Reconstruction

• Reconstruction


  The process of knitting the North and South back together after the Civil War
• After the Civil War


  The crucial question was whether the Confederacy should be treated with leniency or as a conquered foe
• Lincoln's Reconstruction plan (Ten-Percent Plan)


  • Established a minimum test of political loyalty for southern states to return to the Union
  • Required states to ratify the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery
• Lincoln was assassinated before he could enact his Reconstruction plan
• Andrew Johnson


  Lincoln's vice president who became president and attempted to carry out Lincoln's Reconstruction plan, but was not as magnanimous as Lincoln
• Johnson stood by while the former slave-owning class in the South recreated conditions largely the same as before the war, including passing Black Codes to restrict the freedom of southern black people
• Radical Republicans


  A group in Congress who wanted the South to pay for the damage and death caused by secession, and for the Reconstruction process to be led by Congress rather than the president
• Radical Republicans' actions


  1. Passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to protect the citizenship and equal protection under the law for black people

  2. Proposed the 14th Amendment to solidify these rights

  3. Passed the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 to enforce the laws in the South and increase requirements for southern states to rejoin the Union
• The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 divided the South into five military districts and required southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment and provide universal male suffrage (including for black men)
• Andrew Johnson's actions


  Led to his impeachment by Congress, though he was not removed from office
• The women's rights movement was disappointed that the 15th Amendment granted voting rights only to black men, not to women
• Women's rights groups during Reconstruction


  • National Woman Suffrage Association (led by Stanton and Anthony)
  • American Woman Suffrage Association (led by Stone and Blackwell)
• After the Civil War, Southern society and economics didn't change much
• Black population in the South after the war


  • Established black schools and colleges
  • Some black men got elected to representative offices
  • Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau to help reunite families and arrange for education and social welfare
• Despite the gains, the white population in the South was creating societal conditions that were similar to pre-Civil War slavery and segregation
• Sharecropping system


  1. Land owners provided seed and farm supplies to workers in exchange for a share of the harvest

  2. Turned into another form of coerced servitude similar to slavery
• There was an ongoing belief of white supremacy in Southern society
• Ku Klux Klan


  • Founded in 1867 on the principle that the white race was superior to the black race
  • Burned buildings, controlled local politics through intimidation, and perpetrated public and private lynchings of black people
• Southern legislatures adopted a series of laws known as Black Codes to codify the notion of white supremacy into law
• Black Codes

  • Prohibited black Americans from borrowing money to buy or rent land
  • Prohibited black people from testifying against white people in court
  • Provided for the racial segregation of Southern society
• All of this happened while federal troops were stationed in the South to ensure Reconstruction policies were upheld
• Reconstruction officially ended


  1877
• Reason Reconstruction ended


  Hotly contested presidential election of 1876 between Samuel Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes
• Tilden won the popular vote but neither he nor Hayes gained enough electoral votes to claim victory
• Compromise of 1877


  Democrats agreed to concede the election to Hayes, but in exchange all federal troops had to be removed from the South
• As the federal troops left the South, the Democrats came to dominate once again and created an even bleaker reality for the southern black population left behind without any protection