1.

What to do with
4 million freed
slaves?
2. What to do with
the former
Confederate
states?
3. Who can let states
back into the Union?
Congress or the
President

Reconstruction in 1 Minute
• All Confederates
except prominent
military and
political leaders
could regain
citizenship by
taking an oath to
support the
Constitution and
the 13th
• Abolished slavery
• It passed Congress in
January 1865 and was
ratified in December13 1865
Amendment
th
• When 10% of
the number of
people who had
voted in the
election of 1860
took the oath,
that state
government
would be
recognized by
• In 1864, the
state
governments of
Tennessee,
Louisiana, and
Arkansas were
recognized by
Lincoln
• Many Republicans in
Congress disliked Lincoln’s
plan and they came up with
their own plan for
Reconstruction, a bill called
the Wade-Davis Bill
• The bill stated:
• Congress, not the
President, would be in
charge of letting the
former Confederate states
back into the Union
• The majority of the people
in a Confederate state, not
10%, must take an oath of
• The bill also stated:
• Confederate political and
military leaders were
disenfranchised (not
allowed to vote)
• Confederate debts were
repudiated (Confederate
states had to pay them off,
not the Union)
• Lincoln
pocket-
vetoed the
Wade-Davis
Bill angering
many of the
Republicans
Wade-Davis Bill (primary source)
Pocket Veto Explained
• On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes
Booth assassinated Lincoln at
Ford’s Theater in Washington,
D.C.
• A co-conspirator attacked and
wounded Secretary of State
William Seward
• Upon Lincoln’s death, Vice
re Lincoln
President
Pre side n t ial Box
t h
w
e
h
pl
e
aAndrew
y Johnson
ching
w as w at
became president What if Lincoln Had Lived?
1.Gave general
amnesty for all
Southerners
except for
Confederate
leaders and the
very wealthy
plantation
Presidency of Andrew Johnson

owners
Johnson and Reconstruction
2. Recognized
the
governments
of Virginia,
Tennessee,
Arkansas, and
Louisiana
3. The other states
could re-enter the
Union when they
wrote a new state
constitution, elected
a new state
government,
repudiated their war
debts, ratified the
13th Amendment, and
Reconstruction in 4 Minutes
Andrew Johnson – Under Pressure
• All 11 ex-
Confederate states ry
A n a n g
quickly qualified to e s s
Co n g r
be functioning to s e at
f u s e d
parts of the Union re c i als
the o ffi
• None the ex- h e ex-
from t
Confederate states d e r a te
gave African Confe
states
American men the
right to vote
• Former
Confederate
• Southern legislatures
adopted Black Codes
which:
• prohibited African
Americans from
renting or borrowing
money to buy land
• placed freedmen in a
form of semi-bondage
by forcing them to
sign work contracts
• prohibited African
Americans from
• The Ku Klux Klan
(KKK) and other
white supremacy
groups were
created to
intimidate
African
Americans and
white reformers
Rise of KKK
President Johnson
vetoed:
• a bill to renew the
services and
protection offered by
the Freedmen’s
Bureau
• a civil rights bill that
nullified the Black
Codes and
guaranteed Andrew Johnson and th
e Radical Republicans
full citizenship and
• By this time, Congress had
enough votes to override
Johnson’s vetoes allowing
them to take over
Reconstruction
• Congress was led by a group
of Republicans called the
Radical Republicans

Radical Republicans
• They were led by Thaddeus Stevens
in the House of Representatives and
Charles Sumner in the Senate

Thaddeus Charles
Stevens Sumner
• Radical Republicans wanted to
revolutionize Southern society through an
extended period of military rule
• During this military rule:
• African Americans would be free to
exercise their civil rights
• African Americans would be educated
in schools operated by the Federal
government
• African Americans would receive land
confiscated from the South’s wealthy
plantation owners – an idea often
referred to as “40 acres and a mule”
• Congress overrode President
Johnson’s veto and renewed
the Freedmen’s BureauRadical Reconstruction
Freedmen’s Bureau
• It was established in 1865 at the urging of
President Lincoln to assist freedmen in
the South
• In 1866, its charter was renewed by
Congress
• Helped freedmen find separated family
members
• Helped teach freedmen to read and write
• Acted as legal advocates for the freedmen
• Critics believed it prevented the freedmen
from learning how to be independent
Freedmen’sby
Bureau
giving them too much assistance
• Congress overrode Johnson’s
veto and passed the 1866 Civil
Rights Act
• The Act was the first to
attempt to define citizenship
and stated that all citizens
have equal protection under
the law
• In 1866, Congress passed the
14th Amendment which states
that all people born or
naturalized in the United States
are United States citizens with
full rights and are entitled to
due process 14 th

Amendment Crash Course

• It was ratified in 1868
• Even though some former
Confederate states had been
allowed to re-join the Union by
Presidents Lincoln and Johnson,
Congress only recognized the
state government of Tennessee
• In order for the former
Confederate states to re-enter
the Union, they had to:
• Pass a state constitution
guaranteeing African
American suffrage Reconstruction
• Ratify the 14th Amendment
• Agree that former Confederate
leaders could not hold office
• The 1867 Military
Reconstruction Acts divided the
former Confederate states (with
the exception of Tennessee)
into 5 military districts and
placed them under military rule
to ensure the civil rights of
freedmen
• Military rule lasted between 1-9
Military
Districts
• In 1867, Congress overrode
Johnson’s veto of the Tenure of
Office Act
• This act prohibited the President
from removing any Federal official
without the consent of the Senate
• A few months after the law was
passed, President Johnson fired
Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton
• The wording of the
law made it unclear if
Johnson actually
broke the Tenure of
Office Act, but
nonetheless, the
House of
Representatives
adopted 12 articles of
impeachment against
Johnson
• In order to convict
Johnson, the Senate
needed 2/3 of its
members (36 Senators)
to find him guilty
• 35 Senators voted
“guilty” while 19
Senators voted “not
guilty” so Johnson was
acquitted
• While Johnson remained
President,Impeachment
he spent his
of Andrew Johnson
final months unable to
 VS
African American
voters gave the
Republican
Party its margin of
.
Republican victory Democrat
Ulysses S. Horatio
Grant Seymour
Election of 1868
• The 1869 Supreme Court ruling
in Texas v. White upheld Radical
Reconstruction and ruled that
states could not secede from
the Union

Can Texas Secede?

• In 1870, the 15th Amendment
was ratified
• It guaranteed the right to
vote regardless of race,
color, or previous condition
of servitude 15 Amendment
th
• The Enforcement or Force Acts
were 3 acts passed by Congress
between 1870-1871 in response
to violence by the Ku Klux Klan
• The laws were designed to
protect African-Americans’ right
to vote, hold office, serve in
juries, and enforce the 14th and
15th Amendments while
increasing sanctions against the
Colfax Massacre
• The 1872 Amnesty Act
removed restrictions on ex-
Confederates (except top
leaders)
• This allowed Democrats to
re-take control of Southern
state governments
 VS
He won despite the
scandals during his
first term
.
Republican Democrat
Ulysses S. Horace Greeley
Grant
Election of 1872
• In 1875, Grant
signed the Civil
Rights Act
• It guaranteed
equal
accommodations,
equal public
transportation,
and prohibited
Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant
exclusion from
• During Radical Reconstruction,
African Americans were
elected to positions of power
in the South
• Many Southerners
resented
• Carpetbaggers –
Northerners who
went to the
South to make
money
• Scalawags –
Southerners who
helped Northern
• In order to produce crops,
landowners turned to a system
called sharecropping
• A landowner allowed workers
called sharecroppers to grow
crops on their land
• Sharecroppers were usually
freed slaves and poor whites
who did not own land Life of a Sharecropper
Sharecropping
• The sharecroppers worked the
land, raised the crop, sold the
crop, and gave a share
(usually 50%) of the profit to
the landowner
• Sharecroppers remained
dependent on landowners and
since sharecroppers often
bought supplies and food on
credit, they often remained in
• By 1876, Congressional
Reconstruction had ended
for most former
Confederate states
• Federal troops remained in
just 3 states – South
Carolina, Florida, and
Louisiana
 VS
Hayes
.
Republican
Rutherford B.
Election of 1876
Democrat
Samuel J.
Tilden
• Tilden won the popular vote
• However, in order to win the election,
Tilden needed 1 more electoral vote
from contested results in South
Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana
• The Congressionally appointed
Electoral Commission voted 8-7 to give
the electoral votes in South Carolina,
Florida, and Louisiana to Hayes
• Democrats protested because this
meant that Hayes would be President
despite losing the popular election
Parts of the Compromise of 1877
(Tilden-Hayes Compromise):
• Democrats agreed to allow Hayes
to become President
• All remaining Federal troops would
be removed from the South
• Hayes would appoint a Southern
Democrat to his cabinet
• Republicans would support a
southern transcontinental railroad
The Great Betrayal
route Compromise of 1877
The compromise
ended
Reconstruction

Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes

• Once Congressional Reconstruction
ended, southern states passed laws to
restrict the rights of African Americans
• Literacy Tests became a voting
requirement and they were
purposefully designed to prevent
African Americans from passing
• Poll Taxes were levied to require
voters to pay a fee in order to vote
• Grandfather Clauses exempted poor
whites from the literacy tests and poll
taxes if their grandfather had
Georgia’s been
Literacy Test
eligible to vote
• Black Codes and Jim Crow laws
were state and local ordinances
that further restricted the
rights of African Americans and
promoted segregation and
disenfranchisement
• These state and local laws
limited the effectiveness of the
14th and 15th Amendments and
remained until 1964
• During the 1880s and 1890s, the
Supreme Court struck down
Reconstruction laws that protected
African Americans from
discrimination further destroying
progress that had been made by
African Americans during
Congressional Reconstruction
• In 1898, the Supreme Court
upheld “separate, but equal”
Failures and Successes of
public facilities in Plessy v.
Reconstruction
• Reformers envisioned a post-
Reconstruction South modeled after
the industrial North, a “New South”
• The term “New South” was coined
by an Atlanta newspaper editor
named Henry Grady
• But, the South did not abandon its
agricultural roots and embrace
industrialization
• By 1900, the South was the poorest
After Reconstruction
region in the United States
Great Migration
• After Congressional
Reconstruction ended, the
Democratic Party again
emerged as the prominent
party in the South
• For the next 100 years, the
South was often called the
Solid South because
Democrats controlled the