1. The Trials of Reconstruction

2. Key Questions
Who would direct the process of Reconstruction? The South itself, Congress, or the President?
Should the Confederate leaders be tried for treason?
How would the south, both physically and economically devastated, be rebuilt? And at whose expense?
How would the South be readmitted and reintegrated into the Union?
What should be done with over four million freed slaves? Were they to be given land, social equality, education, and voting rights?

3. President Lincoln’s Plan
Ten Percent Plan
Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (1863)
Full presidential pardons to southerners who:
Took an oath of allegiance to the Union and the Constitution
Accepted the emancipation of slaves
State governments could be reestablished as soon as 10% of the population took the oath

4. Wade-Davis Bill
Required 50% of the number of 1860 voters to take an “iron clad” oath of allegiance
Required a state constitutional convention before the election of state officials
Enacted specific safeguards of freedmen’s liberties
Based on two ideas:
“State Suicide” Theory [MA Senator Charles Sumner]
“Conquered Provinces” Position [PA Congressman Thaddeus Stevens]

5. Thirteenth Amendment Ratified in December, 1865
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

6. Freedmen’s Bureau
Provided food, shelter, medical aid for the destitute
Benefited both blacks (mostly freed slaves) and homeless whites
Had the authority to resettle freed blacks on confiscated farmland
Greatest success in education
Established almost 3,000 schools for freed blacks as well as several colleges

7. Lincoln Assassination

8. President Andrew Johnson
Chosen as running mate in 1864 to encourage pro-Union democrats to vote for the Union (Republican) party
Was the only senator from a Confederate state who stayed loyal to the Union
Anti-Aristocrat
White Supremacist
Agreed with Lincoln that states had never legally left the Union

9. Presidential Reconstruction

10. President Johnson’s Plan
Plan is similar to Lincoln’s 10% Plan
Provided for disfranchisement of certain groups
All former leaders and officeholders of the Confederacy
Confederates with more than $20,000 in taxable property
Retains power to pardon “disloyal” southerners
Frequently pardoned wealthy planters
Many former Confederates in power by fall, 1865

11. Southern Governments – 1865
8 months after Johnson takes office, all 11 of the ex-Confederate states qualified to rejoin the Union
They repudiated secession, negated debts of the Confederacy, ratified the 13th Amendment.
But they didn’t give blacks voting rights and ex-Confederates elected to congress
Alexander Stephens, VP of the CSA, elected senator from Georgia

12. Black Codes
Prohibited blacks from renting land or borrowing money to buy land
Placed freedmen into a form of servitude by forcing them as “vagrants” and “apprentices” to sign work contracts
Worked in cotton fields under white supervision for deferred wages
Prohibited blacks from testifying against whites in court

13. Congress Breaks with the President
Congress bars Southern Congressional delegates
Joint Committee on Reconstruction created
February, 1866  President vetoed the Freedmen’s Bureau bill
March, 1866  Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866
Congress passed both bills over Johnson’s vetoes  1st in U. S. history

14. Johnson the Martyr
If my blood is to be shed because I vindicate the Union and the preservation of this government in its original purity and character, let it be shed; let an altar to the Union be erected, and then, if it is necessary, take me and lay me upon it, and the blood that now warms and animates my existence shall be poured out as a fit libation to the Union.
(Andrew Johnson, February 1866)

15. Fourteenth Amendment Ratified in July, 1868
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, 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 to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

16. The Election of 1866 A referendum on Radical Reconstruction
Johnson made an ill-conceived propaganda tour around the country to push his plan
Republicans won a 3-1majority in both houses and gained control of every northern state

17. Congressional Reconstruction

18. Reconstruction Acts of 1867
Military Reconstruction Act
Restarted Reconstruction in the 10 Southern states that refused to ratify the 14th Amendment
Divided the 10 “unreconstructed states” into 5 military districts
Tenure of Office Act
Prohibited the president form removing federal officials or military commanders without the Senate’s approval

19. Reconstruction Acts of 1867

20. President Johnson’s Impeachment
Johnson dismisses Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War
House charges Johnson with 11 “high crimes and misdemeanors”
Impeaches, or indicts him
Senate falls one vote short of removing him from office
Needed 2/3 of Senate
Democrats and more moderate Republicans don’t want to set precedent of removal for political reasons

21. President Johnson’s Impeachment

22. The Reconstructed South
Former Confederates were barred from voting
Gave power to three groups:
Freedmen
Scalawags – Southern Unionists/Republicans
Carpetbaggers – Northerners who moved south after the Civil War
Helped blacks gain political power
Two black Senators and over a dozen Representatives sent to Congress
Hiram Revels – First African American Senator

23. The Election of 1868 Fall 1868—Presidential election
Democrats nominate Horatio Seymour
Republicans nominate Ulysses S. Grant
Very close election—would have lost without black votes

24. More Civil Rights Protections
Fifteenth Amendment (1869)
Prohibits states from denying a citizen’s right to vote on condition of race, color, or previous condition of servitude
Civil Rights Act of 1875
Guarantees equal accommodations in public places, including hotels, railroads, and theaters
Poorly enforced, and largely ignored

25. The End of Reconstruction
Many resented the growing political power of blacks and the corruption of Republican governments
KKK founded in Tennessee, 1866
Used fear and intimidation to dissuade voting
Congress reacted with the Force Acts, 1870
Authorized the use of federal troops to control vigilante groups
Many groups continued “under cover”
Followed by the Amnesty Act, 1872
Removes voting restrictions on ex-Confederates, except the highest leaders

26. The Election of 1876 Republicans nominate Rutherford B. Hayes
Democrats nominate Samuel J. Tilden
Votes contested in LA, FL, SC
Special electoral commission created to decide who gets disputed votes
Votes 8-7 to give all electoral votes to Hayes
Democrats threaten to filibuster the results, send election to the House

27. The Compromise of 1877

28. The New South End of federal military presence
Democrats regain power in every Southern state
Called “Redeemer” governments
Based on the image of the “Lost Cause”
Institute a social and legal system of segregation through the passage of Jim Crow Laws
Upheld by the Supreme Court in a series of cases:
Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896