Ch. 16 The Crises of Reconstruction 1865-1877 (2008)

APUSH – Cornwell

Mon. Dec. 8

•pp. 477-488: The Politics of Reconstruction

Tues. Dec. 9

•Readings Quiz 477-488

pp. 488-500: Reconstruction Governments and the Impact of Emancipation

Wed. Dec. 10

•pp. 500-508: New Concerns in the North and Reconstruction Abandoned

•Reconstruction ONE-PAGER in class

Thurs. 11

•Reconstruction Essay in class

Fri. 12

•ch 16 multiple choice exam

•ch 16 short answer due

•ch 16 notecards due

Notecards:

Charles Sumner

Thaddeus Stevens

Radical Republicans

Lincoln’s 10 percent plan

Wade-Davis bill

Andrew Johnson

Thirteenth Amendment

Black codes

Freedmen’s Bureau

Civil Rights Act of 1866

Fourteenth Amendment

Reconstruction Act of 1867

Reconstruction Amendments

Tenure of Office Act

carpetbaggers and scalawags

Ku Klux Klan

Enforcement Acts

Panic of 1873

sharecropping and crop-lien system

Civil Rights Act of 1875

William M. Tweed

Grantism

sound money vs. easy money debate

Slaughterhouse cases

Liberal Republicans and Horace Greeley

Compromise of 1877

Short Answer Questions:

1. What actions of President Johnson drove Moderate Republicans in Congress into cooperation with Radical Republicans?

2. What impact did federal Reconstruction policy have on the former Confederacy, and on ex-Confederates?

3. In what ways did newly freed southern slaves reshape their lives after emancipation?

4. Explain how Supreme Court decisions in the 1870’s and 1880’s undermined Republican Reconstruction.

5. What were the terms of the Compromise of 1877? Which of the terms were actually carried out after the inauguration of Rutherford B. Hayes?

6.To what extent should Reconstruction be considered a failure?

Reconstruction Summary:

When the Civil War ended in 1865, the slaves had been emancipated and the South militarily defeated, but there

was no consensus about how to integrate the slaves into American society and restore the rebel states into the

Union. Presidents Lincoln and Johnson attempted to install loyal state governments quickly but faced opposition from congressional Republicans who wanted to punish southerners. Johnson foiled his Republican opponents while Congress was not in session by restoring the southern states on generous terms, but Johnson refused to give land on plantations confiscated by Union troops to African Americans who had hoped to keep it. Johnson’s supporters fared poorly in the congressional elections of 1866, so congressional Republicans divided the South into five military districts through the Reconstruction Act of 1867. Congress impeached Johnson, failing to convict him by only one vote, and in 1868 the nation elected Ulysses S. Grant, a supporter of the Radical Republicans, to the presidency.

Southern state governments under Republican control included African Americans, white southerners who

hoped to attract northern capital or rid the South of the planter aristocracy, and northerners who moved south to settle. They modernized and democratized state governments and built schools, hospitals, roads, and railroads.

African Americans built their own social institutions, creating new communities and founding their own churches. Former slave owners united in the Democratic Party to regain political control of the South. Appealing to racial solidarity and southern patriotism, they gained the allegiance of poorer whites and terrorized black voters through violent secret societies. Grant’s unwillingness to risk reopening the war allowed former Confederates to regain control of all but three southern states by 1877.

With diminishing political power and limited land redistribution, freedmen became sharecroppers in debt to the

landlords and merchants who provided them with supplies at exorbitant prices and interest. During his second term, Grant’s administration was plagued by scandals and economic depression. In 1876, although Democrat Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote, electoral votes were contested in the three southern states still under military control. A congressional commission gave the contested electoral votes to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, a decision congressional Democrats accepted. Reconstruction then ended, leaving African Americans without federal support.