Michael Doherty

I. Presidential Reconstruction
A. The War’s Aftermath
1. Physical Toll
a) destroyed much in the south
- about 9,000 miles of railroad
- farmland, farm buildings, and farm machinery
2. The Human Toll
a) destroyed generation of young, healthy men
b) north lost 364,000 soldiers, including 38,000 African Americans
c) south lost 260,000 soldiers, 1/5 its adult white men
3. Southerners’ Hardships
a) After war South made up of three groups of people
b) black southerners
- near 4 million freed people starting new lives in a poor region with
slow economic activity
- many found themselves homeless, jobless, and hungry
- some chose to continue work on plantations of their former masters
c) plantation owners
- lost slave labor worth about $3 billion
- Captured and Abandoned Property Act of 1863 allowed federal
government to seize $100 million in southern plantations and
cotton
- some had to sell their property to cover debts
d) poor white southerners
- many could not find work because of new job competition from
freedmen
- poor families began migrating to frontier lands
4. Punishment or Pardon?
a) end of slavery raised difficult questions
B. Lincoln’s Reconstruction Plan
5. Ten Percent Plan for Reconstruction
a) purposed by Lincoln in December of 1863
b) forgiving to the South
- offered pardon to any Confederate who would take an oath of
allegiance to Union and accept federal policy on slavery
- denied pardons to Confederate military and government officials to
southerners who killed African American war prisoners
- constitution only after 10% of voters had sworn allegiance
6. Radical Republicans
a) group of congressmen from Lincoln’s own party
7. Wade-Davis Act
a) Congress’ own, stricter Reconstruction plan
b) Lincoln let bill die in a pocket veto
 8. Lincoln’s death
a) murdered on April 14, 1865 by John Wilkes Booth
B. Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan
a) reconstruction was now in the hands of a one-time slave owner
- former Vice-President, Andrew Johnson
b) Congress in recess for 8 months when Johnson took office
c) during 8 months, Johnson pursued his own plan
C. The Taste of Freedom
2. Freedom of Movement
a) during war, slaves simply walked away from plantations upon hearing
a northern army was approaching
3. Freedom to Own Land
4. Freedom to Worship
a) new black organizations arose
b) formed their own churches and started thousands of voluntary groups
- mutual aid societies, debating clubs, drama societies, and trade
associations
5. Freedom to Learn
a) 90% of black adults illiterate, southern states had banned educating
slaves, white teachers went south to start schools
6. The Freedmen’s Bureau
a) created by Congress to help black southerners adjust to freedom
b) first major relieve agency in U.S. history
c) lacked strong support in Congress
II. Congressional Reconstruction
C. Black Codes
a) first order of business in new white-run governments was to enact
black codes
- laws that restricted freedmen’s rights
b) curfews
c) vagrancy laws,
- if not working, could be fined, whipped, or sold for a year’s labor
d) labor contracts
- had to sign agreements for a year of work
e) land restrictions
- freed people could rent land or homes only in rural areas, forcing
them to live on plantations
D. The Fourteenth Amendment
a) Southern defiance of Reconstruction enraged northern Republicans
b) blamed President Johnson for southern Democrats’ return to power
c) passed Civil Rights Act, outlawing the black codes  Johnson vetoed
d) Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment
- states all persons born or naturalized in United States are citizens
A. Radical Reconstruction
e) congressional Republicans who drafted Fourteenth Amendment
consisted of two groups
 f) both groups apposed Johnson’s Reconstruction policies and the spread
of black codes
g) both favored the expansion of Republican Party in the South
2. The North Grows Impatient
a) reluctance to grant civil rights began to dissolve as word of new
violence against African Americans spread
b) Clara Barton gave graphic testimony in Congress about injured black
victims she treated
3. Strict Laws Imposed
a) Reconstruction Act of 1867 passed by Radicals in Congress
- put South under military rule, dividing it into five districts, each
governed by northern generals
- required states to allow all qualified male voters, including African
Americans, to vote in elections
- required southern states to guarantee equal rights to all citizens
- required states to ratify Fourteenth Amendment
4. Congress and the President
5. A Power Struggle
6. Johnson is Impeached
a) House found Johnson’s firing of Stanton as unconstitutional
b) voted 126 to 47 to have Johnson impeached
c) Senate tried Johnson for “high crimes and misdemeanors”
d) Johnson escaped losing office by one vote
7. Grant is Elected
a) Republicans chose a trusted candidate, Ulysses S. Grant
b) Grant beat Democrat Horatio Seymour in a close race
B. The Fifteenth Amendment
8. The First Votes
a) military begun to register freedmen under Reconstruction Act of 1867
b) 735,000 African Americans joined voting rolls and transformed
politics in the South
c) many blacks voted while most whites didn’t participate
9. Electing Black Leaders
a) with the Fifteenth Amendment in place and federal troops stationed,
southern black men proudly voted for the first time
b) more than 600 African Americans elected to state legislatures
10. Integrating the Capitol
a) extension of vote to freedmen led to first African Americans to the
House
b) Hiram Revels because first African American elected to Senate
E. The Republican South
1. Carpetbaggers
a) northern republicans who moved to postwar South
b) name implied that northerners had stuffed some clothes into a
carpetbag and rushed in to profit from southern misery
 c) included former union soldiers, black northerners, Freedmen’s Bureau
officials, businessmen, clergy, and political leaders
2. Scalawags
a) to be white and southerner and a Republican in postwar South was
being seen as being a traitor
III. Birth of the “New South”
A. Changes in Farming
3. Wanted: Workers
a) destruction of plantations because of Civil War not permanent
b) planters managed to hang onto their land or regained after debts were
paid
4. Sharecropping
a) farmed some portion of a planter’s land
5. Tenant Farming
a) tenant farmer did not own the land they farmed
b) paid to rent the land
6. Effects on the South
a) Changes in labor force
- before Civil War 90% of South’s cotton harvest by African
Americans
b) Emphasis on cash crops
- cotton, tobacco, and sugar cane
c) Cycle of debt
- rural poverty deeply rooted in the south, blacks and whites alike
- both remained in a cycle of debt
d) Rise of merchants
- stores sprang up around plantations to sell supplies on credit
- by 1880, south had more than 8,000 rural stores
F. Cities and Industry
1. The Growth of Cities
2. Limits of Industrial Growth
a) Reconstruction still did not transform South into industrialized urban
region
b) most southern factories did not make finished goods such as furniture
c) handled early, less profitable stages of manufacturing
- producing lumber or pig iron
G. Funding Reconstruction
1. Raising Money
a) South was one giant business opportunity
b) included roads, bridges, canals, railroads, and telegraph lines
c) some states also used Reconstruction funds to expand services to their
citizens
2. Corruption
a) enormous sums of money changed hands rapidly in form of fraudulent
loans and grants
IV. The End of Reconstruction
A. Spreading Terror
b) “Ku Klux Klan” - wore robes and masks and pretended to be ghosts
of Confederate soldiers, returning from the dead in search of revenge
for the South
c) led by Nathan Bedford Forrest, the “grand wizard”
d) Forrest was a Confederate general who may have ordered massacre of
more than 300 black men, women and children when his troops
captured For Pillow, Tennessee
1. Federal Response
a) Congress passed series of anti-Klan laws
b) Enforcement Act of 1870 banned use of terror, force, or bribery to
prevent people from voting because of their race
c) using troops, cavalry, and power of courts, government arrested and
tried thousands of Klansmen
d) KKK was virtually wiped out
H. Reconstruction Ends
1. A Dying Issue
a) white voters grew weary of Republicans and their decade-long concern
with Reconstruction
b) four main factors contributing to end of Reconstruction:
c) corruption
- Reconstruction legislatures came to symbolize corruption, greed,
and poor government
d) the economy
- Reconstruction legislatures taxed and spent heavily putting
southern states deeper in debt
e) violence
f) Democrats returning to power
2. Supreme Court Limits Scope of Amendments
a) Supreme Court played a role in bringing end of Reconstruction
b) in some cases, Supreme Court narrowly interpreted Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments
- Slaughterhouse Cases, U.S. v. Reese, and U.S. v. Cruickshank
c) placed control of Americans’ basic civil rights in hands of the states
3. The Compromise of 1877
a) Reconstruction politics took final, sour turn in election of 1876
b) electoral vote was disputed
c) Hayes claimed victory based party on wins in Florida, Louisiana, and
South Carolina, all still under Republican and federal control
d) two parties made a deal, known as Compromise of 1877
- New President agreed to support appropriations for rebuilding
levees along Mississippi River and give huge subsidies to southern
railroads