Chapter 15 "What is Freedom?" Reconstruction

Colfax Massacre

"In 1837, armed whites assaulted the town of Colfax, Louisiana, with a small cannon, killing hundreds of former slaves and fifty black militia members after they surrendered."

What were the main factors, in both the north and south, for the abandonment of Reconstruction?

1. High unemployment 2. hard currency scarce 3. Northerners more concerned about there own financial well being 4. Democrats capitalized on depressed conditions and took control of house of reps to stall reconstruction

What were the sources, goals, and competing visions for Reconstruction?

1. Lincoln wanted to reunify the north and south 2. 10 percent plan for a southern state to be readmitted into the union once 10% of voters swore an oath of allegiance 3. Johnson believed African Americans had no role to play in reconstruction 4. Johnson granted free hand and local affairs 5. North turned against Johnson due to how he handled the southern governments

What were the social and political effects of Radical reconstruction in the South?

1. Outbusts of political organization 2. Action to remedy long standing grievances 3. Union league aided blacks in public sphere 4. Union had been restored 5. Southern states held public majorities 6. 2000 african americans occupied public offices, 14 in the house of reps, 2 in senate 7. Carpetbaggers who were northerners held office in the south. 8. Established the south's first state supported public schools. 9. new government Pioneered civil rights legislation 10. Republicans took steps to strengthen the position of rural laborers and promote the souths economic recovery

Slaughterhouse Cases

A decision that rejected the claim by butchers that their right to equality before the law had been violated."

Woman Suffrage

A woman's right to vote, an issue raised for the first time at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848."

Freedmen's Bureau

An agency created by the goverment that helped and protected newly freed african americans find jobs, homes, education, and a better life

The women's movement split into two separate national organizations in part because the Fifteenth Amendment did not give women the vote. Explain why the two groups split.

Because the Fifteenth Amendment didn't give women the right to vote the women's movement split because some denounced their former abolitionist allies and moved to sever the women's rights movement from its earlier moorings in the antislavery tradition.

Black Codes

Black Codes Laws in the Southern States that restricted the freedoms of Blacks. Included banning blacks from voting, serving on juries and prohibiting them from testifying against whites in court. Made blacks that wanted to continue working sign yearly labor contracts

Redeemers

Conservative white Democrats, many of them planters or businessmen, who reclaimed control of the South following the end of Reconstruction."

Carpetbaggers and scalawags

Derisive term for northern emigrants who participated in the Republican governments of the Reconstruction South; southern white Republicans‚ some former Unionists‚ who supported Reconstruction governments.

How did the failure of land reform and continued poverty lead to new forms of servitude for both blacks and whites?

Despite small improvements in wages and working conditions, African Americans could not justify having better jobs on plantations as their wish to own land was not surfacing. Their plight for land was only further diminished as Andrew Jackson in 1865 ordered all land previously distributed by the Bureau to be returned to its original owners causing many African Americans to be evicted and instilling a deep sense of betrayal as it would appear that any efforts to rise in the social ladder would be impossible. Forms of Servitude Blacks: task system, closely supervised wage labor, share cropping... Whites: share cropping, growing of cotton instead of other crops to make money, "crop lien." Vagrance laws- provided free labor to plantation owners as a consequence for not being employed.

What visions of freedom did the former slaves and slaveholders pursue in the postwar South?

Former slaves had a vision of a reconstructed South, emancipated blacks, enjoying the same opportunities for advancement as northern workers, would labor more productively than they had as slaves.Former slaves tried to find their loved ones that they had been separated from during slavery. Former slaves also wanted to own their own land. They also desired education. Former slaves sought out their political freedom as well and pushed for their freedom to vote

Fourteenth Amendment

Gave all people born in US citizenship in the US.

Bargain of 1877

In the aftermath of a close presidential election, an Electoral Commission declared Rutherford B. Hayes president contingent a variety of compromises and agreements upon his taking office."

Why did ownership of land and control of labor become major points of contention between former slaves and whites in the South?

Land: Slaves idea of freedom directly related to land ownership and the opportunity to build up communities free of white control. African Americans felt they deserved land because they were the ones who kept the land alive which led to some cases of slaves claiming to be "join heirs" and seizing land. The fight for land was part of the continual, open ended process to obtain the same sorts of freedom White people were simply and undeniably given at birth. Labor: Whites used and implemented a very narrow definition of labor that supported their interpretation of freedom that is tied to them being able to create hierarchy and be "masters" of their own land and the people on it. African Americans interpreted labor freedom as economic autonomy in addition to civil/political equality but were not granted this freedom due to Whites continuous battle to keep "free labor" as close to slave labor as possible. **Freedmen's Bureau failed at land distribution and advocating equal treatment

Ku Klux Klan

Organized in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866 to terrorize former slaves who voted and held political offices during Reconstruction; a revived organization in the 1910s and 1920s stressed white, Anglo-Saxon, fundamentalist Protestant supremacy; the Klan revived a third time to fight the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in the South."

Civil rights act of 1875

Outlawed racial discrimination in places of public accommodation like hotels and theaters."

Rreconstruction Act

Passed by the newly-elected Republican Congress, it divided the South into five military districts, disenfranchised former confederates, and required that Southern states both ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and write state constitutions guaranteeing freedmen the franchise before gaining readmission to the Union.

Civil Rights Bill of 1866

Passed over Andrew Johnson's veto, the bill aimed to counteract the Black Codes by conferring citizenship on African Americans and making it a crime to deprive blacks of their rights to sue, testify in court, or hold property.

Fifteenth Amendent

Prohibited governments to not allow someone to vote because of their race

What caused the confrontation between President Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction policies?

The Tenure of Office Act was enacted, which prohibits the president from removing certain officeholders, including cabinet members, without the consent of the Senate. Johnson considered this unconstitutional and proceeded to do exactly that. In February 1868, he removed Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, an ally of the Radicals. He then faced Congress and was impeached. At first the vote was only 35-19, one vote short of 2/3 to impeach him, and then 7 republicans joined democrats in acquitting him, so he was not impeached.

What national issues and attitudes combined to bring an end to Reconstruction by 1877?

The huge economic depression the nation was in distracted attention away from Reconstruction, as well as a desire to reduce the power the national government gained during and after the Civil War. An inability for people to accept former slaves voting and holding office prompted escalating levels of violence spearheaded by the KKK. Eventually, through the Bargain of 1877, Rutherford B. Hayes agreed to recognize Democratic control of the South and removed national troops from the former Confederate states.

crop lien system

The system that allowed farmers to get more money/credit. Farmers used harvested crops to pay back their loans.

Waving the bloody shirt

This was a campaign tactic used by post-Civil War Republicans to remind northern voters that the Confederates were Democrats. The device was used to divert attention away from the competence of candidates and from serious issues. It was also used to appeal to black voters in the South.

In 1865, the former Confederate general Robert Richardson remarked that "the emancipated slaves own nothing because nothing but freedom has been given to them." Explain whether this would be an accurate assessment of Reconstruction twelve years later.

This would be an accurate assessment of Reconstruction twelve years later because the majority of rural freed people remained poor and without property, men doing hard labor, women working in homes without the way to rise in the social scale through work, still giving the ex-slaves nothing but freedom.

Enforcement Acts

Three acts outlawing terrorist societies and allowing the president to use the army against them."

By what methods did Southern whites seek to limit African-American rights and civil liberties? How did the federal government respond?

Through the Black Codes, blacks were not allowed to testify against whites, serve on juries or to vote. Blacks who did not sign yearly labor contracts with planters could be arrested. Some states limited job opportunities, barred them from acquiring land and even allowed judges to assign black children to work for their former owners without their parents consent.

How important were black families, churches, schools and other institutions to the development of African-American culture and political activism in this period?

With the stabilization of home life by women being able to spend more time taking care of their families, a new type of pride developed for the black man based on how well he was able to provide for his loved ones. This ability to focus on family life for both men and women became central to the newly freed black community, Being able to have independent black churches allowed blacks to have a place to worship however they liked without white control dictating what is or is not appropriate. Churches also served as buildings that could serve as schools, house social events and political gatherings. Schools gave blacks an opportunity to learn to read which empowered them to able to participate in politics.

Sharecropping

a result of many AA not having work and working for their former owners. landowners change workers rent and crops for living expenses an using the land and tools