Presidential Reconstruction (1865-66). presidential Reconstruction May 1865: most Confederates pardoned, property returned.

Presidential Reconstruction(1865-66)

presidential Reconstruction

• May 1865: most Confederates pardoned, property returned

reconstruction plans and policiesLincoln Wade Davis Johnson

returning to citizenship

oath (pardons: high officials)

oath (pardons: high officials)

oath (pardons: high officials/ rich planters)

resuming suffrage with citizenship iron-clad oath with citizenship

recreating state gov 10% of voters 50% of voters no need to recreate

rewriting state constitution

republican form of gov/ respecting current laws about slavery

renounce slavery and secession

renounce slavery and secession; repudiate Confederate debt

The colored man and his master combined kept the poor white in slavery by depriving him of a fair participation in the labor and productions of the rich land of the country.

-Andrew Johnson, speaking to a delegation of freed people

presidential Reconstruction

• May 1865: most Confederates pardoned, property returned

• summer 1865: states hold constitutional conventions (bridle at Johnson’s terms)

presidential Reconstruction

• May 1865: most Confederates pardoned, property returned

• summer 1865: states hold constitutional conventions (bridle at Johnson’s terms)

• fall 1865: states elect new leaders, mostly Confederate, and pass Black Codes

The auditorium and galleries were filled. The rumor preceding my coming had reached the people that I was obliged by the President’s orders to restore the lands to the old planters, so that strong evidence of dissatisfaction and sorrow were manifested from every part of the assembly. In the noise and confusion no progress was had till a sweet-voiced negro woman began the hymn, “Nobody knows the trouble I feel—Nobody know but Jesus.”

. . . They did not hiss, but their eyes flashed unpleasantly, and with one voice they cried, “No, no!” Speeches full of feeling and rough eloquence came back in response. . .

One very black man, thick set and strong, cried out from the gallery: “Why General Howard, why do you take away our lands? You take them from us who are true, always true to the Government! You give them to our all-time enemies! That is not right.”

-Gen. Howard, Autobiography

Dear President Johnson of the United StatesWe the freedmen of South Carolina wish to

address you with a few lines concerning the sad feelings that is now resting upon our minds we pray that god may give you health & good spirits that when you receive these few notices that you may receive them as the father did the prodigal son we have for the last four years ben studying with justice and the best of our ability what step we should take to become a people: we have learnt to respect all Just Causes that ever came from the union.

Mag Genrl Howard has paid the freedmen of South Carolin a visit & called a meeting on Edisto Island South Carolina in the Central part of the island at the principle Church there he beautifully addressed the freedmen of this island after his address a great many of the people understanding what was said they got aroused & awoke to perfect sense to study for themselves what part of this law would rest against us, we said in reference to what he said that nothing did appear at that time to be very oppressing upon us but the one thing that is we freedmen should work for wages for our former

owners or any other man president Johnson of you I do say . . . man that have stood upon the field of battle & have shot their masters & sons now Going to ask either one for bread or for shelter or Comfortable for his wife & children such a thing the you should not ought to Expect a man (to do).

-letter from the freedmen of Edisto Island to Andrew Johnson (October 1865)

presidential Reconstruction

• May 1865: most Confederates pardoned, property returned

• summer 1865: states hold constitutional conventions (bridle at Johnson’s terms)

• fall 1865: states elect new leaders, mostly Confederate, and pass Black Codes

travel writings in the postwar south

read for contentinfluence history

create northern support for radical R.prompt government to investigate

travel writings in the postwar south

read for contentinfluence history

create northern support for radical R.prompt government to investigate

show how history is livedignorance and uncertaintyfantasy and fears

travel writings in the postwar south

read for contentinfluence history

create northern support for radical R.prompt government to investigate

show how history is livedignorance and uncertaintyfantasy and fears

read for formfree indirect discoursecatalogue

travel writings in the postwar south

read for contentinfluence history

create northern support for radical R.prompt government to investigate

show how history is livedignorance and uncertaintyfantasy and fears

read for formfree indirect discoursecatalogue

convention proceedingsRaleigh convention Norfolk convention

end to legal disabilities suffrage

convention proceedingsRaleigh convention Norfolk convention

end to legal disabilities suffrage

addressed to North Carolina addressed to United States

convention proceedingsRaleigh convention Norfolk convention

end to legal disabilities suffrage

addressed to North Carolina addressed to United States

NC by birth and affection US by citizenship (law, labor, service)

convention proceedingsRaleigh convention Norfolk convention

end to legal disabilities suffrage

addressed to North Carolina addressed to United States

NC by birth and affection US by citizenship (law, labor, service)

appeal (chivalric and moral) bargain and threat

convention proceedingsRaleigh convention Norfolk convention

end to legal disabilities suffrage

addressed to North Carolina addressed to United States

NC by birth and affection US by citizenship (law, labor, service)

appeal (chivalric and moral) bargain and threat

individual action collective action

You say you have emancipated us. You have; and I thank you for it. But what is your emancipation? When the Israelites were emancipated, they were told to go and borrow of their neighbors—borrow their coin, borrow their jewels, load themselves down with the means of subsistence; after, they should go free in the land which the Lord God gave them. When the Russian serfs had their chains broken and were given their liberty the government of Russia—aye, the despotic government of Russia—gave to those poor emancipated serfs a few acres of land on which they could live and earn their bread.

But when you turned us loose, you gave us no acres. You turned us loose to the sky, to the storm, to the whirlwind, and, worst of all, you turned us loose to the wrath of our infuriated masters.

-Fredrick Douglass, speech, 1878