Chapter 15

• Rehearsal for Reconstruction


  1. During the Civil War (Nov. 1861), the Union navy occupied the Sea Islands (Port Royal) of SC

  2. Southern whites fled and 10,000 slaves remained

  3. Efforts to educate the freed slaves and provide land

  4. Northern teachers - Charlotte Forten and Laura Towne; groups of reformers - Gideon’s Band

  5. Debate continued over whether freed slaves should be given land ownership
• Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan (1863)
• Free blacks protested at not being considered in reconstruction plans
• Radical Republicans introduced the Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
• Many freed slaves remained poor and without property in rural areas, making it difficult for social mobility
• No alternative other than work on white-owned plantations under “labor contracts”
• Sharecropping
• Presidential Reconstruction (1865-1867)
• Black Codes
• Radical Republicans
• Clash between Radical Republicans in Congress and President Johnson over Reconstruction
• Johnson vetoed two Republican-supported bills
• Radical Reconstruction (1867-1870)
• Impeachment Process
• Election of 1868
• 14th amendment was ratified by July 1868
• 15th amendment proposed in 1869 and ratified by 1870
• By 1870, all former Confederate states were readmitted to the Union
• Over 2,000 African-Americans were elected to public office in the South
• Anger over not receiving federal constitutional protections and voting rights created a split among women’s rights groups
• Hiram Revels (1870) and Blanche K. Bruce (1875) were the first black senators in U.S. history
• Anger over not receiving federal constitutional protections and voting rights

  Created a split among women’s rights groups
• Women’s rights groups


  • National Woman Suffrage Association
  • American Woman Suffrage Association
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony


  Opposed the 15th amendment due to lack of women’s suffrage
• Abby Kelley and Lucy Stone

  Supported the 15th amendment as a step in the right direction - true universal suffrage
• Challenges faced by women

  • Unequal pay
  • Limited job opportunities
  • Strict divorce laws
  • Demands for control over their bodies
• Groups during Reconstruction


  • Carpetbaggers
  • Scalawags
  • Ku Klux Klan
• Congress passed three Enforcement Acts in 1870 and 1871 (also known as the KKK Acts) to deal with the issue of violence and threats
• Outlawed terrorist organizations and “secret” societies meant to deny rights
• Allowed Pres. Grant to send federal troops to run national elections and supervise polling
• U.S. Marshals were authorized to arrest hundreds of accused Klansmen
• Support for Reconstruction began to decline among Northern Republicans
• Reasons for the decline of Reconstruction

  • Finished business
  • Increasing racism/stereotypes in the media
  • Severe economic depression in 1873
  • Blame placed on Republicans for failure to act
• Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives in 1875
• Democrats gained control of state legislatures with white majorities and referred to themselves as “Redeemers”
• The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was passed just before Democrats took formal control of the House
• Outlawed racial discrimination in places of public accommodation
• The Supreme Court and Congress began to slowly reduce the impact of civil rights protections for blacks
• The Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction
• Jim Crow Laws legalized racial segregation and discrimination