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Of the People

McGerr, Lewis, Oakes, Cullather, Summers, Townsend, Dunak

Volume I

To 1877

Chapter 15 Reconstructing a Nation 1865—1877

Terror in the South

Chapter 15 American Portrait: John Dennett Visits a Freedmen’s Bureau Court

Reporter for The Nation

Elite Yankee

Observed adjudication of labor disputes in Virginia

Freedmen’s Bureau

Interactions between events in the South, gov’t policy

Wartime Reconstruction

Chinese Laborers Building Railroad This 1877 picture of a Southern Pacific Railroad trestle shows the crude construction methods used to build the first line across the Sierra Nevada.

Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan Versus the Wade-Davis Bill

Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction

Ten Per Cent Plan

Required abolishing slavery

Radical Unionists, free blacks expected equal rights

Radical Republicans wanted new laws in southern states, not just military commanders’ decrees

Wade-Davis Bill

The Meaning of Freedom

Many African Americans left plantations and masters

Some hunted for family members

Men sought sharecropping contracts

Women became “domestic dependents”

Established new churches

Education

Experiments with Free Labor

Port Royal experiment

Banks Plan

Freed people wanted to own land

Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15

Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands

Freedmen’s Savings Bank

Presidential Reconstruction, 1865—1867

Freedmen’s Bureau Poster Led by President Andrew Johnson, attacks on the Freedmen’s Bureau became more and more openly racist in late 1865 and 1866. This Democratic Party broadside was circulated during the 1866 election.

The Political Economy of Contract Labor

Pardoned Confederates were reelected to prominent offices under Presidential Reconstruction

Return of lands to former owners

Black Codes

Vagrancy laws

Low pay, or none at all

Resistance to Presidential Reconstruction

Violence underlay conservative control

Former slaves were assaulted

Black churches were burned

Justice system supported perpetrators

Congress Clashes with the President

Congress refused to readmit former Confederate states

Joint Committee on Reconstruction

Civil Rights bill

Congress overrode Johnson’s vetoes

Origins of the Fourteenth Amendment

Payment of the national debt, barred Confederate officials from public office

Removed the three-fifths clause

Guaranteed birthright citizenship

Johnson’s National Union movement

Riots in Memphis, New Orleans

Congressional Reconstruction

Radical Members One of the greatest achievements of congressional Reconstruction was the election of a significant number of African Americans to public office.

The South Remade

Southern states who ratified the 14th amendment, were readmitted

Conservatives rejected it

Reconstruction Acts

Provided for military oversight, transition to civilian government

The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson

Congress enacted laws to restrain Johnson’s power

House impeached him, but Senate refused to convict

Reconstruction and Redemption

Reconstruction and Redemption By 1870, Congress had readmitted every southern state to the Union. In most cases the Republican Party retained control of the “reconstructed” state governments for only a few years.

Radical Reconstruction in the South

Union Leagues mobilized, educated black voters

Formed electoral majorities in several states

Some white southerners sided with Republican policies-scalawags

Carpetbaggers

Black and Tan constitutions

Achievements and Failures of Radical Government

Elections had huge turnout, leaders remained mostly white

Most African American leaders came from prewar free elite

Gov’t funded infrastructure education

Outlawed racial discrimination public places

Occupations of African American Officeholders During Reconstruction Although former slaves were underrepresented among black officeholders, the Reconstruction governments were among the most broadly representative legislatures in US history.

Political Economy of Sharecropping

Shortage of workers gave former slaves an advantage

Wage labor system

Sharecropping

Credit from merchants was crucial

Small farmers produced cash crops

Typical patriarchal family laws now applied to African American families

Sharecropping

Sharecropping By 1880, the sharecropping system had spread across the South. It was most common in the inland areas, where primarily cotton and tobacco plantations existed before the Civil War.

The Gospel of Prosperity

Prosperity would benefit ordinary white southerners, former slaves

Build industrial base, railroads

Southern political stability was still too shaky to attract investors

Increased taxes

Growth of “Redeemers” as Republicans divided

The Barrow Plantation

The Effect of Sharecropping in the South: The Barrow Plantation in Oglethorpe County, Georgia Sharecropping cut large estates into small landholdings worked by sharecroppers and tenants, changing the landscape of the South.

A Counterrevolution of Terrorism and Economic Pressure

Planters used both to prevent black tenants from voting

White radicals were shunned by society

Founding of the Ku Klux Klan

Burned black schools and churches

Reconstruction gov’ts were dependent on national support

Grant was cautious in intervening

America and the World

Reconstructing America’s Foreign Policy

Victory in the Civil War made expansion attractive again

Caribbean

Canada

Alaska

A Reconstructed West

Indian Village Routed, Geronimo Fleeing from Camp Oil on canvas byFrederi cRemington, 1896.

The Overland Trail

Most migrants were middle class families

Government forts supplied and protected them

Mormon settlers in Utah

Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads

Settlement followed the rail lines

Mobility for the army

The Overland Trail

The Overland Trail No transcontinental railroad existed until 1869. Even thereafter, most se tlers moved west on a series of well-developed overland trails.

The Origins of Indian Reservations

US proposed creating separate territory for each tribe, gov’t subsidies

Prevent violence between Indians and settlers

Red Cloud

Fort Laramie Treaty, 1868

George Armstrong Custer

Massacred at Little Bighorn

The Destruction of Indian Subsistence

Mass slaughter of buffalo herds

Nez Perce flight to Canada

Ghost Dance religious revival movement

Massacre at Wounded Knee

Reformers hoped that reservations would encourage Indians to adopt white social values

Dawes Severalty Act, 1887

The Retreat from Republican Radicalism

Public backlash against radicalism

Republicans Become the Party of Moderation

Ran Ulysses S. Grant for president in 1868

Restoration rather than radicalism

Violence across the South in favor of Democrats

Reconstructing the North

Transformation of the North

The Fifteenth Amendment and Nationwide African American Suffrage

Efforts to end discrimination, segregation in the North

15th Amendment limited grounds on which the vote could be denied

Did not guarantee voting rights

Women and Suffrage

White suffragists used appeals to racism to try to claim voting rights

15th Amendment failed to address gender discrimination

Many activists argued that protection of freepeople was more important

Suffrage movement split

The End of Reconstruction

President Grant as a Strong Man Despite solid accomplishments and his own honesty, Ulysses S. Grant would be remembered for scandals in just about every department. Here he upholds various corrupt “rings” and the thieves and hacks that mulcted the War and Navy Departments, the government of the District of Columbia, and the custom-house service.

Corruption is the Fashion

Development of political machines

Corporate control of lawmakers

Grant administration was notoriously corrupt

Scandals discredited Republican rule

Liberal Republicans Revolt

Challenged bosses, political machines, corporate power in government

Called for lower tariff, stable currency based on golf, merit based civil service, universal amnesty for Confederates

Nominated Horace Greeley for president, lost in a landslide

“Redeeming” the South

Panic of 1873 led to unemployment and labor unrest

Interest in Reconstruction plummeted

Democrats made a comeback in 1874 elections

Slaughterhouse cases, US v. Cruikshank

Democrats determined to “redeem” their states from Republican rule

Paramilitaries, White Leagues

Struggles for Democracy

An Incident at Coushatta, August 1874

Hard times led Democrats to organize rifle clubs, White League

Arrested parish officers, killed them

Democrats prevented Republicans from governing

Terror in the South Thomas Nast’s 1874 cartoon depicts a White League member and a Klan member joining hands over a terrorized black family. Nast’s point was not that emancipation had been a mis- take, but that without national protection, freed people’s fate was worse than slavery.

The Twice-Stolen Election of 1876

Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote

White violence in the South

Rutherford B. Hayes won the electoral college

Hayes agreed to end Reconstruction

Presidential Election, 1876

The Presidential Election, 1876 In 1876, the Democratic presidential candidate, Samuel Tilden, won what popular vote white southern Democrats permitted to be cast, but he was denied the presi- dency because Republicans claimed that a fair count gave Louisiana, South Carolina, Oregon, and Florida to their candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes.

Sharecropping Becomes Wage Labor

Northern investment made expansion of infrastructure, industry possible in the South

Expanded cotton production

Redeemer gov’ts defined sharecroppers as wage laborers, not owners of crops

Landlords benefited

Sharecropping system bound the region to the cotton economy

Remained dependent on northern capital, goods