HIST 1312 1st Edition Exam 2 Study Guide Lectures 8 13 Reconstruction 13th 14th and 15th amendments to the U S Constitution o 13th Abolished slavery o 14th All persons born in the US were citizens and were to be given full and equal benefit of all laws i e blacks became citizens o 15th Blacks were given the right to vote Andrew Johnson and presidential reconstruction o To Lincoln s successor Johnson fell the task of overseeing the restoration of the Union o Johnson identified himself as the champion of his state s honest yeomen and a foe of large planters whom he described as a bloated corrupted aristocracy o Since he was a strong defender of the Union he became the only senator from a seceding state to remain at his post in DC o Lincoln named him military governor o Republicans nominated him for Vice President as an extending hand to the South o He lacked Lincoln s political skills and keen sense of public opinion o He held deeply racist views and believed that Reconstruction had nothing to do with African Americans o Johnson in May 1865 outlined his plan for reuniting the nation o He issued a series of proclamations that began the period of Presidential o o o o Reconstruction 1865 1867 Johnson offered pardon to nearly all white southerners who took an oath of allegiance Restored political and property rights except for slaves He excluded Confederate leaders and wealthy planters whose prewar property has been valued at more than 20 000 Most of those who did not agree where later pardoned Johnson also appointed provisional governors and ordered them to call state conventions elected by whites alones that would establish loyal governments in the South The conduct of the southern governments elected under Johnson s program turned most of the Republican North against the president Radical Republicans and radical reconstruction o When Congress assembled in December 1865 Johnson announced that with loyal governments functioning in all southern states the nation had been reunited o In response Radical Republicans who had grown increasingly disenchanted with Johnson during the summer and fall called for the dissolution of these governments and the establishment of new ones with rebels excluded from power and black men guaranteed the right to vote o Radicals shared the conviction that union victory created the golden opportunity to institutionalize the principle of equal rights for all regardless of race Civil Rights Act of 1875 o the Civil Rights Act of 1875 outlawed racial discrimination in places of public accommodation like hotels and theaters political participation of former slaves o Neither black voting nor black office holding came to an abrupt end in 1877 o Nonetheless political opportunities became more and more restricted o Not until the 1990s would the number of black legislators in the South approach the level seen during Reconstruction o With black men of talent and ambition turning away from politics the banner of political leadership passed to black women activists o The National Association of Colored Women 1896 brought together local and regional women s clubs to press both for women s rights and racial uplif o By insisting on the right of black women to be considered as respectable as their white counterparts the women reformers challenged the racial ideology that consigned all blacks to the status of degraded second class citizens o For nearly a generation afer the end of The Reconstruction despite fraud and violence black southerners continued to cast ballots in large numbers o Despite the limits of these alliances especially those involving the Populists the threat of biracial political insurgency frightened the ruling Democrats and contributed greatly to the disenfranchisement movement o Between 1890 and 1906 every southern state enacted laws or constitutional provisions meant to eliminate the black votes o The most popular devices were the poll tax a fee that each citizen had to pay in order to retain the right to vote literacy tests and the requirement that a prospective voter demonstrate to election officials an understanding of the state constitution o Six southern states also adopted a grandfather clause exempting from the new requirements descendants of persons eligible to vote before the Civil War when only whites could cast ballots in the South o The racial intent of the grandfather clause was so clear that the Supreme Court in 1915 invalidated such laws for violating the 15th Amendment o Numerous poor and illiterate whites also lost the right to vote o Disenfranchisement led directly to the rise of a generation of southern demagogues who mobilized white voters by extreme appeals to racism o As late as 1940 only 3 percent of adult black southerners were registered to vote o The elimination of black and many white voters which reversed the nineteenth century trend toward more inclusive suffrage could to have been accomplished without the approval of the North and The Supreme Court both of which gave their approval to disenfranchisement laws in clear violation of the 14 th Amendment first KKK violence against former slaves o Ku Klux Klan KKK most notorious secret society Served as a military arm of the Democratic Party in the South Founded in 1866 in Tennessee It was a terrorist organization It committed some of the most brutal criminal acts in American history Klan s victims included white Republicans among them wartime Unionists and local officeholders teachers and party organizers But African Americans local political leaders those who managed to acquire land and others who in one way or another defied the norms of white supremacy bore the brunt of the violence The bloodiest act of violence during Reconstruction took place in Colfax Louisiana in 1873 where armed whites assaulted the town with a small cannon Hundreds of former slaves were murdered including fify members of a black militia unit afer they had surrendered Redeemers o Democrats mid 1870s had already regained control of states with substantial white voting majorities o The victorious Democrats called themselves Redeemers since they claimed to have redeemed the white South from corruption misgovernment and northern and black control o In Mississippi 1875 armed Democrats destroyed ballot boxes and drove former slaves from the polls The result was a Democratic landslide and the end of Reconstruction in Mississippi Similar events took place in South Carolina in 1876 o The failure of Populism in