• To assist former slave in the south
• Food
• Clothing
• Medical care
• Education
• Legal assistance to those who needed it
• Attempts to give land to freedmen were shot out of the sky by Johnson
• Black Codes
• Laws intended to restrict the freedom and opportunities of African Americans
• Served three purposes
¨ Spell out the rights of African American
• They could:
• Own land
• Work for wages
• Marry
• File lawsuits
• They could not
• Vote
• Be a legal citizen of the U.S.
• Serve on juries
¨ Ensure a workforce for planters and farmers who had lost their slaves
¨ Required freedmen to sign labor contracts
• They were required to sign yearly on January
• Would be arrested if not signed
¨ Limit the social status of African Americans
• Limited them to farm work and unskilled labor
• Unable to rise economically or socially
• Congress takes control of Reconstruction
• Radical Republicans challenge Johnson’s Reconstruction
• Radical Republicans
¨ Wanted freedmen to be equal to white men in all ways
¨ Led by Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner
¨ Had views perpendicular to the president
• The 14th amendment
¨ Pushed through congress by Thaddeus Stevens
¨ Said that all people born on American soil were American Citizens
¨ Reversed the Dredd Scott Decision
• Congress puts south under military rule
• Reconstruction Acts
¨ Series of laws based on the process of admitting southern states back into the union
• Divided into five districts
• Each controlled by federal troops
• Each district registered male voters, both black and white, who were loyal to the union
¨ The Tenure of Office Act
• Banned the president from arbitrarily firing his advisors and other officers in the White House
• Could only fire officials if he had “advice and consent” from the senate
• Johnson faces Impeachment
¨ Breaks the Tenure of Office Act to prove that he could
¨ Barely escapes impeachment by one vote
• Living under congressional Reconstruction
• Voting: Freedmen, Scalawags, and Carpetbaggers
• Freedmen
¨ Largest voting group in the south
¨ Consisted of freed slaves
• Scalawags
¨ Southerners who opposed secession
¨ Second largest voting group
• Carpetbaggers
¨ Smallest voting group in the south
¨ Northerners who came to the south to make more money
• Fifteenth Amendment
¨ Gave all American citizens the right to vote
¨ This meant that pro-slavery groups could still vote
• New State Gov’ts Begin to Rebuild the South
• Segregation
¨ The forced separation of races in public
¨ Segregation lasted through the 60’s and into the 70’s
¨ Many Reconstruction laws banned segregation
• South’s economic recovery remains slow
• Tenant Farming
¨ Planters would live on and plant on a section of the owners land.
¨ Usually would pay the owner in crops
¨ If didn’t pay, would be kicked out
• Sharecropping
¨ Looked promising to non-land owners, both black and white
¨ Put many people in debt since they had to get money from the bank to buy supplies
• Debt peonage
¨ Forced to work for debtor until the debt was paid off
¨ Many freedmen lived a life of debt peonage
• Reversing Reconstruction
• White resistance to reconstruction
• Ku Klux Klan
¨ Secret group of racists who terrorized African Americans
¨ Main racist group in America
¨ Had to swear that they were opposed to African American equality in all facets to become a member
• Northerners grow tired of reconstruction
• Amnesty Act
¨ Amnesty is general pardon
¨ This act pardoned former confederates
• Could vote
• Could run for office
• Election of 1876 brings an end to Reconstruction
• Grant didn’t re-run for president
• Compromise of 1877
¨ Put president Hayes into office
¨ Agreed to:
• Put a southerner into his cabinet
• Give federal aid to the southern railroad construction
• Remove federal troops from the south
• African Americans lose ground under redeemer gov’ts
• Put in ways to stop African Americans from voting
¨ Poll tax
• Many African Americans could not afford it
• Most African Americans were in debt or broke
¨ Literacy test
• Many African Americans were not well educated
• Were made so difficult, even educated citizens couldn’t pass them
¨ Grandfather clause
• According to the 15th amendment all people would vote and all voting tests or taxes would be given equally
• Set aside voting taxes and tests for white citizens
¨ Jim Crow Laws
• Restricted the rights of African Americans in the south
• Name came came from a song
• The song was an African folk song
• Deeply insulting to all African Americans
• African Americans Struggle To Protect their rights
¨ Lynchings
• Death by hanging
• Many African American people were lynched
¨ Plessy vs. Ferguson
• Went all the way to the supreme court
• Man arrested for sitting in a whites only car
• Said this went against the fourteenth amendment
• Said that segregation was constitutional as long as the facilities for the blacks were equal to the facilities of the whites
1. What was the major civil rights effect of the Thirteenth Amendment?
2. Which of the following was denied to African Americans under slavery?
3. What was created by the Union government to help former slaves and poor whites
4. What were the black codes enacted by Southern state legislatures?
5. Why did Southern state legislatures create black codes after the Civil War?
6. What political stance did Andrew Johnson take after readmission of the Southern states?
7. What political stance was supported by Radical Republicans in Congress?
8. The Fourteenth Amendment reversed what discriminatory Supreme Court decision?
9. What major political shift occurred in the election of 1866?
10. The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 denied which group the right to vote?
11. How did House Republicans react to Johnson’s firing of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton?
12. Which of the following was the largest group of voters in the South during Reconstruction?
13. What became a widespread agricultural practice in the Reconstruction?
14. What was a result of the practice of sharecropping for many poor farmers?
15. Which of the following became the most infamous terror group resisting the Reconstruction?
16. Why did political support for Reconstruction diminish significantly over time?
17. What was the primary political goal of Southern Redeemers?
18. What allowed white voters to get around literacy tests and poll taxes?
19. What were Jim Crow laws intended to establish?
20. The Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court ruling promoted what racial doctrine?
21. Northerners who settled in the South following the Civil War were often known as
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