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Important For What It Failed To Do

Important For What It Failed To Do. Reconstruction 1864-1877. Outline. The Residue of War (1860-1865) Presidential Reconstruction (1865-1867) Congressional/Radical Reconstruction (1867-1877) Abandoning Reconstruction (1877-1950?). 1. The Residue of War.

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Important For What It Failed To Do

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  1. Important For What It Failed To Do Reconstruction 1864-1877

  2. Outline • The Residue of War (1860-1865) • Presidential Reconstruction (1865-1867) • Congressional/Radical Reconstruction (1867-1877) • Abandoning Reconstruction (1877-1950?)

  3. 1. The Residue of War How wartime developments and destruction affected post-war decisions

  4. Lies, Damn Lies, and… • Some Statistics: • 285,000 dead Confederate Soldiers • 4 million freed slaves with nowhere to go and no resources • How many wounded? • How many maimed? • Psychological costs? • Damage to Southern Infrastructure

  5. Cold Harbor

  6. Charleston

  7. “They won their freedom and not much else”

  8. Legal Legacy of the War • Emancipation Proclamation, • January 1, 1863 • Gettysburg Address, • November 19, 1863 • Lincoln Assassinated, • April 14, 1865 • Thirteenth Amendment, • December 6, 1865

  9. Practical Reconstruction, Practical Emancipation

  10. Out of necessity • By 1862, Lincoln had named military governors for Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana

  11. Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (1863) • A rebel state could form a new state government when 10% of those who had voted in 1860 had taken an oath of allegiance to the union. • They also had to swear to support all laws and proclamations regarding emancipation • Some groups of Southerners, those considered particularly traitorous, such as military men who had been part of the army before the war, and high officials of the confederate government

  12. Walking the Line Presidential Reconstruction, 1865-1867

  13. Not as obvious as it appears… • In most wars, how is peace made? • Why might this not work following the American Civil War?

  14. A Peculiar Problem • Premise of the war: The South has no right to secede • Technically they never left… • Do they need to be re-admitted?

  15. The North never recognized the Confederacy as a real government • You cannot sign a peace treaty with a bunch of criminals, traitors, or rebels

  16. $1,000,000 Question • How were the Southern States to be brought back into the Union?

  17. The Issues • The Vote for Blacks? • Land for freed Slaves? • Loyalty of Southerners? • Confederate Soldiers/Traitors? • How to form new governments? • Who should pay to rebuild the Southern economy?

  18. Lincoln and Reconstruction • Moderate • More concerned with re-union than slavery • Puts forth a plan in 1863 Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction

  19. The Lincoln Plan • Southern State governments accept slave emancipation • All southerners take an oath of loyalty to the Union • When 10% of the state has taken the oath, they can form a state government and will be readmitted

  20. Congressional Resistance • Republicans Control Congress during the Civil War when Southern Democrats withdrew and seceded • Republican Congress was determined to maintain their influence and not have their industrial legislative program overturned

  21. Wade-Davis Bill (1864) • A majority (not 10%, but 51% had to take the oath) • Appoint a provisional governor to each state to oversee the creation of state governments (South not to be trusted) • Former confederate soldiers could not vote in this initial creation

  22. Southern Reconstruction Plan - 1865 • Must put Emancipation in their new state constitutions • Wade-David bill passed and Lincoln vetoed it • They didn’t work it out before Lincoln was assassinated

  23. Andrew Johnson (not JohnsTon) • Lincoln’s VP • “War Democrat” from Virginia • Chosen to placate South in 1860 election • Initially continued Lincoln’s moderate policies

  24. Johnson Clashes With Congress • Johnson placates Southern leaders in hopes of extracting enough change to satisfy the radicals in Congress • Doesn’t work - the South makes few concessions, begins passing the Black Codes • Congress becomes increasingly alarmed

  25. “Cannon Conquer, but they do not necessarily convert” Southern Resistance to Reconstruction

  26. “None of us realize that we are no longer wealthy—yet thanks to the Yankees, the cause of all this unhappiness, such is the case. As long as I thought we would conquer in our just cause, I cared nothing for the loss of property for I felt as if we would be rich if we had Our Rights & Our Country left us—but now they are lost too, & we have suffered in vain. In vain! There is where the bitterness lies!” • ~Amanda Worthington, Plantation mistress from Mississippi

  27. After the War • “It seems humiliating to be compelled to bargain and haggle with our servants about wages”

  28. Post-War Anger • “One mother said she trained her children to “fear God, love the South, and live to avenge her.”

  29. Political Resistance • Repealing vs. Repudiating Ordinances of Secession • Mississippi & Texas refuse to ratify 13th Amendment • Georgia ratified it on condition of slave holders being compensated • States refused to grant rights to former slaves • Passing of “Black Codes”

  30. A less-than-hidden agenda… • Legal for slaves to marry, own property, and sue in court • Required a special license for Blacks to work in any area except agriculture

  31. Could not serve on juries and could not testify against Whites • Vagrancy Laws

  32. “[Reconstruction included] a striking embodiment of the idea that although the former owner has lost his individual right of property in the former slaves, the blacks at large belong to the whites at large.” ~Carl Schurz, Republican politician

  33. What must Reconstruction do? • Reconstruction must “revolutionize Southern institutions, habits, and manners….The foundations of their institutions must be broken and relaid, or all our blood and treasure have been spent in vein.” • ~Thaddeus Stevens

  34. The Freedmen will “be tyrannized over, abused, and virtually re-enslaved without some legislation by the nation for his protection.” • ~Lyman Trumbull, Senator

  35. Retribution Congressional (radical) Reconstruction

  36. 14th Amendment (Passed 1865) ▪Defined citizenship and guaranteed rights of the Constitution, by both the State and Federal government ▪Enforced suffrage for all adults males (nothing said about race)

  37. 14th Amendment • Ratifying the 14th Amendment was now the only requirement for Southern state re-admittance to Union

  38. The Radical Congressional Program • Punish Confederate leadership, civilians and military • Actively protect legal rights of Blacks • Disenfranchise disloyal white Southerners • Confiscate land of wealthy Confederates and distribute it to freed Blacks

  39. Conspiracy?

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