the work does not end with the

abolition of slavery, but only begins

Frederick Douglass

Reconstruction:
1865 1877
Or
A broader approach, which dates Reconstruction
from the Civil War to the 1890s

Reconstruction
(1863)

Lincolns 10 Percent Plan

Moderate Plan
Not to punish the South
Pardon most ex-Confederates
10% of the population had to take an oath and
establish a government

Congress Responded to
Lincolns Plan

Radical Republicans considered Confederate

states as territories
Disagreed with Lincolns planthought it
too easy on Southerners.
After Lincolns death Andrew Johnson

Economic
Independence

40 Acres & a Mule

General William T. Sherman
Special Field Order 15
Jan 16, 1865

Sea Islands and coastal land (South Carolina and

Georgia) available for former slaves.
Sherman also offered mules, no longer viable for
service.

The idea (and hope) was that economic

independence was possible, and it was the
only way to bring about real freedom
The orders were revoked after Andrew Johnson
became president (when Lincoln was shot)

Images taken from John Buescher, Forty

Acres and A Mule, Teachinghistory.org. Roy
Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media
at George Mason University with funding from
the U.S. Department of Education, 2010-2016.

Presidential
Reconstruction

Andrew Johnson
May 1865 issued two proclamations based on
Lincolns claim that South had never left the union
Pardons and restoration of property rights to those
who swore allegiance to the Constitution and the
Union
For a state to reenter the union it must ratify the 13 th
amendment, void secession, repudiate Confederate
debts and elect new officials and members of
Congress

The former Confederate

States
sent

representatives to Congress
(convened in Dec. 1865)
Many elected former officers and
legislators of the Confederacy,
including some not yet pardoned
They did not provide for black
suffrage, most have no provisions
for civil rights, education, or
economic rights for freedpeople

Radical Republicans gain control

of Congress in 1866

Johnson speaking tour disaster

moderates radicals
Radical Reconstruction (186673)

Congressional
Reconstruction
The Radical Republicans in Congress refused to
seat the new senators and representatives from
the old Confederate states

They formed a Joint Committee on Reconstruction

to investigate the conditions in the South.
Found white resistance, disorder, and the appalling
treatment and conditions of freedpeople

Passed the Civil Rights Bill (1866)

Johnson vetoed the bill and called his opponents traitors
Moderate republicans joined the more radical ones and
passed the bills over his veto

Andrew Johnson v. Republican Congress

Restoration v.
Reconstruction
(1866-1868)
Johnson

(Restoration)
Pardons
No land Reform
Only had to
accept 13th
amendment to
join the Union
again

Republican

Congress
(Reconstruction)
Citizenship and
civil rights (14th
amendment)
Enfranchised
freedmen (15th
amendment)
Land redistribution

Reconstruction Acts (1867-68)

Military in South The North needed to physical

occupy the South in order to implement
Reconstruction
States must ratify 14th amendment
Extend suffrage
State constitutions must be approved by Congress

The Southern Response:

White terror erupted in the South

Congress sent the 14th amendment to the states

for ratification (Johnson told South not to ratify
it)
The 14th amendment provided permanent
Constitutional protection of civil rights for former
slaves and free blacks by defining them as citizens
(states prohibited from denying life, liberty, or
property of the laws.) Citizenship to be based on
being born in America; citizenship not to be based on
race.
After passing Reconstruction Acts in 1867, Southern
states had to ratify the 14 th amendment before
Congress would accept its representatives

Johnson impeached

Johnson had tried to hinder what Congress was

doing
vetoing bills
limiting the activities of the military
and removing cabinet members who were sympathetic
to Congress, including his Secretary of War Edwin
Stanton.
Johnson asked the Senate to approve of Stantons
dismissal, which it refused, so Johnson ordered Stanton to
leave.
Stanton refused at which point the House approved an
impeachment resolution

Johnson was not convicted (one vote short)

Moderate Republicans
Rule

Grant elected in 1868 (barely) showed

that support for Republicans not
overwhelming and to gain support more of
them started to support the idea of granting
blacks the right to vote (15th amendment
1870)

Citizenship

14th amendment ratified 1868

15th amendment ratified 1870

Both required for full citizenship in a

democratic country

Portrait of Congressman Josiah Thomas Walls.Between

1871 and 1876. Black & white photoprint, 10 x 8 in. State
Archives of Florida, Florida Memory.
<https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/24810>,
accessed 17 February 2016.

In 1871, Josiah Thomas Walls became the first African

American from Florida elected to the U.S. Congress. It
was not until 1978 that Florida elected Carrie Meek, the
state's second African American to serve in Congress.

Limits to Reconstruction
1. White Southern insurrection
2. End of formal Reconstruction
(end of military occupation of the
South) after economic panic of
1873 and political agreement of
1877

Economic downturn
Northern support for Reconstruction had been declining; the
economic downturn accelerated the decline in support
Southern whites had been hostile to Reconstruction since its beginning

President Grants administration

had initially been effective in countering the activities of the KKK
Yet it failed to effectively respond to anti-Reconstruction violence in
1874 & 1875 as a result of the depression

The next presidential election (1876) was a close election (3

states including Florida could not determine who had won)
Deal between Democrats & Republicans
Republican Hayes won, but Reconstruction ended.
Democrats resumed control over the Southern states

Panic of 1873

Black Codes: challenged Federal govt

Restrictions on freedmans rights
(voting, marriage, property, due process)
Blacks could not carry guns, possess alcohol, etc.
vagrancy laws any black not legally employed
could be arrested, jailed, fined, or hired out to a man
responsible for their debts and behavior
Significance of such laws?

Plessy v Ferguson (1896)

Supreme Court sanctioned racial

segregation

 Without

federal help
Floridians such as Mary McLeod
Bethune, James Weldon Johnson,
and A. Philip Randolph fought for
educational rights, business
opportunities, and an end to
segregation and racially-motivated
violence.

Mary McLeod Bethune with a line of girls from the school.ca, 1905. Black
& white photonegative, 4 x 5 in. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory.
<https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/149519>, accessed 17
February 2016.

Eleanor Roosevelt visits with Mary

McLeod Bethune.1937. Black & white
photoprint, 10 x 8 in. State Archives of
Florida, Florida Memory.
<https://www.floridamemory.com/items
/show/769>, accessed 17 February
2016.

Racist Views Persist

Such views provided the foundation on

which Jim Crow policies existed and
continued until challenged by the Civil
Rights movement of the 1950s, 1960s, and
beyond