Session 8

• Confederate army surrendered at Appomattox


  April 1865
• President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth


  Within a week of April 1865
• Reconstruction


  The process of introducing and managing the change of the defeated southern states being brought back into the union after the Civil War
• Reconstruction lasted


  1865-77
• During reconstruction there was still the same issue over Federal and State powers
• The Federal government conflicted with the southern states over the freedom and equality of the African Americans – the former slaves
• The south thought the rights of citizens was a matter for the states and as a result the federal government had to intervene
• Amendments to the constitution during Reconstruction

  • 13th amendment prohibited slavery
  • 14th amendment defined citizenship as including all people born or naturalised in the US
  • 15th amendment prohibited the denial of the vote because of race, colour or previous servitude
• Lincoln's policy for Reconstruction

  1. Give southern states military governors

  2. They could then form civil governments

  3. With a view to re-joining the union
• Johnson's Reconstruction plan


  1. All 7 Southern states without reconstruction governments could return to the union

  2. Southerners who took an oath of allegiance would be pardoned and have property returned, excluding slaves

  3. These southerners could now take part in elections

  4. Those excluded were ex Confederate civil government officials and military officers and those with property worth over $20 000

  5. In practice those excluded could ask for a pardon and 13000 received one
• All southern states had to ratify the 13th amendment and repudiate the loans they built up in the war before they could join the union
• Some state governments refused to repudiate the loans
• The dispute between the president and the republicans in congress seemed to get worse
• All the southern states passed Black Codes which said that freed slaves could marry, own property, make legal contracts and testify against other blacks in courts but prohibited interracial marriage, jury service and testifying against whites
• The Black Codes meant blacks were not fully free
• The 14th amendment


  1. Could not guarantee black suffrage

  2. But Congress tried to enforce this by saying that the Southern states would have reduced representation in the federal government if they did not give black men the vote

  3. This was the first attempt by the federal government to limit state control of civil rights

  4. This also disqualified some former supporters of the Confederacy from holding political office although these could be overturned by a 2/3rds majority
• The Reconstruction Acts of 1867

  1. Overturned the state government set up by Lincoln and Johnson

  2. Set up 5 temporary military districts each run by a General

  3. New elections were to be held where all blacks and those whites not barred could vote

  4. Once a state had rewritten its constitution and ratified the 14th amendment it could return to the union
• Johnson tried to veto the Reconstruction Acts but they became law
• Johnson hindered the implementation of the Reconstruction Acts by replacing military officers with men sympathetic to his ideas
• The Republicans in Congress limiting the power of the President


  1. Passed laws to prevent Johnson removing the Secretary of War

  2. Impeached Johnson on charges that he exceeded his powers as president and not enforced the Reconstruction Acts

  3. Johnson stayed in office as he was not removed by the 2/3rds majority vote
• The 15th amendment prohibited the denial of the vote because of race, colour or previous servitude
• The 15th amendment had loopholes as it did not prohibit voting based on property requirements or literacy tests
• Ulysses S. Grant became President


  1869
• All Southern states had been readmitted to the Union and the struggle over political reconstruction was at an end

  By 1870
• Many African American played a part in determining what their role should be now that slavery had been abolished
• Independent Black Churches were established in the south, such as the Baptist Church, and by 1890 there were one million Black Baptists in the South
• These churches helped fund black education by paying for schools and teachers
• Mutual aid clubs and societies were also formed
• Although some 600 African Americans entered politics, the leading roles in state government were played by white republican politicians
• Many of these white republican politicians were originally from the North and were committed to Black rights
• There were also former union soldiers who came south in search of business opportunities as well as professionals such as teachers or lawyers
• Carpetbaggers


  Caricature of the white republican politicians who came south from the North, seen as opportunists who had some south for money and power with all their possession in a carpet bag
• Scalawags


  Poorer white farmers who wanted to make money but were not fully committed to black rights and drifted back to supporting the Democrats
• The republicans did make several achievements whilst they were in control of the south, including setting up state schools, ensuring African Americans had a right to education and equality before the law, a right to own property and set up a business or join a profession, and repairing bridges and buildings
• The conservative Democrats had regained power and reconstruction had come to an end


  By 1877
• Reasons why Reconstruction came to an end by 1877

  • Republicans in both the North and South drifted to the old Democratic views of their friends and neighbours
  • The actions of the Ku Klux Klan - a terrorist group that carried out acts of terrorism including whippings and murders to intimidate blacks and white republicans
  • The federal government's lack of political will to support black rights as they were now caught up in the Indian Wars
  • Vote rigging
• Many ex slaves left the plantations either heading for the South West where wages were higher or heading for towns and cities
• Many tried to reunite with lost families
• With lack of skills many became wage labourers or turned to share cropping
• Sharecropping


  The landowner supplied all the tools, land, seed and housing whilst a local merchant provided food and supplies on credit and in return the sharecropper received a share of the crop at harvest time with the landowner taking the rest. This was an inefficient system and the sharecropper was continually in debt.