1. The Civil War is Over…Now What? “Reconstruction”

2. Reconstruction Rebuild the nation after war (lasted from 1865-1877)
The process of readmitting the former Confederate states to the Union.
Lincoln gives amnesty (pardons) to southerners

3. The South in Ruins
Southern soldiers returned home to find their cities, towns, and farms ruined.
Railroads and bridges were gone.
Starvation due to high food prices and crop failures.
Confederate money now worthless – many were bankrupt!

5. Ten Percent Plan
Lincoln wanted to bring the South back into the Union as quickly and painlessly as possible.
Offered Southerners an official pardon for all illegal acts supporting rebellion (AMNESTY)
They had to swear an oath of loyalty to the U.S.
Had to agree that slavery was illegal
**Once 10% of voters in a state made these
Pledges, they could form a new government
and be readmitted to the Union

6. Lincoln proposed the 13th Amendment in January 1865 – It was ratified on and took effect on December 18, Slavery was illegal throughout the United States!!

7. FREEDOM! Many couples held ceremonies to legalize their marriages.
Many searched for family members that had been sold away.
Placed ads in newspapers looking for their children.
Many women began working in the home instead of the fields.
Had the freedom to move where they wanted
Freedpeople began to demand the same economic & political rights as white citizens.

8. Freedmen’s Bureau
Agency providing money, shelter, food, & education to blacks – created many schools & universities
Supplies & medical services
Supervising contracts
between freedpeople &
employers
Taking care of lands
abandoned or captured
during the war

9. Dark Day in U.S. History
April 14, 1865 – President Lincoln became the first American President to be assassinated!
Vice President Andrew Johnson was sworn in as President very quickly.
As a Democrat, he shocked the Radical Republicans by pardoning wealthy southerners and former Confederate officials.
He pardoned more than 7,000 by 1866.

11. President Andrew Johnson
Southerner; approved new Southern state governments with newly elected representatives
Problem: These new reps were former Confederate leaders!
**Congress refused to readmit the Southern states under these conditions.
**The country was still divided

12. BLACK CODES
Every Southern state passed laws – Black Codes – that limited the freedom of African Americans
African Americans made to sign work contracts creating working conditions similar to slavery
Were required to prove they were employed or risk being arrested and forced to work a year without pay
Not allowed to own guns
Not allowed to rent property except in the cities

13. Radical Republicans want a harsher stance for Reconstruction: Wanted to force change in the South & feared too many Southern leaders remained loyal to the former Confederacy!

14. Congress – Radical Republicans
14th Amendment: due process, citizenship & equal protection for everyone (except Native Americans)
Military Reconstruction Act: troops in the south –
(5 districts) to keep control until southern states rejoined the union

15. 1868 Ulysses S. Grant Johnson is the first President to be impeached
One vote short to convict – but his Presidency is weakened!
Grant becomes President
Congress passes the
15th Amendment: Gave the right
to vote to African American men
Went into effect in 1870
WOMEN still did not have the
vote!!

16. African American Leaders
During Reconstruction, more than 600 African Americans won election to state legislatures.
16 of these were elected to Congress.
Hiram Revels became the first
African American in the US Senate
Ironically, he took the seat previously
held by Jefferson Davis
Blanche Bruce was the 1st to be elected
to a full 6 yr. term in the Senate

17. Ku Klux Klan Secret society that used violence & terror against blacks
Did not want the blacks voting

18. Compromise of 1877 R Hayes vs. D Tilden (Pres. Election)
20 electoral votes missing
Hayes will get the votes if he pulls troops out of the south. He does & ends Reconstruction

19. Redeemers
Democrats gained control once again of state governments in the south – they were called “Redeemers”
They got rid of many social programs, cut funding for public schools, and limited the civil rights of African Americans

20. Poll Tax & Jim Crow Laws
Redeemers set up the poll tax in an effort to deny the vote to African Americans
Poll Tax – a special tax people had to pay before they could vote
Passed laws requiring voters to pass literacy tests in order to vote
Grandfather Clause – any man (father or grandfather) allowed to vote BEFORE 1867 did not have to pay the poll tax or pass literacy test
That meant MOST white men were exempt!
Redeemers introduced legal segregation called JIM CROW LAWS
Forced separation of whites & African Americans in public places
Plessy vs. Ferguson – Supreme Court ruled that segregation was legal in the “separate but equal” ruling
African Americans forced to use separate public schools, libraries, parks, restaurants, etc.

22. Sharecropping
Whites would rent land & materials to blacks; pay back with crops
Result: rent was too high; blacks went into debt