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Chapter 16: Era of Reconstruction (1865–1877)
Important Keywords
Reconstruction Era (1865–1877): Period after the Civil War during which Northern political leaders created plans for the governance of the South and a procedure for former Southern states to rejoin the Union; Southern resentment of this era lasted well into the twentieth century
Radical Republicans: Congressional group that wished to punish the South for its secession from the Union; pushed for measures that gave economic and political rights to newly freed blacks in the South and that made it difficult for former Confederate states to rejoin the Union.
Reconstruction Act (1867): Act placing Southern states under military rule and barring former supporters of the Confederacy from voting.
Carpetbaggers: Northerners who moved to the South during the Reconstruction Era; traditional elements of Southern society were deeply resentful of profits made by carpetbaggers during this period.
Scalawags: A term of derision used in the South during the Reconstruction Era for white Southern Republicans.
Ku Klux Klan: Group was founded in Tennessee in 1866; its oftentimes violent actions during the Reconstruction Era represented the resentments felt by many Southern whites toward the changing political, social, and economic conditions of the Reconstruction Era.
Compromise of 1877: The political compromise ending the disputed presidential election of 1876. By the terms of this compromise Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes was awarded the electoral votes of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, thus giving him the presidency; in return, all federal troops were removed from the South.
Key Timeline
1865: Andrew Johnson institutes liberal
Reconstruction plan Whites in Southern legislatures pass Black Codes
Thirteenth Amendment ratified
1866: Civil Rights Act, Freedmen’s Bureau Act approved by Congress
Fourteenth Amendment passes Congress (fails to be ratified in Southern states)
Antiblack riots in New Orleans, Memphis
Republicans who favor Radical Reconstruction win congressional elections, in essence ending Johnson’s Reconstruction plan
Ku Klux Klan founded
1867: Tenure of Office Act approved by Congress (Congress had to approve presidential appointments, dismissals)
Reconstruction Act approved by Congress (Southern states placed under military rule)
Constitutional conventions called by former Confederate states
Johnson tries to remove Edwin Stanton as secretary of war, leading to cries for his impeachment
1868: Impeachment of Andrew Johnson: Johnson impeached in the House of Representatives, not convicted in the Senate
Southern states return to Union under policies established by Radical Republicans
Final ratification of Fourteenth Amendment
Former Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant elected president
1870: Amendment ratified Many blacks elected in Southern state legislatures
1872: Confederates allowed to hold office Ulysses S. Grant reelected
1876: Disputed presidential election between Tilden, Hayes
1877: Compromise of 1877 awards election to Hayes, ends Reconstruction in the South
Lincoln and Reconstruction
White workers feared economic competition from freedmen, former slaves.
The murder of Abraham Lincoln further confused the situation.
Lincoln had long pondered the problem of restoring the Union.
He laid the foundations of the Reconstruction Era.
In 1863, Lincoln formulated the Ten Percent Plan.
This plan allowed Southerners without important Confederate military or political positions to swear allegiance to the US.
Radical Republicans in Congress opposed this plan.
The powerful Radical Republicans rejected Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas's request to rejoin the government on Lincoln's terms.
Radical Republicans included abolitionist congressmen and senators.
They fought for social and political equality for freed slaves.
Radical Republicans believed that Southern states could not be fully reintegrated into the Union until freedmen participated politically in Reconstruction.
They knew freedmen provided a huge Republican vote pool in the South.
Radical Republicans hated and distrusted the old Southern political elite and believed the South should be punished for rebelling.
They countered Lincoln’s plan with their own.
The Wade-Davis Act passed Congress in 1864.
An "ironclad" oath was required of a majority of Southern voters.
A Southern state could only reenter the Union on these terms by enfranchising large numbers of African American voters.
Lincoln pocket-vetoed this congressional challenge to his policy.
Later, Southern legislatures passed Black Codes that seemed like a return to slavery and fueled Radical Republican suspicions.
African Americans were barred from interracial marriage, employment, and movement by the Black Codes.
Efforts to Help the Freedmen
Radical Republicans opposed Johnson's Reconstruction.
They had many leaders, but they all wanted to help Southern freedmen.
In early 1865, Congress passed a bill establishing the Freedman’s Bureau.
By 1866, most freed slaves were tenant farmers on their former masters' plantations, making the Freedman's Bureau's job difficult.
Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts believed that the vote and political influence were the best way to improve freedmen's status.
Congressman Thaddeus Stevens advocated confiscating land from wealthy Confederates and giving it to former slaves to give freedmen economic independence.
Congress established a Joint Committee on Reconstruction in late 1865 to investigate Southern conditions and recommend reintegration.
The Joint Committee persuaded Congress to renew the authorization of the Freedman’s Bureau. It also proposed a Civil Rights bill.
Johnson vetoed both bills, calling them unconstitutional.
Moderate and radical Republicans overrode Johnson's vetoes.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 granted freedmen citizenship and extended the Freedman's Bureau.
The federal courts and military could enforce these rights for freedmen.
This act also provided support for the Thirteenth Amendment.
In December 1865, this Constitutional amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude.
The Thirteenth Amendment confirmed Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and freed all slaves in Union territory.
Congress also passed the Fourteenth Amendment.
National citizenship and equal rights were defined by this amendment.
It included Southern-focused measures.
States that denied freedmen the vote lost congressional representation and could not elect former Confederate leaders.
New Orleans and Memphis anti-black riots helped Congress pass the amendment.
President Johnson spoke out against the Fourteenth Amendment.
In 1866, Northern voters rejected Johnson and elected Radical Republicans to Congress.
Radical Reconstruction
The Radical Republicans now had the political power to assert their Reconstruction agenda. They could override any presidential veto.
In 1867, Congress passed a Reconstruction Act that put the former Confederacy under military rule.
The South was divided into five regions, and an army general was placed in command of each.
The Southern states had to hold new constitutional conventions.
They were required to provide freedmen equal rights and the vote.
Former Confederates lost their franchise.
Southern states needed the Fourteenth Amendment to be recognized.
Congress also passed two laws to weaken Johnson.
The Army Act limited his ability to interfere with the army in the South.
The Tenure of Office Act prevented the president from firing a cabinet secretary without Senate approval.
This measure protected Radical Republican ally Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.
The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
President Johnson considered the Tenure of Office Act a violation of his powers.
In the fall of 1867, he attempted to fire Secretary Stanton.
The Radical Republicans impeached Johnson for violating the Constitution to get rid of him.
The House of Representatives voted on articles of impeachment on February 24, 1868.
No president had been impeached before.
In May, Johnson was tried in the Senate.
Two-thirds of the Senate had to vote to convict and remove him.
He escaped conviction and removal by a one-vote margin.
Johnson remained president but was politically irrelevant.
In the 1868 presidential election, Republicans nominated Civil War hero General Ulysses S. Grant, who won easily.
Final Phase of Radical Reconstruction
President Grant supported the goals of Radical Reconstruction.
In March 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified.
The Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed African American voting rights "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
In the elections of 1870, many freedmen voted for the first time.
They elected 630 Southern black legislators.
Sixteen African Americans were elected to the House and one to the Senate.
P.B.S. Pinchback was elected governor of Louisiana.
Grant sent federal troops to protect African American voters in this election.
White Southerners hated a political milestone that challenged their values.
They considered Reconstruction authorities oppressive and illegitimate.
They called Northerners who moved south to help Reconstruction carpetbaggers.
They called Southern Republicans scalawags.
In 1886, The Ku Klux Klan was founded in Tennessee.
Voters and schools were burned by the Klan.
Their vigilante actions included torture and murder.
Congress passed Force Acts to criminalize voting interference.
President Grant sent soldiers and federal marshals after the Klan, and a low-intensity guerilla war raged in the South for years.
The End of Reconstruction
Grant was reelected in 1872.
He signed the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to guarantee African Americans equal treatment in public accommodations, transportation, and juries.
In the face of Southern obstinacy, Northern support for Reconstruction waned.
In 1873, a major recession dominated public attention.
Scandals in the Grant Administration further diverted attention away from the South.
Southern whites reclaimed state governments as federal troops withdrew.
In 1876, the Democrats nominated New York governor Samuel Tilden for president.
Tilden was famous for opposing New York City's Tammany Hall political machine and its corrupt boss William M. Tweed.
The Republican candidate was Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes.
Hayes was a Union general during the Civil War.
Tilden won the popular vote and was one vote short of an Electoral College majority after voting. If Hayes received these electoral votes, he would win the election by one vote.
Hayes became president after the commission gave him all contested electoral votes.
In return, the Republicans withdrew the last federal troops from the South and withdrew support for Republican state governments.
Democratic “redeemer” regimes, took over across the South.
African Americans were quickly deprived of hard-won social and political rights.
Southerners wrote a harsh history of Reconstruction that portrayed it as a disastrous mistake.
The "Solid South" remained Democratic and segregated for almost a century.
Chapter 17: Western Expansion and Its Impact on the American Character (1860–1895)