Reconstruction UNIT 1.2. Johnson’s Impeachment 1867—Congress passes Tenure of Office Act Prohibits the president from removing federal officials or military.

Reconstruction

UNIT 1.2

Johnson’s Impeachment

• 1867—Congress passes Tenure of Office Act

• Prohibits the president from removing federal officials or military commanders without the Senate’s approval

• Probably unconstitutional• Designed to protect Radical Republicans

in the cabinet• Congress wanted to maintain the military

governments installed in the South

• Johnson dismisses Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War

• House charges Johnson with 11 “high crimes and misdemeanors”

• Impeaches, or indicts him• First president to be impeached until– Nixon?– Clinton

• Senate falls one vote short of removing him from office– Needed 2/3 of Senate– Democrats and more moderate Republicans

don’t want to set precedent of removal for political reasons

“Civil War Amendments”

13th Amendment Ratified in December, 1865.

Outlaws Slavery

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Freedmen

• Term referring to former slaves in the South after the Civil War.

Freedmen’s Bureau• (Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands)

• Created at end of Civil War; it aided southerners (mainly former slaves) with education, finding food, shelter and employment.

• Provided food, shelter, medical aid for the destitute

• Benefited both blacks (mostly freed slaves) and homeless whites

• Had the authority to resettle freed blacks on confiscated farmland

Freedmen’s bureau cont.

• Led by General Oliver O. Howard• Greatest success in education• Established almost 3,000 schools for

freed blacks as well as several colleges

• Helped approximately 200,000 African-Americans how to read

• Funding ended in 1870

Establishment of Historically Black Colleges in the South

Reconstruction in the South

• Military rule by the Union army until ready for readmission

• Whites are the majority in all state legislatures except for lower house of South Carolina in 1873

• Most Republicans were native-born whites, freemen, and northern transplants

Reconstruction in the South

• Scalawags– Conservative Democrat name for Southern

Republicans• Carpetbaggers– Northern newcomers who supported

Republican policies• Most southern white Republican

interested in economic development for their state

• Northerners interested in new business, missionary work, teachers, and some were just plain greedy

Infrastructure

• Railroads: Completely destroyed in the South by the end of the Civil War; rebuilding a new, modern railroad system was financed by northern money and seen as essential to the economic recovery of the South

Civil Rights

• Right of an individual to receive equal treatment under the law.

14th AmendmentRatified in July, 1868.

* Defined citizens as all people born in the United States regardless of servitude

* Extended due process to all individuals

* Required all states to recognize the rights of all citizens

* **intended to protect civil rights of former slaves

15th Amendment Ratified in 1870.

Extended suffrage to African American males

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Women’s rights groups were furious that they were not granted the vote!

Black & White Political Participation

Blacks in Southern Politics Core voters were black veterans.

Blacks were politically unprepared.

Blacks could register and vote in states since 1867.

The 15th Amendment guaranteedfederal voting.

Black Senate & House Delegates

Politics cont.

• African-American legislators• Most were educated property-holders• Moderates• Two black Senators and over a dozen

Representatives sent to Congress• Hiram Revels takes Jefferson Davis’s

Senate seat from Mississippi• Causes bitter resentment among

disfranchised ex-Confederates

Southern Farms

• Ran by plantation owners with slave labor before the Civil War; Southern economy depended on getting the freedmen back into the cotton fields after the Civil War; a system of near slavery known as sharecropping developed during Reconstruction

Sharecropping

• Became the way of life in the South after the Civil War; plantation owner provided food, shelter, clothing, seeds and farm equipment to former slaves in exchange working the land to harvest the crop; plantation owner took the crop to market for sale, deducted the cost of the items the sharecropper had been furnished during the year; plantation owner gave half of the proceeds to the sharecropper and kept the rest

Sharecropper

• Usually a former slave who was assigned a small plot of land to farm; the cost of production and price of sale for their crops were controlled by the plantation owner; sharecropper had little opportunity for economic profit; sharecroppers became dependent on the plantation owners in a way that continued the aspects of slavery without calling it slavery

Sharecropping

Tenancy & the Crop Lien SystemFurnishing Merchant Tenant Farmer Landowner

Loan tools and seed up to 60% interest to tenant farmer to plant spring crop.

Farmer also secures food, clothing, andother necessities oncredit from merchant until the harvest.

Merchant holds “lien” {mortgage} on part of tenant’s future crops as repayment of debt.

Plants crop, harvests in autumn.

Turns over up to ½ of crop to land owner as payment of rent.

Tenant gives remainder of crop to merchant inpayment of debt.

Rents land to tenant in exchange for ¼ to ½ of tenant farmer’s future crop.

King Cotton

• The South grew more heavily dependent on cotton. • The crop lien system provided loans in

exchange for a lien on the crop.• As cotton prices spiraled downward, cotton

growers fell more deeply into debt. • Merchants became the elite in the South.• The South emerged as an impoverished

region.

Exodusters

• African Americans migrating to the Great Plains states (ie: Kansas & Oklahoma) to become farmers in order to escape conditions in the South during and after Reconstruction.

• Exodus: A journey by a large group to escape from a hostile environment

• Migration: A permanent movement of people from one region to another