Music: Score from The Birth of a Nation (1915)

Today’s Important Stuff:Today’s Important Stuff:

Be sure and go to your recitation meeting Be sure and go to your recitation meeting today or tomorrowtoday or tomorrow

Note that the website URL has changed, Note that the website URL has changed, dropping the second “html” at the end:dropping the second “html” at the end: http://www.montana.edu/tlecain/hist156/hist15http://www.montana.edu/tlecain/hist156/hist15

6.html6.html

An artist’s conception of a Union Soldier reading the Emancipation

Proclamation to freed slaves

North Versus South:

1.Free Labor versus Slave Labor in the new western territories

2.Southern agrarian power versus growing industrial/corporate power of the North

3.Strong central government (Federalism) versus strong States

Abraham Lincoln, 1865

Frederick Douglas

Columbia, South Carolina, c. 1865

Columbia, South Carolina, c. 1865

Presidential Reconstruction:Anxious to heal the wounds and reunite nation, Lincoln offered a benevolent planFull pardon for any former Confederate who took an oath to support the Union and the ConstitutionOnce 1/10th of 1860 voting population of any state takes this oath, readmitted into unionLincoln excludes freed blacks from full citizenship: Can not vote or hold elected office

Trying to avoid Southern resentment

Ford’s Theater Playbill, April 4, 1865

Artists rendering of the Booth’s assassination of Lincoln, April 4, 1865

John Wilkes Booth

Hanging of the conspirators in the Lincoln assassination

Broadside announcing the arrival of the Lincoln Funeral Train in Herkimer, New York

Andrew Johnson, North Carolina politician, President of the United States 1865-1869

Congressional (“Radical”) Congressional (“Radical”) ReconstructionReconstruction

Passed 1866 Civil Rights Act giving full citizenship to all Passed 1866 Civil Rights Act giving full citizenship to all males born in US, regardless of racemales born in US, regardless of raceThese ideas incorporated in the Fourteenth Amendment These ideas incorporated in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1868)to the Constitution (1868)

1414thth also forbade some Confederates who had previously taken also forbade some Confederates who had previously taken an oath to support Constitution from every holding public office an oath to support Constitution from every holding public office againagain

Required military occupation of former Confederate Required military occupation of former Confederate states before they could be readmitted into Unionstates before they could be readmitted into Union1515thth Amendment: Gave right to vote to all citizens Amendment: Gave right to vote to all citizens regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”servitude.”

Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s

Early KKK members “encourage” a southern white Republican to stop helping the freed slaves

Lynching of black man in the South, c. 1875

Ulysses S. Grant, c. 1865

•Republican president, 1868-1876

•Makes some attempts to protect freed blacks, destroys KKK

•Plagued by corruption scandals, and often a weak leader

By mid-1870s, conditions for s South-North deal ending Reconstruction are in place:

1) Southern Democrats whites were back in power and had become an important national influence

2) Nation as a whole was facing economic crisis and rising discontent among western farmers and industrial workers

3) South desperate for federal aid to modernize and industrialize

4) Republicans increasingly emerging as the party of Big Business rather than the anti-slavery party

5) Both parties and many Americans want to “heal the wounds of the war”—which was a coded phrase for giving the South a free hand with its blacks

Hayes-Tilden election controversy of November 1876

Crisis of 1876Crisis of 1876

Rutherford Hayes the Republican Rutherford Hayes the Republican candidate with strength in the North and candidate with strength in the North and WestWest

Samuel Tilden the Democratic candidate Samuel Tilden the Democratic candidate with strength in the Southwith strength in the South

Election so close that both sides claim Election so close that both sides claim victory; some southerners threaten victory; some southerners threaten secession if Tilden is not given presidencysecession if Tilden is not given presidency

The Compromise of 1877:

1. South accepts Hayes as president and agrees to stay in Union and provide political support for northern industrialization and combat the political threat from increasingly angry farmers and industrial workers (why they are angry is coming up)

2. In exchange, South receives northern support for industrialization through subsidies, etc. AND South is allowed to deal with the “Negro Problem” as it will—in other words, through de facto return to full oppression of Blacks: Jim Crow

Related Class and Racial AspectsRelated Class and Racial AspectsBy 1876, there are THREE increasingly suppressed and marginalized groups: Blacks, white small-scale farmers (Yeoman farmers), and the largely white industrial working classReal danger that lower class whites and blacks would realize common position and unite against growing power of big business—a Third Party?By abandoning southern blacks, Republicans make possible a renewed emphasis on skin color (“race”) through lowering status of blacksPrevents broad class identity from developing among disenfranchised in the new industrial America; poor whites think of themselves in terms of skin color instead of classPoor white status dependent on racial superiority to all blacks

Key Points:Key Points:

Both Republicans and Democrats now agreed Both Republicans and Democrats now agreed that the future of the U.S. was with industry and that the future of the U.S. was with industry and big businessbig businessConsensus that those resisting this course must Consensus that those resisting this course must be controlled and their organizations eliminatedbe controlled and their organizations eliminatedConscious political rejection of the older dream Conscious political rejection of the older dream of an agrarian republicof an agrarian republicNational power, economic progress, and National power, economic progress, and improved material lives of Americans depended improved material lives of Americans depended on industrializingon industrializing

Consequences of All This?Consequences of All This?

Nearly a Nearly a de factode facto return to conditions of return to conditions of enslavement for southern freed blacksenslavement for southern freed blacks Sharecropping and forced laborSharecropping and forced labor

Discrimination and failure to provide conditions Discrimination and failure to provide conditions for true economic independence of freed blacks for true economic independence of freed blacks led to enduring poverty and inequalityled to enduring poverty and inequality

Pitting of black against white guaranteed racial Pitting of black against white guaranteed racial tension and divisiveness for nearly a century to tension and divisiveness for nearly a century to comecome

Questions?Questions?