5.16.W - Lesson: Lincoln, Johnson, and Reconstruction Review

Lincoln had been so focused on the war that he had given little to no thought about what came afterward.

false

Lincoln pushed for a harsh set of standards for state readmission to the Union as a way to make sure the war could never happen again.

false

Lincoln was the sole target of the assassination plot.

false

The acceptance of full black civil rights never became an explicit requirement for acceptance back into the Union.

false

When faced with southern resistance in 1865, Johnson reacted with strength and clarity, keep his focus on Lincoln's principles.

false

Johnson proved to be much more in step with Lincoln's plans than he did the Radicals. He offered amnesty to any former Confederate who would be willing to take a new oath of allegiance. He excluded certain groups of high-profile people from this, such as high ranking government officials, officers in the army and navy, and civilians who owned a certain amount of property but then began offering pardons by the thousands. He eventually granted upwards of ninety percent of the requests his office received. He accepted the return of ____ former Confederate states organized under Lincoln's plan, provided they accept the end of slavery, take back secession, and refuse to pay any debts they had incurred as members of the Confederacy. He strongly encouraged all the states to give blacks who could read the right to vote, though he didn't insist on it or offer the vote to former soldiers.

four

What was notable about Andrew Johnson before he became Vice President?

he was the only Southern senator to stay loyal

Lincoln took a similar approach to Reconstruction. To start, he was very nice to Southerners. Lincoln's plan, put forth in the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction in _____, required that only ten percent of the registered voters in a state in1860 take a new oath of allegiance to the U. S. before it could form a new government and rejoin the country. Further, he would allow former Confederates to vote and even serve in politics again. It was a very generous approach indeed.

1863

The damage had been done, in more than one way. The North was now radicalized and ready to punish the South in ways that would have been unthinkable just a few months before. In fact, some of Sherman's troops actively hoped Johnston would refuse to surrender, just so they could show the South what "real" hard war was. Of course, Southerners recoiled from this new wave of radicalism by digging in and refusing to compromise except where forced. Just as important, instead of the proven statesman, Lincoln, at the helm of the government for what might be its most dangerous period ever, the country now had ________ ___________.

Andrew Johnson

_______ managed to stay ahead of his pursuers for a few days but was eventually shot and killed in a tobacco barn in Caroline County, Virginia. In the following days, eight of the spy ring were rounded up and thrown into prison. Of these, four were later hanged for their role in the conspiracy. The others were given lengthy prison terms.

Booth

The problem, perhaps, was that this was Lincoln's plan, but Johnson was the one administering it. As we noted previously, Lincoln was brilliant at starting out on a positive note, compromising, and gradually moving the conversation farther and farther toward the ideal as he went. He was certainly very good at knowing when and how to push back against political opposition. There is a very good possibility that as the situation developed and the southern states had resisted, Lincoln would gradually have pushed back, attempting to advance his two key principles: union and equality. Johnson picked up on the first part of the plan but had no idea where to go with it next. While Lincoln was an astute diplomat, generally regarded as the best user of the English language for political purposes, Johnson was loud, shrill and uncompromising with those who criticized him. He responded to most public questions by attacking the speakers, going so far as to compare himself to _______ and his critics to Judas. When confronted with Southern resistance, he was completely out of his depth. Rather than stand on Lincoln's principles, he tamely rolled over and gave up.

Christ

From 1863 on, Lincoln and the Radicals went back and forth over whose approach to use. The Radicals, who controlled _________, refused to admit any new state governments formed under Lincoln's plan. Lincoln simply "pocket vetoed" the WadeDavis Bill and let it die a slow death. Lincoln seemed to want to follow his established pattern: Start "nicely" and then, if the South cooperated, well and good. If not, he could then step up his pressure as needed, get more when he could, and slowly bring about the changes he needed to from there. He probably would have accomplished much more in the North and for African-American rights with less pain and suffering for former Confederates if his plan had gone forward. Unfortunately, the important word in that sentence is "probably."

Congress

Meanwhile, Lincoln tried to begin to adjust to the idea of living life as anything other than a wartime president. The last four years had been very hard on him and his family, and he had enjoyed very little time to himself or with them. He had been at the call of his country twenty-four hours a day. Now, they hoped, he might be able to get some rest and reconnect with them. On Good Friday, April 14, Lincoln took a carriage ride with his wife, Mary, something he hadn't done in four years. That night, they planned to attend a comedy at Ford's Theater called "Our American _______." Originally, Grant and his wife were supposed to come too, but Mrs. Grant couldn't stand Mrs. Lincoln, so the Grants begged off and stayed hope. A friend of Mrs. Lincoln came along with her fiancé

Cousin

The question of "Reconstruction" was actually already being considered long before the final surrenders and the disbanding of the Confederate government in 1865. It became a problem almost immediately, in fact. As Union armies moved across the South, more and more Confederate territory fell into their hands. For instance, most of Tennessee was back under _______ control by the end of 1862. While the rest of the war was being fought farther south, what would happen there? This led to the need to come up with a way to bring the former Confederate states back into the Union. But how to do it? What standards must the new states meet?

Federal

Lincoln's status as a legend was probably cemented by what event?

His assassination

As the summer wore on, the southern states got bolder as they got away with more and more. In _____________, for instance, the governor passed a law creating a new, armed militia for the purpose of "keeping the peace." The men he recruited into this new force were precisely the same people who had been carrying guns in the Confederate Army only a few months before! Two U. S. Army generals saw how ridiculous, this was and they overturned it. Johnson publically rebuked them both, arguing that the formation of a militia was a state matter in which the federal government had no say. While that definitely was true in more peaceful times, the crisis the country was confronting was something unique, and Johnson apparently didn't have the wisdom or flexibility to understand it.

Mississippi

The ________ Republicans in Congress were clear that they wanted more than to just go back to the way things were before the war. As such, they introduced the Wade-Davis Bill. It banned anyone who had shown any allegiance to the Confederacy from ever getting the right to vote or serve in government again. Further, more than 50% of the voters in a state must sign a new oath of allegiance before a state could be readmitted to the Union. This obviously was a much harsher way of going about it.

Radical

While some in the South might have seen this as "winning," the reality was the opposite. Many Northern congressmen and senators watched the process with increasing concern. It was becoming obvious that even though they had lost the war on the battlefield, Southerners refused to accept that this meant anything to their government or their culture. This provoked a reaction that brought the _________ in Congress out with a vengeance.

Radicals

Booth and his fellow conspirators had already been involved in a plot to kidnap Lincoln and take him to ________________. Now that the war had ended and it became clear that Lincoln really did plan to push for black civil rights, they changed their plan from kidnapping to murder. Booth would kill Lincoln himself, while two of his associates would assassinate Secretary of State William Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson.

Richmond

Johnson had been born in North Carolina in 1808, but he had made his name as a politician in ______________. During the lead up to the war, he had served as a senator, and he had been the only senator from the South to stay loyal to the Union when the war had broken out. Lincoln had appointed him military governor of Tennessee back in 1862. As a result, when Lincoln needed to replace his vice president in the 1864 campaign, he had turned to Johnson as a way to show the South he was willing to work with them.

Tennessee

_____ off-duty Union Army surgeons rushed to Lincoln's side, but one look was enough to tell them that it was too late. They carried Lincoln across the street to a boarding house, where he lingered for the rest of the night before finally dying the next morning. The other two assassins did not fare as well. The man assigned to kill Seward failed, though he did injure the Secretary of State. Johnson's killer got drunk in a bar and forgot to carry out his dastardly deed.

Three

In the immediate wake of Lincoln's assassination, though, Johnson looked as if he would pull it together and act with decisiveness. He talked tough, and that led many of the Radicals to think that with Johnson in charge, the impasse they had faced with Lincoln over the _______________ _____ might be over. Johnson would have about seven months in which he would be in charge of Reconstruction before the next session of Congress arrived in December of 1865, and they hoped all would be for the best. Johnson had some surprises for them.

Wade-Davis Bill

Pocket veto

a way for a president to kill a bill without having to make a public stand on it. In a regular veto, the president has to officially refuse to sign it and send the bill back to Congress. In the pocket veto, he just holds on to the bill until the time runs out for it to be signed. When that happens, it just ceases to exist as far as the government is concerned and, if Congress wants to bring it back, they have to start all over. It's called a "pocket" veto because it is much like the president putting the bill in his pocket and just forgetting about it.

As a politician, Lincoln was dedicated to two things: the preservation of the union and the destruction of slavery. He believed that both would occur. At the beginning of the war he had been willing to accept an ___________ protecting slavery to preserve the union on the assumption that if the union was preserved, the amendment could be overturned and slavery killed some time in the future. When the opportunity came to destroy slavery in most of the southern states, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. When the Emancipation Proclamation had been accepted, he began to support an amendment to the Constitution that would end slavery entirely. Lincoln started small and seemed completely willing to compromise, but as time went along he took more and more ground until, before you realized it, everyone was standing on his principles anyway.

amendment

This all seemed, perhaps, on the surface, well and good, but the problem was enforcement, especially when it came to black civil rights. By now treating African-Americans as equal citizens wasn't simply an unspoken aim of the war, it was an explicit requirement for the northern states to accept any reformed southern governments. Left to their own devices, the Southerners seemed to be dedicated to coming back into the union with as little change as possible. No southern state gave the vote to a single black man. In fact, they quickly passed laws called "______ _____" that made African-Americans second class citizens. If any former slave dared to speak up against the continued tyranny, there were various groups willing to use violence to beat them down and keep them quiet. In this system, black men and women might not have been slaves, but they were as close as they could be. Johnson did nothing.

black codes

As with most of what Lincoln did as a politician, he held to certain principles, and then he sought to apply them as best he could in each situation. Lincoln was a master at winning through ______________. He stuck to his principles, but he didn't necessarily expect everyone else to stick to them too. He worked best through a gentle process of transformation and argument. So, he would get what he could now and then look for chances to go farther later. Eventually, he was confident that, with the truth on his side, he would get everything he wanted.

compromise

For many years now, historians of the Civil War have argued with each other over "what would Lincoln have done?" It is probably true that had he not been assassinated, his legacy would be a lot more ______________. After all, no actual action could ever live up to the potential of what "might" have happened. Anything actually done in real life has a good side and a bad side. Something that never happened can be whatever we want it to be! One thing is pretty sure, though: Whatever Lincoln would have done, it probably would have been better than what Andrew Johnson did. Johnson presided over the first part of early Reconstruction, and he managed to make a pretty serious mess of it.

controversial

When Lee surrendered at Appomattox and the shooting war, for all intents and purposes, ended, a new phase of the conflict took center stage: Reconstruction. The war had decided that there would be no Confederate _______________, but how would they put the country back together again after four years of slaughter and destruction? Abraham Lincoln had a distinct set of ideals he wanted followed when it came to putting the Union back together. Unfortunately for all involved, he would not live to see it fully implemented.

independence

The Lincolns arrived late but quickly settled into the presidential box and began enjoying the show. During a portion that usually brought loud ________, there was a commotion from Lincoln's box. A man—regular theatergoers would have recognized him as Booth—leaped from the box on the stage. Booth thrust a bloody knife into the air and shouted "Sic semper tyrannis!" a Latin phrase that meant "Thus always to tyrants!" It was also the motto of the state of Virginia. Booth, who injured his leg in the jump, managed to escape out the back of the theater.

laughter

Since Johnson had come up from __________, and he believed it was his job to defend poor whites and nonslaveholders against the "slave power conspiracy." He was therefore generally against slavery as an institution, while he didn't particularly care about slaves themselves. He also had some problems breaking into the society around Washington, D.C. Many Northerners regarded him with suspicion, given his southern roots. Worse, on inauguration day, he had taken a few drinks of whiskey (then used to treat illnesses) to try to help him get over a bout with typhoid fever he was fighting. It went to his head, and his speech was strange and garbled, leaving many of the people who heard wondering about him.

poverty

As the commotion began to quiet down, it became apparent what had happened. While everyone was distracted, Booth had snuck into Lincoln's box. At the time, there was no Secret Service to protect the president, and the one guard had been called away. Booth had simply walked up behind Lincoln, pulled out the small, _______-shot pistol he had carried, and shot the president in the back of the head. After struggling for a moment with Major Henry Rathbone (the fiancé of Mary Lincoln's friend), he had leaped onto the stage, breaking his leg in the process, but making good his exit.

single

As a politician, Lincoln tended to start small and built upward until he achieved much larger goals.

true

As president, Johnson proved to be much more in favor Lincoln's approach to Reconstruction than he was the Radicals.

true

In the months after Appomattox, the southern states did everything they could to undercut federal power and hinder black Civil Rights.

true

Incidentally, this racism wasn't a purely Southern thing. The idea that "my race is the best" is sadly a universal human tendency, and we see it again and again in cultures all over the world. It, therefore, should come as no surprise that it continued to be a problem in a number of northern states. In the North, the number of African-Americans was relatively small, and when former slaves and soldiers moved there looking for freedom after the war, several states reacted by passing segregation laws that became models for Southern race-based segregation. Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Connecticut all rejected laws in 1865 that would have given blacks the right to _____. Many northern states quickly moved toward more inclusiveness, though, as time passed, while southern states seized on segregation and the black codes to incorporate racism into their formal government.

vote

In the first few days after Lee's surrender, on April 11, 1865, Lincoln made a speech from a White House ________ where he pushed the cause of African American civil rights a little farther on the path he had been following by saying that he supported giving black soldiers the right to vote, along with other "very intelligent" African Americans. While he was once again edging his cause forward, one listener wasn't fooled. John Wilks Booth, a famous actor who had served as part of a Confederate spy ring in Washington, knew it wouldn't be limited to just those few. "That means n----r citizenship," he said to a companion. "Now, by God, I'll put him through."

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