Nothing But Freedom

NEW WAYS TO TEACH RECONSTRUCTION

Start with imagining what problems people and the government faced in May 1865

Follow those problems over time until they are “resolved,” extending the politically-defined, traditional chronology of “Reconstruction”

Reconstruction is a time in which the government and the people interacted more closely than ever before. The personal was political, so include a variety of viewpoints: a freedman in South Carolina, a freedwoman in

Mississippi, a former white planter, a former Union soldier, Lincoln, congressmen, people writing new state constitutions

Peter Poinsette: The transition from slavery to freedom

Black soldiers in the Union Army expected their willingness to die for their country would lead to full citizenship.

Charleston, SC after more than 500 days of federal bombardment

SHERMAN’S MARCH

A family of freedpeople in the South Carolina Low Country: After Sherman issued Field Order No. 15, many former

slaves sought economic independence through land ownership.

A key question after the war: How would the South rejoin the Union?

Presidential Reconstruction (1865): Lincoln advocated a 10% plan to bring the South back into the Union, along with

ratification of the 13th amendment abolishing slavery.

Presidential Reconstruction (1866): Andrew Johnson believed in the primacy of states’ rights. He appointed

provisional governors in the southern states to reestablish loyal governments. Southern legislatures then began

passing the Black Codes.

http://home.gwu.edu/~jjhawkin/BlackCodes/BlackCodes.htm

Marriage was an important way for former slaves to establish a legal identity. This document certifies a

marriage between a couple who had been together since 1843 and lists their children.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State ofNorth Carolina, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same,

That if any person who may be able to labor has no apparent means of subsistence, and neglects to apply himself to some honest occupation for the support of himself and his family, if he have one ; or, if any person shall be found spending his time in dissipation, or gaming, or sauntering about without employment, or endeavoring to maintain himself or his family, by any undue or unlawful means, such personshall be deemed a vagrant, and guilty of a misdemeanor

Congressional Reconstruction (1867-1877):The federal government divided the South into 5 military districts.

15th Amendment Controversy: Leading white suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton (left) and Susan B. Anthony argued that white women should have the vote before black men.

15th Amendment Controversy: Frederick Douglass argued that black men needed the vote first because of the

difficulties that all freedpeople confronted.

Black elected leaders during Reconstruction attempted to establish an interracial democracy protected by law.

ROBERT SMALLS, CONGRESSMAN FROM SOUTH CAROLINA

P.B.S. PINCHBACK

Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1865 to assist southern states in the transition from slavery to

freedom.

A Freedmen’s Bureau official mediates disputes in the postbellum South.

from Harper’s Weekly, 25 July 1868

Howard University graduating class, 1900. Named for the head of the Freedmen’s Bureau, Major

General Oliver O. Howard, the university was founded in 1867 to train black leaders.

A class at Hampton Institute in VA. This school provided black students with practical vocational education to enable

them to assist in the South’s economic recovery.

By the early 1870s, Reconstruction had come to symbolize both misgovernment and a misguided attempt to use state

power to uplift the lower classes.

In the 1873 and again 1883, the U.S. Supreme Court limited the scope of the 14th Amendment and the federal government’s authority by granting states the power to

define citizenship for their residents as well as the rights that accompanied it.

The presidential election of 1876 ended political Reconstruction.

What does it mean that both Matthew Butler (left) and Benjamin Tillman participated in the 1876 Hamburg Massacre in SC, and then went on to become U.S.

Senators?

• State Disfranchising Constitutions or Legislation

• Mississippi 1890• South Carolina 1895• Louisiana 1898• North Carolina 1900• Virginia 1902• Alabama 1902• Georgia & Texas 1908

W. F. FONVIELLE