Chapter 17 Reconstruction. The Politics of Reconstruction Each side had catastrophic losses in lives. The Union -360,000 men and the Confederates - 260,000.

Chapter 17Reconstruction

The Politics of Reconstruction• Each side had catastrophic losses in lives. The Union -360,000 men

and the Confederates - 260,000 men.

• Supremacy of the National Government

• The South was left in total ruin

• Southern whites greatly despised Emancipation.

• Lincoln’s Plan was a gentle and forgiving approach to reconstruction and only 10% of the population would have to take an oath of allegiance.

• He vetoed harsher Wade-Davis bill that would have called for 50% of population taking the oath of allegiance.

• January 1865, General Sherman’s Special Field Order 15 - set aside the Sea Islands off the Cost of Georgia for freed people.

The Politics of Reconstruction

(Continued)• Following Lincoln’s ideals Johnson granted amnesty and pardoned many southerners.

• Conflict with the Radical Republicans• Radical’s wanted Federal

Reconstruction • Civil Rights bill, Freedmen’s Bureau

& 14th /15th amendments.

Johnson’s impeachment crisis – lame duck.By summer of 1868, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, North/South Carolina, & Tennessee had returned to the Union.

The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

• Not trusted by the North

• A traitor to the South

• Tenure of Office Act

• 1867 - Impeachment

Election of 1868 & Woman’s Suffrage

Ulysses S. Grant was the Republican nominee. Horatio Seymour was the Democrat’s nominee. Grant won with 26 of the 34 states.

Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia were readmitted after the ratification of 14th & 15th amendment.

Women’s Suffrage took a huge hit with the incorporation of “male” in the 14th amendment.

There was a split in woman suffragists into the American Woman Suffrage Association and National Woman Suffrage Association.

The Meaning of Freedom• There was no actual set date in which all the slaves were freed.

It was gradual as the news spread.

• Between 1865-70, the African American population of Southern cities doubled while the White population only increased by 10%.

• African American families now decided for themselves when and where the women and children worked.

• The church was the first social institution fully controlled by African Americans and became a pivotal point in many lives.

The Meaning Of Freedom (Continued)

• The idea of The Freedmen’s Bureau Act of 1865 (forty acres and a mule) became an issue of debate.

• Percy Roberts identified 3 types of “systems for hire” in a 1866 writing; money wages, share wages, & sharecropping.

• Sharecropping dominated the southern economy with 80% of the land in the black belt(1880)

• African America political activity becoming a large Republican voting bloc.

Southern Politics and Society• One key component of Reconstruction - the establishment of

Republican party in the South to complete the two-party system.• Federal troops were needed to secure the Republican governments

in the south & their supporters. But by 1877, Democrats had regained political control of all former Confederate states.

• There were 3 groups of Southern Republicans: African Americans, Carpetbaggers, and scalawags.

• • Economics• Between 1868-72, the southern railroad was rebuilt and +3,000

miles of new track were laid.• Black and Whites worked together.

Southern Politics and Society- White Resistance &

“Redemption”• The Ku Klux Klan launched a

terrorist campaign against Reconstruction governments and local leaders.

• Supported the Democratic Party.• Ku Klux Klan Act of April 1871 &

Civil Rights Act of 1875.• Slaughterhouse cases of 1873, US v.

Reese (1876), and US v. Cruikshank (1876).

• “King Cotton” began to grow in the post war south, but it soon created endless cycles of debt.

Southern Politics and Society

Reconstruction The North• By 1873, American’s industrial

production had grown 75% over the 1865 level.

• The Pacific Railway Act of 1862• May 10, 1869, Leland Stanford

hammers the last spike and finishes the 1st transcontinental railroad.

• Railroad paved the way for mass growth and expansion.

• Liberal Republicans• Election of 1872, Grant defeats

Greeley• Depression of 1873, the result of

commercial overexpansion, and drop in cotton prices.

Reconstruction The North – The Election of 1876