HIST 2057 Unit 1 Reconstruction 08 27 2015 I Reconstruction Overview o Reconstruction refers to the political and social process by which the former rebellious southern states came back to the united states o If you ask a white southerner would say reconstruction was tragic if you ask an African American southerner they would say it was a tragic period as well a valued attempt to create equal rights for all different but similar conclusion o Short period of time with enormous amount of change o 3 amendments to constitution occurred during this time period o Millions of people were slaves one day but then free the next o A lot of laws and amendments used by civil rights lawyers and activists to get the act and voting rights act came from reconstruction period o Reconstruction started in 1863 because some states were going back into the union already so there was a necessity to come up with some sort of policy to deal with the states that were coming back from rebellion o Goal of any war is to WIN it Lincoln thought the war could be won quicker is to get some of these states back into the union back as quickly as possible thereby frustrating confederacy into giving up didn t work but it was his thought II Presidential reconstruction part 1 a Lincoln president during Civil War and partly in Reconstruction wanted to get these states back into the union one being LA as quickly as possible so he had to ignore all the reasons why they fought the war in the first place i Reflected the goal to win the war and restore the union ii Put out emancipation proclamation iii iv A When 10 percent of state s voting population could be assembled they Full pardons willing to renounce succession and accept abolition could create state governments and start process of electing state legislature and election for governor and so on and so on BUT the slave population is left out no kinds of provisions talking about rights or how to make adjustment from slavery to freedom bc he wanted to get the states back into the union to shorten the war v LA AK TN and VA came back into union the plan angered others particularly republican congressmen congress responded with a harsher plan but Lincoln veto some evidence that if he lived he would ve made it harder for them but he was assassinated 5 days after civil war was over Andrew Johnson took over vi Lincoln renamed the republican party the unity party to make it sound better Johnson was not a part of Lincoln s political party he was from TN and a southern unionist never went w state when it succeeded from union he was self made and hated southern planters and it looked when he was VP that he was harsh on the south Johnson wanted southern leaders killed he only wanted to punish the masters III Presidential reconstruction part 2 His version of construction didn t look all that different from Lincoln s vii i Amnesty to former confederates similar to Lincoln s policy give up slaves and denounce succession BUT a provision said people owning property over 20 thousand dollars were excluded from provision the only way they could get tall back was if they made a person appeal to the president trying to embarrass the southern planters ii President would appoint southern unionist governors to each of the states they elected the same people that started the war in the first place the same people that said to hell with the constitution and started the war are now running the governments and leaving out slaves iii Northern responded not so well to this this angered a significant number of northern republicans b General Sherman had GA start a program to give land to former slaves when Johnson put forward his reconstruction plan they had to take the land back from the former slaves and give it back to original plantation owners southern states all back in union by end of 1865 new governments looked a lot like old governments c All these people in Washington had been southern leaders and now all DC leaders southern states governments had to have a status of African Americans remained as close to slavery as possible they could no longer have slavery but they wanted to ensure the conditions of African Americans stayed as close to slaves as possible d Black codes antebellum slave codes basically under mantle of protecting freed e man these codes while protecting basic rights proved to be oppressive and discriminatory South Carolina had limited African Americans in service required all AA to pay additional annual tax each year in a of sates AA would have to supply written proof of employment if they couldn t they were arrested under vagrancy laws if convicted of these laws they had to pay fines if no job they had to work out how to pay fines by working for planters JUST LIKE SLAVES WITHOUT PAY f White southerners were trying to reconstruct their own culture and economy as before civil war g Another problem is that newly free slaves were now counted as whole people under constitutional 3 5 compromise in constitution for purposes of presentation in the house of representatives each slave counts as 3 5 of a person h They didn t want to say slavery so they made it sound nicer i More representation for white southern so that AA s count as 5 5 or ONE human j This is not to say that northern whites were racially enlightened they wanted to make sure that slavery was dead and rebellion was dead k Northern didn t see any evidence that these ideas were dead so the northern in l congress started to act In 1865 when congress came back in to session they refused to seat southerners in congress they could do that bc of the law in constitution saying that any member of congress can challenge qualifications of another so northerners challenged entire southern congregation Crazy stuff a While southerners were gone northern wrote up civil rights act giving right of act to affirm AA to enjoy same benefits of law that white people do m Freedman s bureau government agency that gave jobs to try to help AA transition from slavery into freedom only supposed to run for a year northern extended life of FB while southerners were gone i Civil rights act Johnson vetoed bill but congress overrode so bill became ii Congress ratified 14th amendment 13th had already been ratified law 13th amendment IV Congressional Reconstruction abolished slavery 14th amendment gave citizenship to freed African Americans n of state legislature has to vote for something for it to become a part of the constitution i Southerners