Copy of Reconstruction

Conditions in the South

• The war took a toll on the South, physically and economically.

Politics of the South

• Scalawags- white southerners: many were small farmers wanting to improve their economic position and prevent wealthy planters from gaining power again.

• Carpetbaggers- Northerners who moved to the South following the war.

• Lack of unity in the Democratic Party, leaving the Republican Party as the main contributor to Reconstruction

Reconstructing Society

• Postwar Conditions.

• Politics in the South.

• New life for former slaves.

Learning Objectives

• Life of the New Farmers.

Lincoln's Plan

• Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (Ten Percent Plan)

• Government would pardon all Confederates, except high-ranking officials and those accused of war crimes against POWs.

• Describe various Reconstruction plans and analyze the political consequences of the plans.
• Describe how Reconstruction affected life in the South for white Southerners and former slaves.
• Explain the reasons for the end of Reconstruction.
• Describe and justify your own Reconstruction Plan from the perspective of a Southerner.
• Discuss what sharecropping is. How can this concept be seen as a continuation of slavery? Compare this to tenant farmers.

• 10 percent of 1860 voters took an oath of allegiance, a state could form a new state government and send representatives to Congress.

Improving Lives

• Radical Republicans

Politics of Reconstruction

With former slaves now free to do as they please in the Reconstruction South, many founded new churches, universities and schools, while others searched for lost loved ones and family that were separated during slavery.

New Farmers

• Sharecropping

• Tenant Farmers

• How could this be seen as a continuation of slavery?

• Emancipation Proclamation expanded to include all slaves.

• Policies and support changes between Lincoln and Johnson.

Reconstruction

Johnson's Plan

• Major difference- excluded high-ranking Confederates and wealthy Southern landowners from taking oath.

• Remaining Confederate states quickly agreed. How was this more beneficial to them?

• Congress's refusal to admit new southern legislators...

• Freedmen's Bureau and Civil Rights Act of 1866...

1863- 1877

Johnson's Impeachment

Opposition

• What is impeachment?

• Ku Klux Klan- killed approximately 20,000 men, women and children.
• Some whites refuse to hire African Americans

• Tenure of Office Act?

• Enforcement Acts to help protect African American's rights

• What was Congress's real reasons to impeach?

• Amnesty Act & Expiration of Freedmen's Bureau lessened the punishments on former Confederates and lessened support for African Americans.

What Did Congress Do During Reconstruction?

• Overrode many of Johnson's vetos.

• 14th Amendment

Support Fades

• Panic of 1873- bank failures led to a 5 year depression. Many Republicans more concerned about this instead of Reconstruction

• Reconstruction Act of 1867... Separated the South into military districts until they became states again and implimented the new amendments.

• Supreme Court rulings begin to overturn the legal foundations of Reconstruction

Collapse of Reconstruction

• Republicans move away from Reconstruction to focus on other issues

• 15th Amendment

• Opposition to Reconstruction in the South

• Support Fades As Problems Occur in the North

• Democrats "Redeem" the South and end Reconstruction

The Democrats Make a Comeback

• Election of 1876

• Compromise of 1877- was this unconstitutional?