Reconstruction Overview
History M25: Krister Swanson
Lincoln’s Philosophy
- "malice toward none, charity for all" - amnesty
- states who accept emancipation & take loyalty oath (10%) should be let
back in
- No long term plan for financial assistance to freedmen
- Infuriates abolitionists & other "radical republicans"
- thinks President should run reconstruction, thinking still evolving at
time of assassination
Congress’ Philosophy
- outlined in Wade Davis Bill (50% loyalty oaths, no confederates in
government, guaranteed rights to slaves)
- total reconstruction for Southern society & economy
- laws to protect rights of freedmen
- former Confederate leaders banned from participating
Lincoln is Assassinated
- Johnson adopts Lincoln’s basic plan but has no sympathy for freedmen
- 13th Amendment ends slavery
- Congress sets up Freedmen’s Bureau
- by late 1865 all states but TX had met Johnson’s conditions, but many are
using Black Codes and harassment to keep freedmen down (not one state allowed
vote)
- Required black employment feeds sharecropping
Congress Takes Over
- Push freedmen’s bureau and Civil Rights Act over Johnson’s vetoes
- 14th Amendment to extend and protect citizenship rights of freedmen
- Mob violence grows to suppress rights
- 1866 Election: Johnson (National Union Party) vs. Congress controlled by
Radical Republicans (Reps unify vs. Southern Resistance)
Radical Reconstruction
- Southern resistance feeds power of radical republicans
- Overturn state governments, divide South into 5 districts, states must
write new constitutions and ratify 14th to reenter Union
- Military moves in to register voters & supervise elections - still no land
reform
- Johnson tries everything to interfere with Congress
Impeachment!
- Johnson fires Sec of War Stanton (a RR)
- House passes articles of impeachment (Johnson is failing to execute his
duties)
- Senate finds Johnson not guilty by 1 vote (uphold presidency)
- after this radicals free to address suffrage issue - 15th Amendment
(wording allows for abuse)
The Aftermath
- Carpetbaggers (northerners coming South to benefit) & scalawags
(southerners sympathetic to North) help set up bi-racial republican state
gov’ts
- Southern Dems freak out over "radical reforms", Redeemers eventually
retake state gov’ts by mid 1870’s
- Grant elected Pres. In 1868 – marked by scandal & cronyism
- radicals out & north loses interest after Panic 1873
Conditions return to pre-war:
- troops gone after Comp. of 1877
- many freedmen forced to sharecrop (transition to free labor is difficult)
- Sharecropping leads to debt, eviction, survival on the margin
- Jim Crow Laws & organizations like the KKK keep freedmen at bottom of
ladder