Reconstruction

Lincoln Assassination

• John Wilkes Booth• Ford Theatre• April 14, 1865• 1st President killed in

office

2 Plans• Abraham Lincoln – The 10%

Plan• Offered to pardon any

Confederate who took an oath to the Union

• Denied pardons to Confederate military personnel and government officials

• Permitted states to form state governments after 10% of the voters swore an allegiance to the Union

• States could then hold elections and participate fully in the Union

• Andrew Johnson – Presidential Reconstruction (After Lincoln)

• Pardoned southerners who swore an allegiance to the Union

• Permitted states to hold a constitutional convention (without Lincoln’s 10%)

• States were required to void secession, abolish slavery and ratify the 13th Amendment (to end slavery)

• States could then hold elections and participate fully in the Union

New Life for Blacks

• Freedoms– Movement– Land ownership– Worship– Learning

• Freedman’s Bureau– Gave food, clothing and

medicine to freed slaves– Set up schools for freed

slaves– Established hospitals for

freed slaves

Black Codes

• Established by white state governments

• Curfews• Vagrancy laws• Labor contracts• Land restrictions

Congressional Reconstruction• Radical Republicans - harsh on South• Wanted to punish South… treat as conquered territory• Congress passed the Reconstruction Act• Placed South under military rule• Ordered the South to hold elections for Constitutional

Conventions and allow blacks to vote• Temporarily barred Southerners who supported

Confederacy from voting• South had to guarantee equal rights to all citizens• Southern states had to ratify the 14th Amendment• Any state not in Union by 1869 had to also ratify the 15th

Amendment• It passed because Republicans held a majority in the

Congress

President vs. Congress

• Johnson fired Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton

• Stanton was a friend of the Republicans

• Stanton was to preside over military rule of the South

• Congress impeached Johnson

• Congress said firing “unconstitutional” – broke the Tenure of Office Act

• Johnson escaped by ONE vote!

Aftermath

• Ulysses S. Grant • Won support of

Republicans• Became President in 1868• Rutherford B. Hayes • Became President amid

much confusion• Removed federal troops

from the South• Blanche K. Bruce became

first black man in the Senate

• “Undesirables” in the South

• Carpetbaggers – Northern Republicans who moved to the South. The South saw them as trying to make a fast buck

• Scalawags – White, Southern Republicans seen as traitors

• The South blamed Reconstruction for Carpetbaggers, Scalawags and Freedmen