The Beginning of
Reconstruction
Mr. Van Duyne
September 2008
Reconstruction
• construct = to build
• reconstruct = to build again; to put back
together
• Reconstruction – the period of time after
the Civil War when the nation reunited and
the South was rebuilt.
Big Questions in April 1865
• What to do with freedmen – former
slaves?
• How should former Confederates be
treated?
• How would the southern states be
readmitted to the Union?
Problems Arise
• Lincoln favored an
“easy” Reconstruction.
He wanted to get the
nation back together
as quickly as possible.
Problems Arise (continued)
• Following Lincoln’s
death, Andrew
Johnson continued
with many of Lincoln’s
ideas
Thaddeus Stevens
Charles Sumner
Problems Arise (continued)
• Radical Republicans in Congress
disagreed with both Lincoln and Johnson.
– They wanted a harsh Reconstruction.
– They felt that the southern states and
former Confederates should be
punished for causing the Civil War.
• In the end, the Radicals got their way.
The End of Reconstruction
Mr. Van Duyne
September 17, 2007
New Forces in Southern Politics
• White southern Republicans
• Northerners
• African Americans
White southern Republicans
• Some whites supported the new
Republican governments. They wanted
to get on with rebuilding the South.
• Many white southerners felt that any
southerner who helped the
Republicans was a traitor. They called
the white southern Republicans
scalawags.
Northerners
• White southerners accused northerners
who came to the South of hoping to get
rich from the South’s misery.
• The southerners called these
northerners carpetbaggers.
• Some northerners did hope to profit
from rebuilding the South.
• Some northerners went South to help
the freedmen.
African Americans
• During Reconstruction, African
Americans voted in large numbers.
• They also ran for and were elected to
public office.
• Two African Americans served in the
Senate.
Conservatives in the South
• white southerners who had held power
before the Civil War and who resisted
Reconstruction
• they wanted the South to change as
little as possible.
Reactionaries in the South
• Some white southerners formed secret
societies to help them regain power.
• The most dangerous was the Ku Klux
Klan, or KKK.
–It used terror and violence to keep
African Americans and white
Republicans out of office.
Successes of Reconstruction
• Reconstruction governments tried to
rebuild the South.
• They built public schools for both black
and white children, gave women the
right to own property, and rebuilt
railroads, telegraph lines, bridges, and
roads.
Sharecroppers
• Many freedmen and poor whites went to
work on large plantations. These
sharecroppers rented and farmed a plot of
land.
• The planters provided seed, fertilizer, and
tools in return for a share of the crop.
Sharecroppers (cont.)
• Most sharecroppers and small landowners
bought supplies on credit in the spring.
• In the fall, they had to repay what they had
borrowed.
• If the harvest did not cover what they
owed, they sank deeper into debt.
Republicans Lose Power
• By 1870, Radical Republicans were losing
power.
• Northerners were growing tired of trying to
reform the South.
• Disclosure of widespread corruption
turned people against the Republican
party.
Amnesty Act
• In 1872, Congress passed the Amnesty
Act.
• It restored the right to vote to nearly all
white southerners.
• They voted solidly Democratic and kept
many African Americans from voting.
Election of 1876
• The election of 1876 ended Reconstruction.
• After a dispute in the Electoral College, a
special commission set up by Congress
settled the election.
• The commission awarded the election to
Rutherford B. Hayes.
• Hayes agreed to end Reconstruction once in
office.
The End of Reconstruction
• Shortly after taking office in 1877,
President Hayes ordered the last federal
troops to leave the South.
• Reconstruction was ended.
• White southerners quickly began to regain
control of their state and local
governments.
Voting restrictions
• Many southern states passed poll taxes,
requiring voters to pay a fee to vote.
– Poor freedmen could rarely afford to
vote.
• States also passed literacy tests that
required voters to read and explain part of
the Constitution.
– Since most freedmen had little
education, such tests kept them from
voting.
Voting Restrictions (cont.)
• Many poor whites could not pass literacy
tests, so states passed grandfather
clauses.
– These laws stated that if a voter’s father
or grandfather could vote on January 1,
1867, then the voter did not have to take
a literacy test.
– No African Americans could vote before
1868!
Segregation
• Segregation - legal separation of races
• In southern states, Jim Crow laws
separated blacks and whites in schools,
restaurants, theaters, trains, streetcars,
playgrounds, hospitals, and even
cemeteries.
Segregation (cont.)
• In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the
Supreme Court ruled that segregation was
legal so long as facilities for blacks and
whites were equal.
• In fact, facilities were rarely equal.