Essential Question: What were the positions of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson on the issue of restoring the South to the Union and protecting the rights of freed slaves?
I. Wartime Reconstruction
A. Abraham Lincoln�s plan for Reconstruction
1. Encouraged blacks to emigrate to Haiti during 1862 and 1863
2. Eventually accepted continued presence of blacks in America
3. Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction in Dec 1863
a. Offered pardon to southern whites who took an oath of allegiance to the United States
and accepted the abolition of slavery
b. Once 10 percent of a state�s white male population aged 21 or older had taken oath, the
state could be readmitted to union
c. Must recognize freedom and educate blacks
B. Radical Republicans and Reconstruction
1. Called for voting rights and property distribution to freed slaves
2. South was reluctant to grant blacks political rights
a. In response, Congress refused to admit reps. and senators until reforms were enacted
3. Wade-Davis Reconstruction Bill passed by Congress in July 1864
a. Did not make provision for black vote
b. Imposed more stringent loyalty requirements on southern whites
-Therefore, Lincoln vetoed the bill
4. Veto split Republican Party and for a time threatened Lincoln�s reelection chances
5. Lincoln assassinated before he could unveil his plans for Reconstruction
(probably would�ve included black voting rights)
II. Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction
A. Johnson�s policy (moved on his own)
1. Opposed Radical Republican plans for harsh treatment of ex Confederates
and voting rights for blacks
2. Issued two proclamations in May 1865
a. Blanket amnesty for all but the highest-ranking Confederate officials
and military officers and those with $20,000 or more in taxable property
b. Laid plans for reincorporation into union
-Only white men who had received amnesty and taken oath of allegiance could vote
-Both blacks and upper-class whites would be excluded from voting
B. Radical Republicans opposed to restricting the vote to whites
1. Moderate Republicans believed that blacks should have some political rights
C. The Black Codes
1. Some of the southern states enacted Black Codes to restrict rights of blacks in the fall of 1865
a. Prevented blacks from testifying against whites in court
b. Excluded blacks from juries and the ballot box
c. Banned interracial marriage
d. Punished blacks more severely than whites for certain crimes
2. Aroused anger of northern Republicans, who saw them as attempt to reinstate quasi-slavery
D. Southern defiance
1. None of the new southern state conventions enfranchised a single black
2. Southern defiance seemed to many in the north like a reprise of 1861
3. Johnson began to issue special pardons to many ex-Confederates, restoring to them all property
and political rights (Why?)
4. Southern states elected ex-Confederates to local political office and even sent a number to Congress
E. The Freedmen�s Bureau
1. U.S. troops remained in south as occupation force until civil gov�t could be restored
2. Congress created Freedmen�s Bureau in Mar 1865
a. Principal agency for overseeing relations between former slaves and owners
b. Supervised free-labor wage contracts between landowners and freed people
c. Issued food rations to 150,000 people daily during 1865, one-third to whites
3. Southern whites viewed Freedmen�s Bureau with hostility
4. Helped to alleviate the postwar devastation and chaos in the South
5. New labor system of sharecropping developed
a. black family worked a particular piece of land in return for a share of the crop produced on it
III. The Advent of Congressional Reconstruction
A. Schism between president and Congress
1. Congress worked to protect economic and civil rights of freed people
a. Extended life of Freedmen�s Bureau and expanded its powers
b. Defined freed people as citizens with equal rights and gave federal courts
appellate jurisdiction to enforce these rights
2. Johnson vetoed both measures
3. Denounced congressional efforts to degrade white southerners
B. The Fourteenth Amendment
1. Congress passed Freedmen�s Bureau and Civil Rights bills over Johnson�s vetoes
2. Submitted Fourteenth Amendment to states in June 1866
a. Defined blacks as citizens
b. Prohibited states from abridging rights of citizens or denying them their
rights without due process
c. Prescribed voting rights for blacks or sanctions would be imposed
3. Had far-reaching consequences, especially due process clause
C. The 1866 elections
1. Republicans entered campaign with Fourteenth Amendment as platform
2. Johnson opposed and counseled southern states against ratification
3. Johnson created National Union Party, but it was doomed from start
4. Republicans swept the election
5. Southern states, having rejected Fourteenth Amendment, would now face much harsher terms
D. The Reconstruction Acts of 1867
1. Congress implemented compromise between radicals and moderates in Mar 1867
a. Divided 10 southern states into 5 military districts
b. Directed army officers to register voters for election of delegates to new constitutional
conventions
c. Enfranchised males aged 21 and older, including blacks, to vote in these elections
d. Placed limits on participation of ex-Confederates in these elections
2. Embodied a true revolution, as former slaves received real political power for first time
3. Did not proceed smoothly
a. Many southern Democrats refused to go along
b. Some refused to participate
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Chapter 17 Reconstruction, 1863-1877 (sec 2)
Essential Question: What were the achievements of reconstruction? What were its failures?
IV. The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
A. Johnson continued his opposition to congressional Reconstruction
1. Removed Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton from office in Feb 1868
2. Violated 1867 Tenure of Office Act, which seemed to require Senate consent for such removals
3. House voted along party lines in Feb 1868 to impeach Johnson
a. Official reason was violation of Tenure of Office Act
b. Real reason was his stubborn defiance of Congress on Reconstruction
4. Trial in Senate, which required two-thirds vote to convict, would determine whether
Johnson was removed from office
B. The completion of formal Reconstruction
1. Constitutional conventions met throughout south in winter and spring of 1867-68
2. Drafted constitutions that were among the most progressive in the nation
a. Enacted universal male suffrage
b. Some temporarily disenfranchised certain classes of ex-Confederates
c. Mandated statewide public schools in the south
3. Violence marred voting on ratification of the new constitutions in some parts of the south
a. Emergence of Ku Klux Klan
4. Seven states had ratified Fourteenth Amendment and had been readmitted to union by spring of 1868
C. The Fifteenth Amendment
1. Fifteenth Amendment became requirement for readmission of last group of states
a. Prohibited states from denying right to vote on grounds of race, color, or previous
condition of servitude
b. Designed to prevent reconstructed states from any future revocation of black suffrage
2. With final ratification in 1870, the U.S. Constitution
became truly colorblind for first time in U.S. history
a. National Woman Suffrage Association (1869)opposed Fifteenth Amendment because it did
not include women
D. The election of 1868
1. Election was referendum on Republican reconstruction policy
a. Republicans nominated Ulysses S. Grant
-Opposed Johnson�s policies
-Grant ran to preserve in peace the victory for Union and liberty he had won in war
b. Democrats rejected Johnson and nominated Horatio Seymour
-Democrats adopted militant platform denouncing Reconstruction and the
Freedmen�s Bureau
-Worked to suppress Republican voting in the south
V. The Grant Administration
A. Grant often described as a failure as president
1. His subordinates and appointees were involved in numerous scandals
2. Grant was himself honest, but too trusting of his subordinates
3. Rapid postwar economic growth fueled greed and a desire for personal gain
B. Blacks in office
1. About 80 percent of southern Republican voters wereblack
2. Many, but not all, black voters were illiterate due
to restrictions on education of slaves
3. Even illiterate blacks understood political issues
4. Blacks held only 15 to 20 percent of public offices,
even at the height of Reconstruction in the early 1870s
5. No state had a black governor, and only one black man became a state supreme court justice
6. Only in South Carolina did blacks hold office in numbers anywhere near their
proportion of the population
C. �Carpetbaggers�
1. Carpetbaggers held a disproportionate number of high political offices in southern states
2. Most were Union army officers who stayed on after the war as Freedmen�s Bureau
agents, teachers in black schools, or business investors
3. Hoped to rebuild southern society in the image of the free-labor north
D. �Scalawags�
1. Southern Republicans came primarily from upcountry Unionist areas
(N. Carolina and Virginia, Eastern Tenn.)
2. Others were former Whigs who saw opportunity to rebuild the south�s
economy in partnership with northern Republicans
3. Democrats sought to destroy Republican coalition by economicallyintimidating black
employees and sharecroppers
a. Advocated violence
E. The Ku Klux Klan
1. Partly designed to socially control the black population
2. Main purpose was to destroy the Republican Party by terrorizing its voters
and, if necessary, murdering its leaders
3. Congress passed three laws to deal with mounting southern violence
a. Interference with voting rights became a federal offense
b. Any attempt to deprive another person of civil opolitical rights became a felony
c. Empowered president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and send in federal troops to
suppress armed resistance to federal law�
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Chapter 17 Reconstruction, 1863-1877 (sec 3)
Essential Question: Why did a majority of the Northern people and their political leaders turn against continued federal involvement in Southern Reconstruction in the late 1870�s?
VI. The Retreat from Reconstruction
A. Consequences of Panic of 1873
1. Democrats made huge gains in congressional elections of 1874
2. Growing support for end to �bayonet rule� and �carpetbag corruption� in south
3. Northerners increasingly willing to return control of south to southern whites
4. Only four southern states remained under Republican control by 1875: South Carolina,
Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana
5. Widespread denunciation of use of federal troops to quell guerrilla inspired violence
in Louisiana in late 1874 and early 1875
B. The Mississippi election of 1875
1. Democrats devised Mississippi Plan in state elections of 1875
a. �Persuade� the 10-15 percent of white voters still calling themselves Republicans
to switch to Democrats
b. Intimidate black voters, who comprised 55 percent of electorate
2. Governor Adelbert Ames requested federal troops to restore order, but Grant
yielded to warnings that intervention would result in loss of Ohio in upcoming state elections
3. Grant in effect sacrificed Mississippi for Ohio
C. The Supreme Court and Reconstruction
1. Democratic majority in Congress refused to sanction continued use of federal troops in south
2. In U.S. v. Cruikshank and U.S. v. Reese (1876) court declared parts of the 1870 and 1871
laws for enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments unconstitutional
a. Ruled that Fourteenth Amendment applied only to states, not to individuals
3. Court ruled that individuals could not be prosecuted for violations of the civil and voting
rights of blacks
4. In the Civil Rights Cases (1883) struck down an 1875 law banning racial discrimination
in all forms of public transportation and public accommodations
D. The election of 1876
1. Reform was bound to be the leading issue in the presidential election
2. Both major parties nominated reformers
a. Democrats chose Samuel Tilden of New York
b. Republicans nominated Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio
3. Democrats entered campaign as favorites for first time in two decades
a. Likely to construct coalition of the solid South plus New York and a handful
of other northern states
b. Relied on bulldozing to keep black voters away from the polls
E. Disputed results
1. Tilden carried four northern states, including New York,
as well as all the former slave states except, apparently, Louisiana, South Carolina, and
Florida, all of which produced disputed returns
2. He needed only one of the disputed states to win, but Hayes needed all three
3. Initial indications were that Tilden had won Louisiana and Florida, so early results
pegged him the winner
4. Official returns gave all three disputed states to Hayes, but Democrats, who
controlled the House refused to recognize the results
5. Special electoral commission created to break deadlock
F. The Compromise of 1877
1. Commission awarded all disputed states to Hayes
2. To win southern acquiescence, northerners arranged compromise
a. Hayes promised federal support for internal improvements and railroad construction in south
b. Also hinted at appointment of southerner as postmaster general, who would
have significant patronage power
c. Agreed to end �bayonet rule� in southern states where federal troops still stationed
3. In exchange, Hayes asked for--and received--promises of fair treatment for freed
people and respect for their constitutional rights
G. The end of Reconstruction
1. Hayes made good on promise to appoint a southern as postmaster general
2. The south did receive more federal money for internal improvements than ever before
3. Federal troops were withdrawn from Louisiana and South Carolina, leading to the
collapse of the Republican state governments there
4. Old abolitionist and radical Republicans denounced Hayes�s actions as a sellout of southern blacks
5. Most Americans, though, were simply glad that the Reconstruction crisis was finally over