The Trials of Reconstruction
I can compare the differing approaches to Reconstruction, & I can assess their effects on the nation.
Directions. Use your ThingLink account to analyze the image below and address the following questions.
Source: Andrew J. Russell, “Richmond in Ruins,” April 1865.
Presidential Reconstruction
In the spring of 1865, the Civil War came to an end, leaving over 620,000 dead and a devastating path of destruction throughout the south. The North now faced the task of reconstructing the ravaged and indignant Confederate states. Even as the Civil War raged, President Lincoln had begun to formulate an official Reconstruction policy. A moderate on the big issues before the war, Lincoln proposed a moderate Reconstruction policy. As he suggested so eloquently in his Second Inaugural Address, he intended to deal with the defeated South “with malice toward none” and “charity for all” to “achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves…” He believed that extending lenient terms to the South would convince Confederates to surrender sooner and speed the healing process necessary for the good of the Union. Vengeance, he held, would only delay Reconstruction. It might even inspire defeated Confederate soldiers to form renegade bands of insurgents to wage a war of terrorism for years to come. Directions. Analyze Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.
In December of 1863 Lincoln issued his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, also known as the Ten Percent Plan. Intended to establish Southern state governments, the plan pardoned all Southerners (except high-ranking military officers and Confederate officials) who took an oath pledging loyalty to the Union and support for emancipation. As soon as ten percent of a state’s voters took this oath, they could call a convention, establish a new state government, and apply for congressional recognition.
Directions. Summarize Lincoln's plan for Reconstruction on this chart, and then use your VoiceThread account to compare his plan to your own.
The lenient character of Lincoln’s plan enraged many Congressional Republicans. In July of 1864, Republican leaders Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio and Congressman Henry W. Davis of Maryland cosponsored the Wade-Davis Bill, a Reconstruction program designed to punish Confederate leaders and permanently destroy the South’s slave society. Southerners could reestablish new state governments only after a majority of a state’s voters signed an “ironclad” oath declaring they never aided the Confederate army or government. Southerners who had served as high-ranking army officers or government officials would be stripped of their citizenship, including the right to vote and hold office. The former Confederate states would be readmitted only after a lengthy period of punishment and a clear demonstration of their commitment to the Union, emancipation, and freedmen’s rights.
Lincoln quietly pocket vetoed the bill. Undaunted, Wade, Davis, and other Republicans mounted a movement to replace Lincoln as the party presidential nominee. Although the effort failed, it exposed the deeply divided opinions regarding Reconstruction policy.
Lincoln and his fellow Republicans did manage to find common ground on two issues. In late January 1865, at the urging of Lincoln’s administration, Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery. The measure ended any ambiguity that had surrounded the Emancipation Proclamation, abolishing slavery everywhere in the United States and offering no compensation to former slaveholders. Twenty-seven states, including eight former Confederate states, would ratify the amendment by year’s end.
In March Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Known simply as the Freedmen’s Bureau, it was to serve as an all-purpose relief agency in the war-ravaged South, providing emergency services, building schools, and managing confiscated lands. It represented the first attempt by the federal government to provide social welfare services and quickly became the bedrock institution for implementing Reconstruction policy.
Directions. Watch the video about Sherman’s Special Field Order #15, read the Letter from Jourdan Anderson to His Former Master in class; then answer the questions in this Google Form.
|
On April 14, Lincoln held a Cabinet meeting to discuss post-war rebuilding in detail. That same night, he was assassinated while attending a play at Ford’s Theater. His assassin, an actor named John Wilkes Booth, believed he was saving the Confederacy by murdering the president.
With Lincoln gone, the task of bringing these two sides together fell to his vice president, Andrew Johnson. When the war broke out, Johnson was a senator from Tennessee. Even though his state seceded, he kept his senate seat— the only senator from a Southern state to do so. A lifelong Democrat, Johnson was nonetheless nominated by Republicans to run for vice president in 1864. True to his party roots, Johnson saw himself as a champion of the common man. But though he condemned former slaveholders as a “pampered, bloated, corrupted aristocracy,” he had little concern for former slaves. They would have no role in his plans for reconstructing the South. “White men alone,” Johnson insisted, “must manage the South.”
In May 1865, Johnson outlined a lenient policy toward the South designed to rapidly reestablish Southern state governments and restore the Union. It offered “amnesty and pardon,” including the return of all property, to Southerners who took an oath of allegiance to the Constitution and Union. Former Confederate leaders and wealthy planters possessing more than $20,000 in personal wealth, however, would have to apply to him personally for a pardon.
Second, Johnson recognized the reconstructed government of North Carolina and set out the terms for readmitting the remaining ten ex-Confederate states. Johnson would appoint a governor for each state who in turn would call a constitutional convention of elected delegates (chosen by those granted amnesty or pardons). If the convention ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, renounced secession, repudiated all Confederate debts, and held elections for state office and Congress, Johnson would recognize the state as a fully reconstructed member of the Union.
With Congress out of session, Johnson’s plan faced little formal opposition. By the fall of 1865, he had granted pardons to all but a small number of planters and high-ranking ex-Confederates. With these pardons Southerners had restored to them virtually all their lands, including the vast tracts of land that had been set aside in 40-acre plots for freedmen. In December, with all eleven former Confederate states having established new governments under his terms, Johnson announced the Union was restored and Reconstruction was over.
Directions. Summarize Johnson's plan for Reconstruction on this chart, and then use your VoiceThread account to compare his plan to your own.
The Black Codes
As new Southern governments were formed, Johnson withdrew Union troops from the South. Many Northerners did not share Johnson’s willingness to let the South reconstruct itself. Across the South, state legislatures passed black codes—laws intended to restrict the freedom and opportunities of African Americans. The black codes served several purposes. The first was to spell out the rights of African Americans. They could own property, work for wages, marry, and file lawsuits. But other civil rights, or rights of citizenship, such as the right to vote or to serve on juries, were denied them. The second purpose was to ensure a workforce for planters who had lost their slaves. The codes required freedmen to sign yearly labor contracts each January. Those who did not could be arrested and sent to work for a planter.
The final purpose of the black codes was to maintain a social order in the South that limited the upward mobility of African Americans. The codes barred blacks from any jobs but farm work and unskilled labor, making it impossible for them to rise economically or to start their own businesses.
Directions. Read a Louisiana Black Code from 1865.
Henry Blake, a freedman from Arkansas, claimed that under sharecropping, we couldn’t make nothing, just overalls and something to eat. Half went to the other man and you would destroy your half, if you weren’t careful. A man that didn’t know how to count would always lose. He might lose anyhow. They didn’t give no itemized statement. No, you just had to take their word. They never give you no details. No matter how good account you kept, you had to go by their account, and now, Brother, I’m tellin’ you the truth about this. It’s been that way for a long time. You had to take the white man’s work on note, and everything. Anything you wanted, you could git if you were a good hand. You could git anything you wanted as long as you worked. If you didn’t make no money, that’s all right; they would advance you more. But you better not leave him, you better not try to leave and get caught. They’d keep you in debt. They were sharp.
The situation in the South left Northerners wondering what they had gone to war for, since blacks were essentially being re-enslaved. Even moderate Republicans started to adopt the views of the more radical party members.
Directions. After reading the Louisiana Black Code, watching the video, and considering the claims of Henry Blake, respond to the prompt on this Google Form.
Louisiana Congressman Benjamin Flanders warned that Confederate leaders' "whole thought and time will be given to plans for getting things back as near to slavery as possible." To what extent did black codes and sharecropping achieve this goal? Congressional Reconstruction
By the end of 1865, every Southern state had formed a new government. The Thirteenth Amendment had been added to the Constitution. In President Andrew Johnson’s view, Reconstruction was over. However, when Congress met in December 1865, many lawmakers were of the opinion that Reconstruction had hardly begun. The Radical Republicans, led by Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, were especially critical of Johnson’s plan. The Radicals had been abolitionists before the war. Now they were determined to reconstruct the nation on the basis of equal rights for all. Their commitment to racial equality put them on a collision course with the president. The confrontation began in January 1866 when Congress reconvened. Congressional Republicans refused to admit the senators and representatives from the former Confederate states. Next they established the Joint Committee on Reconstruction to investigate conditions in the South. It determined that, by seceding, the southern states had forfeited “all civil and political rights under the Constitution.” Next, it rejected President Johnson’s Reconstruction plan, denied seating of southern legislators, and maintained that only Congress could determine if, when, and how Reconstruction would take place.
To counteract Southern resistance and the oppression of freedmen, Congress passed two bills. The first authorized the Freedmen’s Bureau to continue operation for two more years. The second, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, went much further. It declared African Americans and all persons born in the United States (except Native Americans) national citizens. It also defined the rights of all citizens regardless of race—for example, the right to sue and to make contracts. Taking direct aim at the Black Codes, the law prohibited state governments from depriving any citizen of these “fundamental rights.” Johnson, infuriated at Congress’s rejection of his Reconstruction program and determined to thwart efforts to establish racial equality, vetoed both bills.
|