unit12-moc

unit12-pt1

Plans During the Civil War

• Large areas of the South lay in ruins.  Its economy had collapsed, its currency was worthless, and its infrastructure destroyed.  African Americans that had once been slaves were emancipated.  

• How do we bring the South back into the nation?

• Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan: proposed in December 1863, it granted amnesty to most ex-Confederates and allowed each rebellious state to return to the Union if 10% of its voters took a loyalty oath and approved the Thirteenth Amendment.  This plan was considered too lenient by Radical Republicans, led by Pennsylvania Representative Thaddeus Stevens, they aimed to revolutionize the South’s social structure (including the power of planters), habits, manners, and institutions by preventing Confederate leaders from returning to power, to make the Republican Party a powerful force in the South, and to use the Federal government to help African Americans achieve political equality by guaranteeing their right to vote).

• Wade-Davis Bill: Congress’ plan proposed in July 1864 as a compromise between moderate and Radical Republicans, required an oath of allegiance by the majority of each state’s adult white men, then states could write new constitutions and create state governments formed by those who had not taken part in the Civil War.  Voting and office holding rights would be permanently stripped for Confederate government officials and military leaders.  The bill passed Congress but was pocket vetoed by Lincoln.

Assassination of Lincoln: Lincoln looked for a compromise but in April 1865, he was assassinated by southern actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth.  Vice President Andrew Johnson (D-TN) became president.  Johnson was the only southern senator that did not secede, grew up working class, hated the planter class, and held racist views toward African Americans.

Freedman’s Bureau

• Established in March 1865, Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau to aid freedmen (freed African Americans) who were displaced by the war and deal with abandoned lands in the former Confederacy.
• Between 1865 and 1870, the Bureau would feed and clothe refugees using surplus army supplies to prevent mass starvation.
• The Bureau also helped freemen find work on plantations and negotiated labor contracts (pay and hours worked) with planters and set up special courts to resolve disputes.
• In order to help feed themselves, there was discussion of freemen receiving “forty acres and a mule” each from seized Confederate land but this never came to fruition.  During the war, in January 1865, William Tecumseh Sherman parceled out 400,000 acres of confiscated Confederate land in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida and allowed black refugees to farm the land to sustain themselves.  Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens supported this redistribution of land.
• Working with northern charities, the Bureau established schools and hired teachers to educate former slaves.
• In December 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment ending slavery in the United States was ratified by the states.

Presidential Reconstruction

• Congress was in recess and Andrew Johnson used the opportunity to implement his version of Reconstruction.

• Presidential Reconstruction: Andrew Johnson’s plan offered a pardon and return of property to former Confederate citizens that took an oath of loyalty to the Union.  Confederate officers, officials, and those with property valued over 20,000 dollars had to seek a pardon directly from the president.  

• Each former Confederate state had to call a constitutional convention to revoke its ordinance of secession, ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, and reject all Civil War debts.  Johnson did not see a role for African Americans in the future politics of southern states.

Southern states elected former Confederate leaders to Congress.  This shocked Congressional Republicans who refused to seat the former Confederates.
Southern state legislature passed Black Codes to negate the results of the war, severely limiting African Americans’ rights and designed to force former slaves back to plantation labor and protect planter’s economic interests (African Americans would be required to sign yearly labor contracts). 
Vetoes:

• In 1866, Congress extended the charter of the Freedmen’s Bureau but Johnson vetoed the bill citing a violation of states’ rights, that it used the military inappropriately during peacetime, and felt it gave Blacks preferential treatment that poor Whites never received and that it would hamper African Americans’ ability to become self-sustaining.

• To combat the Black Codes, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which declared all persons born in the United States, except Native Americans, to be citizens.  It allowed African Americans to own property and be treated equally in court.  Johnson vetoed the bill.

• Both vetoes were overridden by Congress and became law.

In 1866, there were anti-black, incredibly violent riots in Memphis and New Orleans.

Congressional Reconstruction

• Congress was anxious to protect freedmen, reassert Republican power in the South, and counter Johnson’s conciliatory stance toward the South.  It passed the Fourteenth Amendment: 

• Citizenship Clause: declared “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” to be citizens of the United States and of the state they reside in.

• Privileges or Immunities and Due Process Clauses: to ensure that states cannot deny the rights of citizens.  

• Equal Protection Clause: all citizens would enjoy equality under the law.

• Confederate debt is voided.

Andrew Johnson opposed ratification but in the 1866 midterm election, Republicans won a 3-1 majority and toward the Radical Republicans, led in the House by Thaddeus Stevens (R-PA) and in the Senate by Charles Sumner (R-MA).  With such majorities, Congress could now circumvent President Johnson.  Johnson advised southern states to not ratify the amendment. 
Thaddeus Stevens argued that plantations should be broken up and given to former slaves in order to sustain themselves.  His position found little support in Congress.

Link to original

unit12-pt2

Presidential Reconstruction

• Johnson used the congressional recess to implement his version of Reconstruction
• Pardon and property to Confederate citizens that took an oath of loyalty to the union
  • Super important and rich people had to request a pardon directly from president
• Southenrners elected former confederates to office, Congress refused to seat them
• Black codes passed
  • Limited the rights of the African Americans
  • Designed to force former slaves into plantation labor to protect the planter’s economic interests
  • Required to sign yearly labor contracts
• 14th amendment passed
  • Citizenship clause
  • Privilege and Immunities and Due Process
    • Everyone is entitled to the same legal procedures to assure that people are not deprived of their life liberty or property
  • Confederate debt is voided
  • Equal protection: all citizens are equal under the law
• 14th amendment takes the bill of rights and applies it to the states and individuals
• States cannot infringe upon the rights of the people and southern states cannot remove the rights of freed slaves
• Andrew Johnson opposed ratification but the Republicans won a 3-1 majority in the House and Senate and could now go around Johnson
• Amendment ended up being ratified

Radical Reconstruction

• Military Reconsturction Act of 1867
  • Divides the entire south into 5 military discricts
  • Tasked to register all males to vote
  • Supervise state constitutional conventions
  • Ensure states have black suffrage
• Tenure of Office Act
  • Senate is required to ask for consent of any federal official who is confirmed by senate
  • Protects Edwin Stanton
  • Bill passed through overridden veto
    • No executive to enforce
• Johnson suspends Edwin Stanton and replaces him with Ulysses S Grant
  • Grant resigns so Edwin can keep his position
  • Johnson fired Stanton

Johnson’s Impeachment

• House voted to impeach Andrew Johnson on 11 counts of misconduct with the main charge being his refusal to uphold the Tenure of Office Act
• Congress fell 1 vote short after 11 weeks in order to remove Johnson
• Dissenting Republicans felt the precedent woul.d be too dangerous abnd would be damaging to checks and balances
• Ulysses S Grant beats Johnson in the 1868 election

Limits of Reform

• 15th amendment allowed all males to vote no matter what
• Made slaves full citizens
• African Americans voted in large numbers in 1870, aligning themselves with the Republican Party
• Civil Rights Act of 1875: Full and equal access to jury service and to transportation and public accomodations regardless of race
• Womens rights were not yet considered as much as men.
  • Did not find support among radical republicans as women would not vote for them
• Crumbles from pressure from the Southern Democrats in Southern states and eventually the north gives up

Link to original

unit12-pt3

Republican Governments in the South

• Rights expanded, black codes ended, public reform
• Ex-confederates saw these governments as illegitimate
  • Scalawags: Southerners that supported reconstruction
  • Carpetbaggers: Northerners who moved South
• Northerners moved south to capitalize on reconstruction but it didn’t bring skills or capital to the region
• Graft: gaining money illegally through politics
• Republicans were believed to want to rid the south of its slave owning artisotocracy
• Military in the south is protecting free people from white southern democrats that want to do them harm
• Only seemingly working while the military is down there

African American Communities

• African American churches were created and acted as center of the social life and the pastors were spokespeople for the congregation
• African American colleges: HBCUs are built, 40% of African American children attended school by 1876

Southern Resistance to Reconstruction

• KKK: Secret Society that used terror to push against Black Republican governments and Reconstruction
• Created an agenda to keep AA and R from exercising their civil rights and voting
• Attacked schools, gatherings, and murdered political opponents
• Klan became identical to the Democratic party and dominated politically
• Want to stay in power to “redeem” the south from Republicans and put white southerners in charge
• 1871 KKK acts are outlawed as terror and a federal offense but few convicted
• KKK goes dormant until 1915

The Collapse of Reconstruction

• Election of 1872:
  • Grant easily wins because of his good campaign
• Panic of 1873:
  • Economic panic started by Jay Cooke and Sons company collapse
  • Banks closed as Grant wanted to move away from paper money
• Scandals were associated with Grant’s second term
  • Distillery group stole millions of govt funds becayse his secretary of war was roped up with whiskey rings
  • Grant not nominated for 3rd term, Dems took control of HoR

Election of 1876

• Hayes vs Tilden
• Democrats won with Hayes
  • Republicans called voter fraud and intimidation
  • Both sides had their own set of election results
• Compromise of 1877
  • Congress appointed a 8+7=15 person team to vote on which set will win
  • Hayes said he would help the south and that he would fund improvements
    • Secretly agreed to pull out troops from the South
• Reconstruction Ends:
  • Federal troops pulled out of the south and the last Republican governments collapsed.

Link to original

unit12-pt4

The New South

• Investment into building railroads but remained mostly agrarian
• Tenant Farming: Paying rent to plantation owners and also farming the land
• Often people were forced to work because they couldn’t pay off debt
• Solid South:
  • South could be relied on to vote Democratic until the 1960s
• Jim Crow Laws, Plessy vs Ferguson, Brown vs Board
  • Enforced racial segregation
• Reality that south is not protected by Republican govts
• Foner blames the failure of Reconstruction on Johnson
  • Giving land back to formal confederates as part of stage of reconstruction
• Land could have been re distributed
  • 40 acres and a mule WT
  • Would have made the Black people independent and buffered gaainst the realities of their economic situation
    • Would have been able to build wealth AND all the profits of their labor
  • Instead, were left landless and desperate
    • Only skill they had was agricultural, and they did not own any land
    • Could either rent land or engage in sharecropping
      • Sharecropping is sharing a portion of crops and land with the landlord but getting to keep some and getting paid for yourself
• Land was used for exploitation instead
  • Land owners did not have a lot of cash but needed someone to work the land
    • People with no jobs that have agricultural skills
    • Sharecroppers provided with home, seeding, etc
      • Give a portion of crop to their owner as payment, up to half
  • If freed man owned his land he would get to keep 100%, but the sharecroppers only got to keep 50% of their crop
    • Income is limited and leaves them poor
• Sharecroppers were not paid until Fall
  • No money to buy seed, tools, etc
  • If needed, a crop lien was used to borrow the money to buy it
    • Money was taken out of payment for the year
  • debt peonage occured from crop lien which caused exploitation and cycle of poverty

Jim Crow Laws

• Enforced social segregation
  • Further legitimized by Plessy vs Ferguson
  • Separate but Equal doctrine, allowed to separate
• Overturned by Brown vs Board
  • Unanimous decision that segregation of schools is unconstutional
• Tried to limit voting successfully of African Americans
  • Poll tax, literacy tests, grandfather clauses

Link to original