1. Reconstruction

2. I. What is Reconstruction?
Period of time between which the U.S, began to rebuild after the Civil War.
Also refers to the process the government used to readmit defeated Confederate states to Union.
Essential Questions to consider
How do we bring the South back ?
How do we rebuild the South after the Civil War?
How do we integrate and protect newly freed black men?
What branch of government should control Reconstruction? (Executive, Legislative, Judicial)

3. For the South: A Tale of Ruin
Economic Devastation – destruction of labor force, end of plantation system, small amount of infrastructure ruined, extreme poverty, hyperinflation, worthless currency, source of wealth (slaves) erased, land values plummeted
Social Changes – destruction of planter aristocracy, 1/5 of all white males dead
White Desires – reimplementation of slave, gang labor/wage labor with blacks in fields, removal of federal troops and northern encroachment in labor contracts and regulations
Charleston, South Carolina (1865)

4. B. How do we bring the South Back and Rebuild?
Lincoln: Lenient Reconstruction
10% plan: pardon all Confederates (except higher ups) who swear allegiance to the Union. As soon as 10% of the population in a Confederate state swore allegiance, they could be readmitted.
Radical Republicans (those who wanted to punish the South) did not like this plan. Created the Wade Davis Bill.

5. Wade Davis Bill (1864)
Required 50% of the number of 1860 voters to take an “iron clad” oath of allegiance (swearing they had never voluntarily aided the rebellion ).
Required a state constitutional convention before the election of state officials.
Enacted specific safeguards of freedmen’s liberties.

6. B. How do we bring the South Back?
Andrew Johnson became President after Lincoln’s
assassination in 1865
Johnson: 10% +
Same as Lincoln’s except allowed some southern planter’s to continue in politics and mandated new state constitutions did not allow slavery
Radical Republicans did not like this either as too nice to the South

7. C. How do we integrate and protect newly freed black men?
13th Amendment-Abolished Slavery
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.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

8. C. How do we integrate and protect newly freed black men?
Freedmen’s Bureau 1865
a) Established by Congress to provide food, clothing, hospitals, legal protection and education for former slaves and poor whites in the South
Freedmen’s Bureau School

9. C. How do we integrate and protect newly freed black men?
Freedmen’s Bureau seen through Southern Eyes!!
Plenty to eat and nothing to do…

10. C. How do we integrate and protect newly freed black men?
Set backs during the Johnson administration
a) Many Southern state constitutions fell short of minimum requirements.
b) Johnson granted 13,500 special pardons
Revival of southern defiance
Black Codes!!!

11. C. How do we integrate and protect newly freed black men?
d) Black Codes
Purpose:
Guarantee stable labor supply now that blacks were emancipated.
Restore pre-emancipation system of race relations.
Forced many blacks to become sharecroppers [tenant farmers].

12. Excerpt from written Black Codes
"Negroes must make annual contracts for their labor in writing; if they should run away from their tasks, they forfeited their wages for the year. Whenever it was required of them they must present licenses (in a town from the mayor; elsewhere from a member of the board of police of the beat) citing their places of residence and authorizing them to work. Fugitives from labor were to be arrested and carried back to their employers. Five dollars a head and mileage would be allowed such Negro catchers. It was made a misdemeanor, punishable with fine or imprisonment, to persuade a freedman to leave his employer, or to feed the runaway. Minors were to be apprenticed, if males until they were twenty-one, if females until eighteen years of age. Such corporal punishment as a father would administer to a child might be inflicted upon apprentices by their masters. Vagrants were to
Excerpt from written Black Codes

13. C. How do we integrate and protect newly freed black men?
4. 14th Amendment-citizenship rights and equal protection of the law
Ratified by Congress in July, 1868.
Provide a constitutional guarantee of the rights and security of freed people.
Insure against neo-Confederate political power.
Enshrine the national debt while repudiating that of the Confederacy.
Southern states would be punished for denying the right to vote to black citizens!

14. C. How do we integrate and protect newly freed black men?
5. Establishment of Historically Black Colleges in the South

15. C. How do we integrate and protect newly freed black men?
Black Senate & House Delegates

16. C. How do we integrate and protect newly freed black men?
6. 15th amendment
Ratified in 1870.
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Women’s rights groups were furious that they were not granted the vote!

17. II. The Collapse of Reconstruction
The Invisible Empire of the South…

18. A. Opposition to Reconstruction
Ku Klux Klan: Southern vigilante group
Goal were to end the Republican Party, throw out Reconstruction governments, return power to the planter class, and prevent African-Americans from voting
Congress passes acts that weaken Republican Party
Freedmen’s Bureau expires
Panic of 1873: depression that lead the government to not focus on Reconstruction and allow the South to take over

19. B. African-Americans Fight Legal Discrimination
With the end of Reconstruction and the US government focused on depression and national issues, the South found ways to weaken African-American power.
Voting Restrictions passed in the South after 1877
Literacy tests
Poll taxes
Grandfather clause
Jim Crow Laws (1870s and 1880s)

20. 2. Jim Crow laws

21. C. Plessey v. Ferguson (1896)
Political Cartoon Analysis as a class for practice!!!

22. C. Plessey v. Ferguson (1896) Activity: Case Study
Discuss in pairs “Does Treating People Equally Mean Treating Them the Same? Questions
Read as a class the summary of case and answer questions together
Read “Key Excerts” section and answer questions alone to turn in for a grade.

23. C. Plessey v. Ferguson (1896)
Facts: Plessey (African-American) bought a ticket to ride 1st class on a train in Louisiana.
Why is this a problem? Louisiana had a law saying “colored’s” had to sit in a separate section
Supreme Court decision: Separate but equal is okay.
Why is this significant??