Big Question: How effective was Reconstruction?

Transcription

1 Big Question: How effective was Reconstruction? 1) What was Presidential Reconstruction? Lincoln had been thinking of how to reconstruct the nation for much of the war and was determined to be fair with the South. In his mind, the South never legally left the Union. As early as 1863, he presented his plan which required 10% of state voters to pledge loyalty to the Union and accept the emancipation of slavery. In 1864, he vetoed the Wade Davis Bill, a congressional plan to require 50% of voters in southern states to pledge loyalty to the Union. He laid out his basic viewpoint in the conclusion of his Second Inaugural Address. Lincoln s Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 (Document 1) With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865 and was not around to implement his policies. He was replaced by Andrew Johnson, a southerner from Tennessee who was added to the ticket in 1864 for political reasons without much thought given to his ability to actually lead. Johnson adopted the same 10% plan, but did not possess any of Lincoln s political skills or power. By the end of 1865, most of the southern states had adopted the terms set by under Presidential Reconstruction. 2) What was the impact of the 13 th Amendment? Despite the president playing no formal role in the amendment process, President Lincoln used all of his political powers to push the amendment through Congress in the winter of 1864/65. It was passed on January 31, 1865 and ratified by the states in December of 1865 after Lincoln s death. Amendment XIII (13) (Document 2) Section 1: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Despite the formal abolition of slavery, the South continued to limit African American rights through sharecropping arrangements and the passage of Black Codes. Sharecropping contracts were agreements where former slaves would work on plantations and share anywhere from 50-75% their crop with the owner in exchange for housing and tools. The contracts were often onerous and any disputes where usually won by the plantation owner. It resulted in most newly freed slaves (and many poor whites) working in conditions similar to slavery as poor tenant farmers after emancipation. Sharecropping Contract: January 1, 1867 (Document 3).. the said Cooper Hughs Freedman with his wife and one other woman, and the said Charles Roberts with his wife Hannah and one boy are to work on said farm and to cultivate forty acres in corn and twenty acres in cotton, to assist in putting the fences on said farm in good order and to keep them so and to do all other work on said farm necessary to be done to keep the same in good order and to raise a good crop and to be under the control and directions of said IG Bailey and to receive for their said services one half of the cotton and one third of the corn and fodder raised by them on said farm in said year 1867 and the said Charles Roberts Freedman with his wife Hannah further agrees and binds themselves to do the washing and Ironing, and all other necessary house work for said IG Bailey and his family during said year 1867 and to receive for their said services fifty dollars in money at the expiration of said year 1867 and the said Cooper Hughs Freedman further agrees and binds himself to give the necessary attention of feeding the Stock of cattle and milking the cows twice daily belong to said IG Bailey, and do the churning when ever necessary during the said year... In addition to sharecropping, southern states passed the Black Codes which regulated the legal status of freedmen in the South. Basically, they sought to limit the rights of African Americans and ensure a stable labor force.

2 Mississippi Black Codes, 1865 (Document 4) Section 6. All contracts for labor made with freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes for a longer period than one month shall be in writing, and a duplicate, attested and read to said freedman, free negro or mulatto by a beat, city or county officer, or two disinterested white persons of the county in which the labor is to performed, of which each party shall have one: and said contracts shall be taken and held as entire contracts, and if the laborer shall quit the service of the employer before the expiration of his term of service, without good cause, he shall forfeit his wages for that year up to the time of quitting. Section 7. Every civil officer shall, and every person may, arrest and carry back to his or her legal employer any freedman, free negro, or mulatto who shall have quit the service of his or her employer before the expiration of his or her term of service without good cause; and said officer and person shall be entitled to receive for arresting and carrying back every deserting employee aforesaid the sum of five dollars, and ten cents per mile from the place of arrest to the place of delivery; and the same shall be paid by the employer, and held as a set off for so much against the wages of said deserting employee: Another outcome of emancipation was the Freedmen s Bureau. It was the first federal welfare agency and its greatest success was setting up thousands of schools to teach hundreds of thousands of African Americans to read and write. It did not provide land to newly freed slaves as many hoped it would. The establishment of sharecropping, the Black Codes, and limited ability of the Freedmen s Bureau to reshape the South led many in Congress to question what the war had actually achieved. 3) What was Congressional Reconstruction? Many in Congress were disappointed in the leniency shown towards the South under Presidential Reconstruction and the continued struggles of freed African Americans. This group of Congressmen became known as the Radical Republicans and instituted the era of Radical Reconstruction. Their goals were to reform the South and protect the rights of African Americans. Their first measure was to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to fight back against the Black Codes. Civil Rights Act of 1866 (Document 5) That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws President Johnson vetoed the bill, but Congress overrode his veto (first time in US history). Emboldened by their new power, Congress transformed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 into the 14 th Amendment so the courts and future governments would be unable to change it. They also passed a new Reconstruction bill, the Military Reconstruction Act of It divided the South into five military districts under the control of Union General. States could rejoin the Union when they ratified the 14 th Amendment. President Johnson vetoed the bill. President Johnson s Veto of the Military Reconstruction Bill (Document 6) It is a part of our public history which can never be forgotten that both Houses of Congress, in July, 1861, declared in the form of a solemn resolution that the war was and should be carried on for no purpose of subjugation, but solely to enforce the Constitution and laws, and that when this was yielded by the parties in rebellion the contest should cease, with the constitutional rights of the States and of individuals unimpaired. On the faith of it many thousands of persons in both sections gave their lives and their fortunes to the cause. To repudiate it now by refusing to the States and to the individuals within them the rights which the Constitution and laws of the Union would secure to them is a breach of our plighted honor for which I can imagine no excuse and to which I cannot voluntarily become a party.... Congress overrode Johnson s veto of Military Reconstruction. Tired of Johnson s resistance, Congress would impeach the president in 1867 for high crimes and misdemeanors most notably violating the Tenure of

3 Office Act. The law prohibited the President from removing Cabinet officials without Senate approval. Johnson fired his adversary and Radical Republican, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. He was not removed from office by one vote, but his dispute with Congress was essentially over and Congress had won. The efforts of the Radical Republicans reasserted the power of Congress after Lincoln s term in office. 4) What was the impact of the 14 th and 15 th Amendments? Fearful that future governments or court decisions would undo the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Congress passed the 14 th Amendment in 1866 and it was ratified by the states in Amendment XIV (14) (Document 7) Section 1.: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. There was debate about if the 14 th Amendment clearly granted African Americans the right to vote. Radical Republicans continued to push for African American rights. Representative Thaddeus Stevens, 1867 (Document 8) In the first place, it is just. I am now confining my argument to negro suffrage in the rebel States. Have not loyal blacks quite as good a right to choose rulers and make laws as rebel whites? In the second place, it is a necessity in order to protect the loyal white men in the seceded States. The white Union men are in a great minority in each of those States. With them the blacks would act in a body; and it is believed that in each of said States, except one, the two united would form a majority, control the States, and protect themselves. Now they are the victims of daily murder... The 15 th Amendment was ratified in Amendment XV (15) (Document 9) Section 1: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. While the Army was in the South, African Americans were able to vote electing Hiram Revels from Mississippi as the first black senator (1870) and Joseph Rainey from South Carolina as the first black representative (1870). The white South was furious with African Americans voting and working in government. 5) Why did Reconstruction conclude in 1877? Despite the best efforts of Radical Republicans, the white South never accepted any of the changes to southern life. Southerners began to fight back in a variety of ways. The most notorious response was the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan. Testimony of Maria Carter, a black woman, to Congress on KKK activity, 1871 (Document 10) Question. What did they do at your house? Answer. They were at the other door, and they said, Kindle a light. My husband went to kindle a light, and they busted both doors open and ran in two in one door and two in the other. I heard the others coming on behind them, jumping over the fence in the yard. One put his gun down to him and said, Is this John Walthall? They had been hunting him a long time. They had gone to my brother-in-law s hunting him, and had whipped one of my sisters-in-law powerfully and two more men on account of him. They said they were going to kill him when they got hold of him. They asked my husband if he was John Walthall. He was so scared he could not say anything. I said, No. I never got up at all.

4 They asked where he was, and we told them he was up to the next house, they jerked my husband up and said that he had to go up there. I heard them up there hollering Open the door, and I heard them break the door down. While they were talking about our house, just before they broke open our door, I heard a chair fall over in John Walthall s house. He raised a plank then and tried to get under the house. A parcel of them ran ahead and broke the door down and jerked his wife out of the bed. I did not see them, for I was afraid to go out of doors. They knocked his wife about powerfully. I heard them cursing her. She commenced hollering, and I heard some of them say, God damn her, shoot her. They struck her over the head with a pistol. Some of them said Fetch a light here, quick; and some of them said to her, Hold a light. They said she held it, and they put their guns down on him and shot him. I heard him holler, and some of them said, Pull him out, pull him out. When they pulled him out the hole was too small, and I heard them jerk a plank part off the house and I heard it fly back. I heard John holler when they commenced whipping him. They said, Don t holler, or we ll kill you in a minute. I think they hit him about three hundred licks. The North tried to stop the KKK with the Force Acts of , but eventually the North s interest in Reconstruction began to wane. There were some political scandals involving northern politicians and the country faced another economic panic in The conclusion of Reconstruction was the disputed presidential election of Three southern states sent in two sets of election returns and the Congress was not sure what votes to count. In the end, the Compromise of 1877 allowed Rutherford B. Hayes (R) to win the election over Samuel Tilden (D) in exchange for the removal of troops from the South. Reconstruction ended in Thomas Nast Cartoon, Harpers Weekly, February 1877 (Document 11) 6) How did the South limit many of the changes put in place by Reconstruction? As the Army left the South, the South redeemed itself and returned to its old ways. One of the first things southern states did was eliminate voting rights for African Americans. One means of limiting black votes was the poll tax. Since most African Americans were poor/in debt due to sharecropping, they could not afford to vote.

5 (Document 12) Another tactic was the Literacy Test. Each state designed a test that would need to be passed in order to demonstrate competency to vote. Most southern Literacy Tests had little to do with literacy and were difficult to pass, therefore limiting African Americans ability to vote. Selected Questions from southern Literacy Test try them (Document 13) 1) Spell backwards, forwards. 2) Draw a figure that is square in shape. Divide it in half by drawing a straight line from its northeast corner to its southwest corner, and then divided it once more by drawing a broken line from the middle of its western side to the middle of its eastern side. 3) Write every other word in this first line and print every third word in same line, (original type smaller and first line ended in comma) but capitalize the fifth word that you write. There were 30 questions of a similar manner to be completed in 10 minutes. If a test taker missed one question on this particular Literacy Test, they failed. If freedmen were able to jump through the often impossible hoops, they would usually be paid a visit by the KKK or White League and intimidated or worse in order to prevent African Americans from voting. In order to prevent poor or illiterate whites from being limited by the poll tax and the literacy test, southern states instituted the Grandfather Clause which exempted a voter from the requirements if their grandfather had voted before 1865 (did not apply to African Americans). The final means of excluding African Americans was the Jim Crow Laws which set up legal segregation in southern facilities. Although these laws clearly violated the equal protection clause of the 14 th Amendment, they were upheld by the Supreme Court in the Civil Rights Cases (1883 legalized segregation in private facilities) and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896 legalized segregation in public facilities as long as the facilities were equal ). (Document 14)