Reconstruction Era

Four Major Post-War Questions

1) How would the South, physically devastated by war and socially revolutionized by emancipation, be rebuilt? 2) How would the liberated blacks fare as free men and women? 3) How would the Southern states be reintegrated into the Union? 4) Who would direct the process of Reconstructionthe Southern states, the president, or Congress?

Southern Economic Issues

Financial Industry Banks and business houses had locked their doors, ruined by runaway inflation Worthless Confederate money No credit was available Returned to bartering system for goods (Household Economy)

Southern Economic Issues

Industry Factories were smokeless, silent, dismantled Widespread destruction of farm buildings and machinery

Transportation Network of railroads had broken down completely Widespread destruction of roads and bridges

Southern Economic Issues

Agriculture The economic lifeblood of the South was almost hopelessly crippled Fields were weed-filled and unplanted Slave-labor system had collapsed Seed was scarce Livestock had been killed or driven off by plundering Yankee soldiers

Southern Economic Issues

Planter Aristocrats Charred and gutted mansions Lost investments
$2 billion in slaves alone

Worthless land

The Freedmen
Emancipation of the slaves took effect haltingly and unevenly in different parts of the conquered Confederacy Many blacks found themselves emancipated and then re-enslaved Slave owners resorted to violence as well as legal means to keep blacks in a state of involuntary servitude Slaves themselves resisted the liberating Union soldiers because of their loyalty to their masters

The Freedmen
Once emancipation became permanent, Freedmen
Took on new last names and demanded that whites use Mr. or Mrs. when addressing them Threw off the rags of slavery and sought silks, satins, and other finery Took to the roads to test their freedom and to search for long-lost spouses, parents, and children Formalized their slave marriages which helped to strengthen African-American families

The Freedmen
Once emancipation became permanent, Freedmen
Left the plantations and migrated to large cities and created pockets of African-American settlement
10 largest Southern cities doubled in black population between 1865 and 1870

Migrated as a group (25,000) to Kansas

aka- Exodusters

Started their own churches with their own ministers

Formed the bedrock of black community life Gave rise to other benevolent, fraternal, and mutual aid societies

Learned to read and write (sought education)

The Freedmens Bureau

Emancipation unleashed millions of former slaves who were overwhelmingly unskilled, unlettered, without property or money, and with little knowledge of how to survive as free people March, 1865- Congress created the Freedmens Bureau to help cope with this problem

The Freedmens Bureau

Purpose- To provide aid and support to freedmen and dispossessed whites Activities Distributed food and clothing Helped freedmen who returned to the plantations to get pay and guaranteed rights Provided education opportunities

The Freedmens Bureau

Headed By- Oliver O. Howard Greatest Success- Educating the freedmen
Freedmen made this aspect successful because they wanted to close the gap between themselves and the whites in the area of education and for the purpose of reading the Bible Freedmen saw education as their ticket to freedom Northern church and charitable groups participated in aiding freedmen to obtain an education American Missionary Association played a role in helping establish black colleges Freedmens Bureau established Howard University as well as 4,000 lower level schools Southern states eventually established public school systems

The Freedmens Bureau

Failures No Congressional support (funds) Programs only lasted a year or two because they ran out of money Forty-acre plots of land that belonged to Confederates were promised to the Freedmen, but were never received Local admin and planters expelled blacks from towns
Ended up back on the plantations as field laborers

President Johnson tried multiple times to destroy the Bureau and it expired in 1872

Andrew Johnson
1864- Lincolns Union Party needed to attract support from the War Democrats and other pro-Southern elements, and Johnson, a Democrat, was their ideal man Johnson was a staunch champion of states rights and the Constitution, but when he took the presidency he became a misfit
A Southerner who did not understand the North A Tennessean who had earned the distrust of the South A Democrat who had never been accepted by the Republicans A president who had not been elected to the office

The wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time!!!

Presidential Reconstruction
1863- Lincoln initiated his 10% Plan
aka- Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction Lincoln sought to reunite the country in a peaceful way Amnesty- a general pardon granted by a ruler or government to a large group of persons guilty of a political offense 10% of those Southerners who voted in the election of 1860 pledge an oath of loyalty to the Union

Congress Responds
1864- Congress initiates the Wade-Davis Bill
Much harsher than Lincolns arrangement for Reconstruction 50% of a states voters would take an oath of allegiance Demanded stronger safeguards for emancipation than Lincolns as the price of readmission to the Union

Presidential Reconstruction
Lincoln promptly pocket-vetoed the WadeDavis bill by refusing to sign it after Congress had adjourned for the year Republicans in Congress were outraged
Refused to readmit Louisiana in 1864 based upon Lincolns 10% plan Congress had taken a different tact than Lincoln by suggesting that the states who seceded forfeited all their rights and could only be readmitted as conquered provinces

Presidential Reconstruction
Towards the end of the war the Republicans became split over the issue of Reconstruction
Moderates- (majority) agreed with Lincoln that the seceded states should be restored to the Union as simply and swiftly as reasonableon Congresss terms, not the presidents Radicals- believed that the South should atone more painfully for its sins
Wanted the Souths social structure to be uprooted, the planters punished, and the newly emancipated blacks protected by federal power

Presidential Reconstruction
Radicals were secretly pleased with the assassination of President Lincoln
Believed that Johnson shared their dislike for the planter aristocrats in the South

Johnson supported Lincolns 10% plan

Quickly recognized several Confederate states as being readmitted under such a plan

May, 1865- Johnson issued his own reconstruction plan

Presidential Reconstruction
Johnsons Plan for Reconstruction
Disfranchised certain leading Confederates
Particularly those with taxable property worth more than $20,000

Called for special state conventions which were required to repeal the ordinances of secession, repudiate all Confederate debts, and ratify the slave-freeing 13th amendment
States that adhered to his plan would be swiftly readmitted to the Union

The Black Codes

Newly readmitted states enacted a series of laws aimed directly at the Freedmen designed to regulate the affairs of the emancipated blacks
Aimed to ensure a stable and subservient labor force Exacted extreme penalties on blacks who jumped their labor contracts No voting rights / no jury duty Orphaned children became apprentices to their former slave owners Freedmen signed one-year labor contracts that tied them to particular plantations and owners Freedmen were only able to hold farming or servant jobs Could only leave plantation with permission from their masters

Sharecroppers
Freedmen lacked capital, skills, and resources and thus ended up as sharecroppers White landowners broke up estates into small units and set up a freed black family on each unit
Families were provided with land, housing, seeds, tools, and animals Families could keep part of what they grew as their pay
Anywhere from 10% to 50% of the crops produced

Sharecroppers
Freedmen liked this situation because it gave them independence and motive to work hard
Thoughnatural disasters and drought caused serious problems resulting in the freedmen not being able to feed their families

White businessmen got wealthy off of freedmen who borrowed against the next years crops Resulted in a vicious cycle of debt that reduced the sharecroppers to virtual peonage