The Reconstruction Era

The purpose of the Fifteenth Amendment

-protected the right of African American males to vote -forbade any state to deny any citizen the right to vote because of race, color or previous condition of servitude (all African American men over 21 had right to vote)

Ulysses Grant

1) 18th President (1869-1877) 2) led union in Civil War

Reasons Congress wanted to impeach Johnson

1) Congress passed Reconstruction Act of 1867 over Johnson's veto 2) Johnson fired military commanders who supported Radical Reconstruction 3) House of Representatives voted to impeach Johnson but didn't get enough votes from Senate to impeach

Andrew Johnson

1) Vice President who became 17th President after assassination of Lincoln 2) opposed equal rights for African Americans (against 14th Amendment) 3) His Plan "Restoration" grants amnesty to southern whites who swore loyalty to the Union

New Forces in Southern politics

1) White Southern republicans (scalawags) 2) Northerners (carpetbaggers) 3) African Americans

Major Challenges and problems faced by South after Civil War

1) confederate money was worthless 2) southern banks closed 3) *four million uneducated freedmen-What rights would freed slaves have? 4) had to rebuild and repair damage

Sharecropper's Cycle of Poverty

1) freedmen left plantations with nothing but their freedom 2) most returned to where they lived in slavery 3) farmers received supplies on credit and couldn't pay what they borrowed with their harvest, so they lost their land and became sharecroppers

What were the three groups of voters in the South after Congress banned former Confederates from voting

1. African Americans 2. white southerners who had not supported secession 3. northerners who had moved south after the war

two ways that African Americans were prevented from voting

1. Literacy test 2. Poll tax

Three purposes the Black Codes serve

1. limited the rights of freedmen 2. help planters find workers to replace their slaves 3. keep freedmen at the bottom of the social order in the South. It called segregation of blacks and whites in public places

Three things that the Freemen's Bureau did

1. provide food to African Americans 2. provide medical care to African Americans 3. provide education to African Americans

Five things a former Confederate state had to do before it could rejoin the Union

1. ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery 2. written a new state constitution 3. elected a new state government 4. repealed its act of secession 5. canceled its war debts

Two main aims of Reconstruction

1. southern states had create new governments that were loyal to the Union and respected federal authority. 2. slavery had to be abolished once and for all.

Two things that southerners did not like about their Reconstruction governments

1. southerners hated the fact that these governments had been forced on them by Northerners 2. seeing former slaves voting and holding public office

three ways that African Americans dealt with segregation in the South

1. they left the South 2. African American families, churches, and communities banded together to build schools and colleges for black children 3. migrated to the west

Lincoln's Assassination

1865 (5 days after end of Civil War) shot in head by John Wilkes Booth (an actor) at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Disputed election of 1876 (Hayes v. Tilden)

20 electoral votes from 4 states is dispute. Congress appointed commision to decide who gets votes. Congress gave them to Hayes (Republican)

Who helped Grant get elected president in 1868?

African Americans

freedmen

African Americans who had been set free from slavery

Jim Crow Laws / Segregation

After 1877, legal separation of races became law of the south in schools, restaurants, theaters, trains, streetcars, playgrounds, hospitals and cemeteries

End of Reconstruction

By 1876, Northerners lost interest in Reconstruction which meant a loss of hard-won rights of African Americans in the South

Election of 1868

Grant received 1/2 million black votes and beat Seymour even though Seymour received majority of white votes.

What lesson did Republicans learn from the 1868 election??

If they wanted to keep control of the White House and Congress, they needed African American votes.

Why did the House of Representatives impeach Johnson?

Johnson was charged with bringing the high office of the President of the United States into contempt, ridicule, and disgrace, to the scandal of all good citizens

Jim Crow laws

Laws enforcing segregation of blacks and whites in the South after the Civil War. "Jim Crow" was a black character in an entertainers's act in the mid-1800s.

Black Codes

Laws that severely limited the rights of freedmen after Civil War 1) African Americans could marry & own some property but did not have rights of citizenship 2) help planters find workers to replace their slaves. Required freedmen to work 3) kept freedmen at the bottom of the social order in the South. Most called for the segregation of blacks and whites in public places

Plessy v. Ferguson

Lawsuit brought by African Americans to challenge segregation RESULT: Supreme Court ruled segregation was legal as long as facilities for whites and blacks were equal (truth is they weren't equal since south spent more money on white schools)

10% plan of reconstruction

Lenient on South--1863 1) 10% of its voters must swear loyalty to Union 2) new government had to abolish slavery 3) offered amnesty to confederates who swore loyalty to Union

Johnson's Plan of Reconstruction (proposed by Andrew Johnson)

Lenient on South--1865 1) majority of white men must swear loyalty to Union 2) must ratify 13th Amendment (ban slavery) 3) opposed by Congress because it allowed former confederates to vote & hold office and no African Americans allowed to vote

Radical Republicans

Members of congress (led by senators Stevens and Sumner) during Reconstruction, angry about Johnson's lenient reconstruction plan, wanted to ensure that freedmen had right to vote & break the power of wealthy plantation owners

What happened after Supreme Court justices' ruling in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson?

More Jim Crow laws were passed

Most black voters joined which party?

Republican (home of Lincoln and the emancipation)

Literacy tests

Some states imposed literacy tests that required voters read and explain a section of the Constitution (kept freedmen and poor whites from voting since they had little education)

Why Northerners went South after Civil War?

Some went with hope to profit as South was being rebuilt but more wanted to help freedmen

What happened to public schooling in the South?

Southern democrats cut spending to public schools when they regained the control of South. As public funding dried up, many schools closed.

Wade-Davis Bill of Reconstruction (proposed by Republicans in Congress)

Strict on South--1864 1) majority of whites must swear loyalty to Union 2) former confederates cannot vote or hold office 3) Lincoln didn't sign-said it was too harsh

Reconstruction Act of 1867 (proposed by Radical Republicans)

Strict on South--1867 1) threw out governments that refused to ratify 14th Amendment 2) divided south into 5 military districts (rather than having confederate leaders) 3) Southern states had to allow African Americans to vote

How did the Amnesty Act of 1872 effect state governments in the South?

The Democrats(Confederate people) regained the control of all but three states in the South

Why many southern citizens resist treating Freedmen as equals?

They didn't want to lose their political power

One example of how African Americans were represented in the state or national government

Twenty-two African Americans represented their states in Congress (20 in the House, and 2 in the Senate)

What was the opinion of democrats and President Johnson?

White men should rule the government

Conservatives

White southerners who resisted reconstruction, willing to allow African Americans to vote but wanted to keep real power in hands of whites

What did the Compromise of 1877 mean for freedmen?

a giant step backward to freedmen's full citizenship because the whole South has got into the hands of men that held black as slaves

sharecropping

a system that former plantation owners rented small plots of land to freedmen to grow crops. Freedmen paid the owners either cash or crops, but were not able to earn enough to pay all they owed. Therefore, sharecropping led a life of debt and poor.

Congress and President Lincoln

agreed on one proposal - the Freedmen's Bureau (Congress passed the bill and Lincoln signed it)

Thirteenth Amendment

banned slavery (did not state, however, that they were to be treated equally)

Military Reconstruction Act

declared that new state governments in the former Confederacy had to be elected by both blacks and whites

Amnesty

government pardon

grandfather clauses

law that stated if a voter's father or grandfather was eligible to vote on Jan. 1, 1867, the voter did not have to take literacy test (no African Americans could vote before 1968 so this only helped poor whites)

Fourteenth Amendment

made former slaves citizens with full rights 1) Defined citizens as all persons born or naturalized in US 2) citizens had equal protection of the laws 3) cannot deprive any person of life, liberty or property w/o due process (can't discriminate based on race)

Enforcement Acts

made it illegal to prevent another person from voting by force, bribery, or intimidation

constitutional conventions

met and wrote new constitutions for their states

carpetbaggers

northerners who went to the South after the Civil War to gain money and political power

Poll taxes

passed by southern states requiring voters to pay a fee each time they voted (most freedmen could rarely afford to vote)

Amnesty Act of 1872

permitted former Confederates to vote

Sharecropper

person who rents plot of land from another person and farms it in exchange for a "share" of the crop

How did southern governments rebuild

rebuilt damaged roads, bridges, railroads, schools and hospitals. To pay for these projects, state legislatures raised taxes up to 400 percent.

Compromise of 1877

removed federal troops from the South and returned rule throughout the South to former slave owners. Reconstruction was officially over. Returned South to "white man's rule".

Civil Rights Act of 1866

said freedmen were full citizens with the same rights as whites

What did the majority of Supreme Court justices rule in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson?

segregation laws did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment as long as the facilities(places) available to both races were roughly equal.

civil rights

the rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution to all people as citizens, especially equal treatment under the law

What was the problem with Confederates being part of Congress?

they would try to prevent freedom for Freedmen

scalawags

white southerners who supported the federal government after the Civil War