Reconstruction Plans Chapter 12 Section 1 Coach Bush

Reconstruction

Reconstruction Battle Begins  Reconstruction: the federal program designed to repair the damage done to the south and bring the southern states back into the Union  Lasts from the War’s end in 1865 until 1877

The South in Ruins  Physical Destruction  Shipping industry  Farms and equipment  Entire cities  Human costs  364,000 Northern troops  260,000 Confederate troops  Countless civilian casualties

The South in Ruins  Southern Hardships  African Americans  Farmers  Captured and Abandoned Property Act of 1863  Laborers  Punishment or Pardon?  The Constitution provided no policy for the situation being faced

Lincoln’s Reconstruction Plan: The Ten Percent Plan 1. Offered a pardon to any confederate soldier who pledged allegiance to the Union and obeyed federal policy

Lincoln’s Reconstruction Plan: The Ten Percent Plan 2. Denied Pardons to military/government officials and those who killed African American POW’s 3. Each state could create its own constitution after 10% of voters pledge allegiance to the Union 4. Could then hold elections and take part in the Union

Lincoln’s plan (continued)  Faces heavy resistance  Radical Republicans believe the war was fought of the moral issue of slavery  Wade Davis Bill – 1864 asked that former confederates pledge past and future allegiance and state that they never willingly took arms against the U.S.  Lincoln used a Pocket-Veto against the bill

Freedman’s Bureau Lincoln realized that the South was in chaos from the thousands of homeless, unemployed, and hungry Lincoln also realized that thousands of freedmen, or freed slaves, were coming into the North

Freedman’s Bureau During the war, General Sherman used all abandoned plantations to help freed African Americans – Refugee crisis led to the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, or the Freedman’s Bureau

Freedman’s Bureau Bureaus helped feed and clothe refugees of the war, find employment for African Americans on plantations, negotiate pay wages with Southern employers, and educated former slaves in the North

Discussion Question What were the differences between Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction and the Wade-Davis Bill?

Discussion Question What were the differences between Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction and the Wade-Davis Bill? – (President Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction called for a general pardon to all Southerners who took an oath of loyalty to the United States and accepted the Union’s proclamations concerning slavery. After ten percent of the state’s voters in the 1860 presidential election had taken the oath, the state could organize a new state government. The Wade-Davis Bill required the majority of adult white men in a former Confederate state to take an oath of allegiance to the Union. The state could then hold a constitutional convention to create a new state government. Each state’s convention would then have to abolish slavery, repudiate all debts the state had acquired as part of the Confederacy, and deprive any former Confederate government officials and military officers the right to vote or hold office.)

Discussion Question Why did Congress establish the Freedmen’s Bureau?

Discussion Question Why did Congress establish the Freedmen’s Bureau? – (The Freedmen’s Bureau was to feed and clothe war refugees in the South using army surplus supplies. It also helped freedmen find work and negotiated pay and hours worked on plantations. The Bureau provided schools, paid teachers, and helped establish colleges for training African American teachers.)