Chapter 17 Section 1

Chapter 17

Chapter 17 Section 1

I. Reconstruction Debate (Pages 500–502)

A. Americans faced many difficult issues over how Reconstruction, or rebuilding the

South, should be carried out. Before the war was over, Lincoln proposed in 1863 the

Ten Percent Plan for accepting Southern states back into the Union. When ten percent

of the voters of a state took an oath of loyalty to the Union, the state could form a new

government and adopt a new constitution banning slavery.

1. Lincoln wanted Southerners who supported the Union to take charge of the state

governments.

2. Lincoln offered amnesty to all white Southerners who were willing to swear loyalty

to the Union, except Confederate leaders.

3. He supported giving educated African Americans or those who served in the

Union army the right to vote.

4. Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee established governments under Lincoln’s plan

in 1864. A struggle occurred when Congress refused to seat their representatives.

B. Amore radical plan proposed by Radical Republicans called for a tougher approach

to Reconstruction. The plan called for breaking up Southern institutions. Since the

Radical Republicans controlled Congress, they voted to deny seats to any state

reconstructed under Lincoln’s plan.

C. Congress developed its own harsh plan in July 1864 by passing the Wade-Davis Bill.

1. Fifty percent of white males had to swear loyalty.

2. Only white males who swore they had never fought against the Union could vote

for delegates to a state convention.

3. Former Confederates were denied the right to hold public office.

4. If a new state constitution abolishing slavery was adopted at a convention, then

the state could be readmitted to the Union.

5. Lincoln refused to sign the bill. He knew, though, that he would have to compromise

with the Radical Republicans.

D. Another difficult issue of Reconstruction was how to help freed African Americans.

Anew government agency, the Freedmen’s Bureau, was established to help former

enslaved persons. It distributed food and clothing, provided medical services, and

established schools staffed mostly by teachers from the North. It helped African

Americans buy land and get jobs and receive fair wages. It also gave aid to new

African American higher institutions of learning, such as Atlanta University, Howard

University, and Fisk University.

II. Lincoln Assassinated! (Pages 502–503)

A. The country mourned the death of a man who saved the Union and helped African

Americans win freedom. On the evening of April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was shot

while attending a play at the Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. His assassin, John

Wilkes Booth, entered the box Lincoln was sitting in, shot him in the back of the head,

and escaped. Lincoln died a few hours later at the home of a nearby tailor.

B. Vice President Andrew Johnson became the president. As a former senator, he was the

only Southern senator to support the Union. He called his plan for the South

“Restoration.”

1. Most Southerners would be granted amnesty once they swore an oath of loyalty to

the Union.

2. High-ranking Confederate officials and wealthy landowners could only be pardoned

by applying personally to the president. This was his way of attacking the

wealthy leaders who he thought tricked Southerners into seceding.

3. The president would appoint governors and require them to hold elections for

state constitutional conventions.

4. Only whites that swore their loyalty and had been pardoned would be allowed to

vote.

5. Before a state could reenter the Union, its constitutional convention had to

denounce secession and abolish slavery.

6. States had to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment passed in January 1865 that

abolished slavery.

C. By the end of 1865, Johnson declared Restoration was almost complete because all the

former Confederate states had established new governments and were ready to rejoin

the Union.

Chapter 17, Section 2

end

I. African Americans’ Rights (Pages 504–506)

A. The new Southern states passed a series of laws in 1865 and early 1866 called black

codes. These laws reestablished slavery in disguise. They deprived freed people of

their rights and enabled plantation owners to exploit African American workers.

1. Some laws allowed local officials to arrest and fine unemployed African

Americans and make them work for white employers to pay off their fines.

2. Other laws banned African Americans from owning or renting farms.

3. One law allowed whites to take orphaned African American children as unpaid

apprentices.

B. Congress challenged the black codes. It extended the life of the Freedmen’s Bureau in

1866 and granted it the power to set up special courts to prosecute people charged with

violating the rights of African Americans. It also passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866,

giving full citizenship to African Americans, and gave the federal government the right to

intervene in state affairs to protect them. It overturned black codes and contradicted the

1857 Supreme Court Dred Scott decision saying that African Americans were not citizens.

C. Johnson vetoed both bills. However, Republicans were able to override both

vetoes and the bills became law. This split between the president and the Radical

Republicans led Congress to draft a new Reconstruction Plan.

D. In June 1866 Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution granting

full citizenship to all individuals born in the United States. The amendment also says

that no state can take away a citizen’s life, liberty, and property “without due process

of law.” Every citizen was also entitled to “equal protection of the laws.”

1. It did not include voting rights for African Americans.

2. It also barred certain former Confederates from holding national or state office

unless pardoned by a two-thirds vote of Congress.

E. Congress declared that Southern states must ratify the amendment in order to be

readmitted to the Union. Because Tennessee was the only state to ratify early, adoption

of the amendment was delayed until 1868 when the other ten states finally ratified it.

F. Republicans won victories in the congressional elections of 1866. They increased their

majorities in both houses and gained control of every Northern state government.

II. Radical Reconstruction (Pages 506–508)

A. Radical Reconstruction was the period that began when Congress passed the

Reconstruction Acts. The First Reconstruction Act, passed on March 2, 1867, called for

the creation of new governments in the ten Southern states that had not ratified the

Fourteenth Amendment. Tennessee was quickly readmitted to the Union because it

had ratified the amendment.

1. The ten states were divided into five military districts under the command of

military officers.

2. African American males were guaranteed the right to vote in state elections.

3. Former Confederate leaders could not hold political office.

4. To be readmitted, each state had to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and submit

its new state constitution to Congress.

B. The Second Reconstruction Act was passed a few weeks later. It required military

commanders to begin registering voters and to prepare for new state constitutional

conventions.

C. By 1868 seven Southern states had established new governments and met the conditions

for readmission. They were Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, North

Carolina, and South Carolina. By 1870 the final three states restored to the Union were

Mississippi, Virginia, and Texas.

D. The rift between Congress and President Johnson grew wider. Congress passed the

Tenure of Office Act in March 1867 to limit the president’s power. It prohibited him

from removing government officials without the Senate’s approval.

E. When Congress was not in session in August 1867, Johnson suspended his secretary

of war, Edwin Stanton. When the Senate met again and refused to approve this act,

Johnson fired Stanton. Johnson also appointed as commanders of Southern military

districts some generals whom the Radicals opposed.

F. Because of Johnson’s actions, the House voted to impeach him. The case went to the

Senate for a trial that lasted three months.

1. His defenders said he was exercising his right to challenge laws he thought

unconstitutional. They said the impeachment was politically motivated and that

Congress was trying to remove him from office without accusing him of a crime.

2. His accusers argued that Congress should retain the power to make laws. A senator

from Massachusetts said that Johnson had turned “the veto power into a remedy

for ill-considered legislation . . . into a weapon of offense against Congress.”

3. The Senate vote was one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict,

so Johnson remained in office until March 1869.

G. The 1868 presidential election was a vote on Reconstruction. Most states had rejoined

the Union by the election. Americans chose Republican and former Northern general

Ulysses S. Grant as their new president.

H. Another major piece of Reconstruction legislation was the Fifteenth Amendment. It

prohibited the state and federal governments from denying the right to vote to any

male citizen because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It became law

in February 1870. The Republicans thought that the power of the vote would allow

African Americans to protect themselves.

Chapter 17 Section 3

I. New Groups Take Charge (Pages 509–511)

A. The Republican Party consisted of three main groups that dominated Southern politics:

African Americans, white Southerners who supported Republican policies, and

white settlers from the North who moved to the South.

1. African Americans held important positions but did not control the government of

any state. Between 1869 and 1880, sixteen African Americans served in the House

and two in the Senate. Hiram Revels was elected to the Senate from Mississippi in

1870 and served one year.Blancke K. Bruce was the other senator, also from

Mississippi, who was elected in 1874 and served six years.

2. The Confederates called some Southern whites who had opposed secession and

werenonslaveholding farmers or business leaders scalawags or scoundrels. They

hated them for siding with the Republicans.

3. Many Northern whites who moved to the South and supported the Republicans

were called carpetbaggers by their critics. They got the name because they carried

suitcases made of carpet fabric with all their belongings. Others were reformers

who wanted to help reshape Southern society.

B. Most white Southerners opposed efforts to expand the rights of African Americans.

Plantation owners still tried to keep control of the freed people. They kept them on the

plantations and refused to rent land to them. Storeowners refused them credit, and

employers refused them work.

C. During Reconstruction secret societies committed violence against African Americans

and white supporters of African Americans. The Ku Klux Klan, formed in 1866, killed

them and burned their homes, churches, and schools. The Klan’s supporters were

Southerners, especially planters and Democrats who wanted to reestablish white

supremacy and saw violence as a way to attack Republicans.

D. Southerners opposed to violence and terrorism appealed to the federal government. In

1870 and 1871, Congress passed several laws without too much success. Some arrests

were made, but most white Southerners would not testify against these people.

II. Some Improvements (Pages 511–512)

A. Reconstruction brought important changes, especially in education. African Americans

created their own schools in some regions. The Freedmen’s Bureau and private charities

spread the value of education. Free African Americans from the North and Northern

women taught in the schools. By 1870 about 4,000 schools existed and more than half

the teachers were African Americans.

B. Public school systems for both races were created in the 1870s. Generally whites and

African Americans attended different schools. More than 50 percent of white children

and about 40 percent of African Americans went to public schools within a few years.

C. The other major change occurred in farming. Most African Americans were not able to

buy their own land. Instead, they rented a plot of land from a landowner along with a

shack, some seed, and tools. They became sharecroppers. Sharecropping was not much

better than slavery for many because in return for the use of the land, the sharecroppers

had to pay the landowner by giving him a share of the crops they grew. Barely anything

was left for their families, and they rarely had enough to sell and to make any money.

Chapter 17, Section 4

end

I. Reconstruction Declines (Pages 513–515)

A. As Southern Democrats began to regain political and economic control in the South,

support for Radical Reconstruction policies decreased. Many Northerners also began

believing in the end of Reconstruction. They thought it was holding back Southern

economic expansion.

B. Grant was reelected in the 1872 presidential election despite division in the Republican

Party. Reports of corruption in Grant’s administration and in Reconstruction programs

caused a group of Republicans to form the Liberal Republicans. They nominated Horace

Greeley. Although Greeley also had the support of many Democrats, Grant won.

C. Congress passed the Amnesty Act in May 1872 that pardoned most former

Confederates. This caused the political balance in the South to change and allowed

Democrats to regain power. During the 1872 election, Liberal Republicans called for

expanded amnesty for white Southerners.

D. Democrats regained control of state governments in Virginia and North Carolina. The

Ku Klux Klan and other violent groups terrorized Republican voters, thus helping

Democrats take power. The Democrats used threats to pressure white Republicans to

become Democrats. They also used violence to persuade African Americans not to

vote. By 1876 Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana were the only Southern states to

remain Republican.

E. Scandals and corruption charges weakened the Republican Party. The nation was also

in an economic depression. Blame fell on the Republicans. In the 1874 congressional

elections, the Democrats won control of a part of the federal government. They gained

Senate seats and won control of the House. This weakened Congress’s commitment to

Reconstruction and to protecting the rights of newly freed African Americans.

.II. The End of Reconstruction (Pages 515–517)

A. The disputed election of 1876 confirmed the Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes

the winner four months after the election. Samuel Tilden, the Democrat, appeared the

winner, but disputed returns from Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina changed the

result. A special commission was appointed to resolve the election. It awarded all 20

disputed electoral votes to Hayes, giving him the required majority for victory. Congress

confirmed the commission’s findings, so Hayes became president although he had

fewer popular votes than Tilden did.

B. Congressional leaders made a deal to settle the election. This was the Compromise of

1877. It said that the new government would give more aid to the South and withdraw

all remaining troops while the Democrats promised to maintain the rights of African

Americans.

C. Hayes sent a clear message in his Inaugural Address that Reconstruction was over.

The federal government would no longer attempt to reshape Southern society or help

African Americans.

III. Change in the South (Pages 517–518)

A. By the 1880s the country saw the rise of the “New South.” Industry developed based

on the region’s resources of cotton, tobacco, lumber, coal, iron, and steel.

1. The textile industry advanced. Instead of shipping cotton to the North and

Europe, the South built their own textile mills.

2. The tobacco industry grew. James Duke’s company, Dukes American Tobacco

Company, eventually controlled almost all tobacco manufacturing in the nation.

3. The iron and steel industry also grew. Alabama had deposits of iron ore. By 1890

Southern mills produced nearly 20 percent of the nation’s iron and steel.

B. The following factors helped this growth:

1. a cheap and reliable workforce of people who worked long hours for low pay

2. the railroad rebuilding of destroyed track caused a railroad boom; between 1880

and 1890, the miles of track doubled

C. Anew ruling party, the Democrats, took over. Many of these people were merchants,

bankers, industrialists, and other business leaders who supported economic development

and opposed Northern interference. They were conservatives. They called themselves

“Redeemers” because they saved themselves from Republican rule. Policies included

lower taxes, less public spending, and reduced government services. Many social

services that had started during Reconstruction were cut or eliminated, including public

education.

D. The South still remained primarily a rural economy even as it developed some industry.

It sank deeper into poverty and debt as time went on.

1. Some plantations, although not many, were broken up. When divided, the land

was used for sharecropping and tenant farming, which were not profitable.

2. Reliance on sharecropping and cash crops, or crops that could be sold for money,

hampered the development of a more modern agriculture. An oversupply of the

biggest cash crop, cotton, forced prices down. With less money, farmers had to buy

on credit and pay high prices for their food and supplies. Thus, their debt increased.

IV. A Divided Society (Pages 519–520)

A. Reconstruction was a success and a failure. It helped the South recover and begin