chapter 16
How did the Fourteenth Amendment deal with voting rights?
Congress could punish states that excluded voters on the basis of race. → The Fourteenth Amendment gave Congress the right to reduce the congressional representation of states that withheld suffrage on the basis of race. In other words, white Southerners could either allow black men to vote or see their representation in Congress reduced.
What was the Union army's solution to the problem of how to organize labor on federally occupied land in the South?
Force ex-slaves into a system of contractual wage labor → Most military commanders of Civil War occupation forces in the South were not interested in economic or social revolution; they enacted policies that left the old plantation system more or less intact, except for the substitution of wage labor for slave labor. In this "compulsory free labor" system, blacks were forced to enter into contracts, work diligently, and remain obedient. Landowners were not allowed to punish their workers physically, but the army retained the right to discipline blacks who would not work.
Why did Andrew Johnson refuse to intervene when Southerners defied his minimal requirements for reconstruction?
He thought Southern Democrats would better serve his political interests than Northern Republicans. → Andrew Johnson had long hated the planters, and he blamed them for secession. But when push came to shove and the planters defied even his minimal qualifications for readmission to the Union, he refused to intervene because he thought that Southern planters would serve his political interests better than congressional Republicans or Democratic Unionists. He followed the path that he believed offered him the greatest political return, and he won useful political friends by looking the other way when Southern legislatures defied the federal government.
Why did the Military Reconstruction Act of 1867 disappoint some radical Republicans?
It failed to redistribute southern plantations to former slaves. → Despite its bold suffrage provision, the Military Reconstruction Act of 1867 disappointed those who also advocated the confiscation and redistribution of southern plantations to ex-slaves. But most Republicans believed they had provided blacks with what they needed: equal legal rights and the ballot.
What was the purpose of the Military Reconstruction Act of 1867?
It initiated military rule of the South to protect black rights and oversee political reunification. → The Military Reconstruction Act of 1867 overturned the state governments that southern states had established under presidential reconstruction and initiated military rule of the South. The act divided the former Confederacy into five military districts, each under the authority of a Union general who was charged with suppressing insurrection, disorder, and violence, and beginning political reform. Military authorities in the South were also supposed to complete voter registration, including black men, and oversee the election of delegates who would draw up new state constitutions.
Why did large southern landowners complain that the army's solution to the transition from slave labor to free labor would not work?
It prohibited the use of physical punishment. → Whites argued that blacks would not work without the threat of physical coercion as motivation. If planters could not whip their workers, many contended, the new system would not have a chance for success.
What did Republican legislators believe about President Johnson's reconstruction program in December 1865?
It sacrificed black rights for political reunification. → The demands Johnson made on former rebels were so modest that many Republicans argued they insulted the memory of dead Union soldiers. Johnson did not force southern legislatures to extend any rights to blacks and therefore allowed the Old South's social system to continue.
What was President Johnson's response to the Fourteenth Amendment?
Johnson advised Southerners to reject the amendment. → President Johnson was unhappy about Congress's attempts to mold reconstruction. He recommended that southern states reject the amendment and rely on him to beat the Republicans in the 1866 congressional elections. The decision of Southerners to follow Johnson's advice helped fan the fury of even moderate Republicans.
What was the final act performed by Andrew Johnson that convinced House Republicans to vote in favor of his impeachment?
Johnson dismissed the secretary of war. → Radical Republicans had sought for some time to impeach the president on the basis of his abuse of constitutional powers and his failure to fulfill constitutional obligations. However, moderate Republicans believed that impeachment would be justified only if the president broke a law. In August 1867, Johnson dismissed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton without Senate approval, a violation of the Tenure of Office Act; his open defiance of the law finally pushed Republican moderates to vote for impeachment.
What was Lincoln's position on reconstruction at the time of his assassination in April of 1865?
Lincoln aimed to nurture loyal state governments but was still formulating a plan for freed slaves. → Four days before he was killed, Lincoln made a public address in which he defended his plan for the nurturing loyal state governments, but at the same time he also expressed support for the idea of suffrage for at least some southern blacks. He was not clear about exactly which slaves he thought should have the right to vote, but his words demonstrated that he was still formulating a plan for the freed slaves and the rights they would hold in the reconstructed Union.
How did moderate and radical Republicans differ in 1865?
Moderates did not actively support black voting rights and the distribution of confiscated lands to the freedmen, while Radicals did. → Moderate Republicans, and the majority of the Republican Party, wanted assurance that slavery and treason were dead. They did not champion black equality, the confiscation of plantation land, or black voting. Radical Republicans, on the other hand, hoped that reconstruction could achieve black equality, free land distribution to former slaves, and voting rights for African Americans.
What did southern delegates do when they met to draw up new state constitutions in 1865?
Refused to follow Johnson's mild requirements for restoration → The former Confederate states balked at even the mild requirements set forth by Johnson. For example, South Carolina and Georgia refused to declare their secession ordinances null and void, instead "repudiating" them. Mississippi refused to endorse the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery, and Alabama rejected it in part; neither South Carolina nor Mississippi would renounce their Confederate war debts. Despite this resistance, Johnson failed to demand compliance with his terms and thus rekindled southern resistance.
What was the long-term result of the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment?
Republicans could ignore the issue of black equality. → After the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, even staunch reformers declared that the issue of equality was settled because blacks had been given all the tools they needed to protect themselves. If blacks continued to suffer from discrimination, Republicans argued, it was their own fault. In reality, however, the Fifteenth Amendment did not keep southern blacks from being disfranchised for reasons other than race per se, and it certainly did not end racism.
Which issue did Johnson support during his time as a congressman and senator from Tennessee?
States' rights → Johnson was not a loyal Republican: He had been a Democrat for most of his political career and was chosen as Lincoln's running mate in 1864 to expand the Republican Party's appeal to Union-supporting Democrats. He had never been in favor of Republican efforts to expand the power of the federal government and had in fact voted against almost every federal appropriation.
What did the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in December 1865, establish?
The abolition of slavery throughout the United States → The Thirteenth Amendment was the first of three reconstruction amendments. It abolished slavery and involuntary servitude of any kind, except as a punishment for those convicted of a crime, throughout the United States, including the border states. It also established that Congress had the power to enforce the amendment by appropriate legislation.
Why was the 1866 Civil Rights Act extraordinary?
The act dramatically expanded black rights. → The Civil Rights Act was a congressional measure designed to nullify the black codes by affirming the rights of blacks to enjoy the same laws and privileges that applied to whites. By requiring the overturning of discriminatory state laws, it represented a remarkable expansion of black rights and federal authority.
Why did American feminists object to the language of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments?
The legislation extended voting rights to black men but not to women.-The insertion of the word male in the Fourteenth Amendment and the absence of the word sex from the Fifteenth Amendment effectively denied all women citizenship rights and access to the franchise. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and other American feminists broke with their abolitionist male peers to form a separate suffrage movement after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment.
Why were freedmen in the occupied Confederate states unhappy with the new labor regime imposed by the Union military during the Civil War?
The military did not provide freedmen with their own land. → Freed blacks had expected the federal government to give them their own land; in a few places, Union military commanders and the Freedmen's Bureau had already settled freedmen on land confiscated from Confederates. Ex-slaves also felt they had a moral claim to land because they and their ancestors had worked it for more than two hundred years without compensation. They were bitterly disappointed to discover that they were expected to continue working for planters.
What effect did the congressional elections of 1865, the black codes, and President Andrew Johnson's vetoes of key civil rights legislation have on the reunified nation?
These laws and events forged a union of moderates and radicals within the Republican Party. → Southerners had assumed that, since Andrew Johnson would accept their minimal adherence to federal reconstruction guidelines, that Congressional Republicans would accept them as well. In fact, Southerners intransigence served to unify both radical and moderate Republicans in Congress, who believed that presidential reconstruction made a mockery of the sacrifices of Union soldiers. United by their fury at Johnson and Southern Democrats, radical and moderate Republicans in Congress set about to dismantle presidential reconstruction.
White Southerners' rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment
increased the influence of radical Republicans. -Republicans, even those from the party's moderate wing, viewed Southerners' refusal to accept the Fourteenth Amendment as a sign of the South's continued intransigence and rebelliousness. With the moderates' program rejected, radicals gained ground within the Republican Party; each act of southern defiance increased their standing.
President Johnson shocked reformers when he instructed military and government officials to
return all confiscated and abandoned land to pardoned ex-Confederates. → Johnson was eager to normalize relations between the Union and the former Confederate states and had very little sympathy for blacks. Therefore, he told officials to give pardoned ex-Confederates their land back, even if that land had been distributed to freedmen. This came as a surprise to reformers, who believed that Johnson's contempt for wealthy Southerners would mean permanent confiscation of their land.
What was the significance of "Sherman land" and the establishment of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands for free slaves?
They created an expectation among ex-slaves that they would become independent citizens and landowners. → In January of 1865, General William Tecumseh Sherman set aside part of the coast south of Charleston for black settlement. Eager to relieve himself of the thousands of freed slaves who trailed behind his army, he settled them on 400,000 acres of Sherman land. Congress's creation of the Freedmen's Bureau also provided for the allotment of 40-acre plots of confiscated land to freed slaves to rent and eventually buy. These policies were significant primarily because they created the expectation among freed slaves that the government would be caring for their needs and providing them with land so they could establish themselves as independent free people.
Why had the Republican Party chosen Andrew Johnson to be Abraham Lincoln's running mate in 1864?
They needed a vice presidential candidate who would appeal to loyal Unionist Democrats. → Republicans chose Johnson in 1864 because they needed a vice presidential candidate who would appeal to loyal, Union-supporting Democrats, including those in the border states. Johnson was the only Southern senator who had maintained loyalty to the Union and the Republicans believed he was the candidate who would attract the most support from Democrats.