US History Test 6

Expanded Public Education

- A key factor of the Reconstruction was expanded access to public education for African Americans - However, schools were segregated (separated by races) -The beginning of a tax-supported public school system was a major Reconstruction success. It was an enduring development of the new south

Civil Rights Cases (1883)

- A series of five Supreme Court cases the are collectively referred to as the Civil Rights Cases of 1883. The Civil Rights - - - -Cases of 1883 revolve around the Civil Rights Act of 1875. -Purpose of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was to prohibit racial discrimination in hotels, trains, and other public places. - The Civil Rights Act of 1875 imposed criminal penalties against the owners of private businesses or modes of transportation that restricted access to their facilities because of race. - Many people in both the South and the North objected to the Civil Rights Act of 1875, arguing that the law unfairly infringed on personal freedom of choice. Indeed, the legislatures of some Southern states had already enacted laws allowing separate public facilities for whites and Black Americans.

Background of Plessy v. Ferguson

- After the Compromise of 1877 led to the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, Democrats consolidated control of state legislatures throughout the region, effectively marking the end of Reconstruction. - Southern Black people saw the promise of equality under the law embodied by the 13th,14th and 15th Amendment to the Constitution receding quickly, and a return to disenfranchisement and other disadvantages as white supremacy reasserted itself across the South. - As historian C. Vann Woodward pointed out in a 1964 article about Plessy v. Ferguson, white and Black Southerners mixed relatively freely until the 1880s, when state legislatures passed the first laws requiring railroads to provide separate cars for "Negro" or "colored" passengers. These were known as Jim Crow Laws

The Flight for Property Rights

- American property laws originally mandated that a woman's property became her husband's property upon marriage. - In 1848, New York State passed the Married Women's Property Act. The act contained the following provisions: Women retained ownership of any property that she owned at the time of her marriage Women were not liable for her husband's debts - Any property a married women received as a gift to herself was her own property and could not be disposed of by her husband - Other states followed New York's example and passed similar laws. By the 1870s, most other Northern states had passed married women's property acts, and by the end of the century, all states has passed laws to protect the property rights of women.

Support for Reconstruction Declines in Congress

- As the 1860s ended, voters and politicians outside the South increasingly turned their attention to other issues such as political corruption and the economy - Northern support for Reconstruction faded and federal troops were removed from southern states by 1871 - The Freedmen's Bureau was dissolved in 1872 - A generation of Radical Republicans in Congress, forged by abolitionist fervor and anxious to carry that passion into national politics of Reconstruction, passed away.

Remaking the Southern Economy

- Before the Civil War, the South's wealth was tied to landownership. Much of the land was owned by a relatively small number of plantation owners - Millions of landless southern white people were competing with millions of landless Black people for work as farm laborers on the land of others - After the Civil War, large land owners could not purchase materials or pay their workers. This led to the rise of sharecropping and tenant-farming

Demand for Voting and Property Rights

- Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote the Declaration of Sentiments, which was based upon the Declaration of Independence - The Declaration of Sentiments argued that government and society oppressed women. It demanded that women be considered full citizens, with the same rights and privileges as men. They fought for the right to vote, property rights, divorce laws, education, and employment.

Susan B. Anthony

- She was an abolitionist as well as a support of women's rights - Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the American Equal Rights Association in 1866. - Frederick Douglass was one of 32 men to sign the Declaration of Sentiments - Anthony published The Revolution, a weekly women's rights newspaper Anthony also formed the National Women's Suffrage Association - She also wrote the text of the 19th Amendment, but she died before its passage. She became an icon of women's rights.

The Suffrage Movement

- Some suffragists traveled from state to state trying to persuade individual state legislatures to grant equal voting rights to women. - Wyoming was granted the women the right to vote in 1896. By 1910, women in the Western states voted in large numbers, while most women in the East were still denied voting rights.

The Fight for the Nineteenth Amendment

- Susan B. Anthony worked to win support for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing the voting rights for women in all of the states. - The amendment was first introduced in Congress in 1878, but male lawmakers rejected it. Suffragists fought to have the amendment introduced into every session of Congress for the next 40 years. - The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1918. - Women in the suffragist movement kept applying pressure for the passage of the amendment. - Suffragists effectively commanded the attention of politicians and the public through relentless lobbying, clever publicity stunts, civil disobedience and nonviolent confrontation.

The Civil War and Women

- The Civil War opened up new opportunities for women. With so many men off fighting, women had to the take on the roles of teachers, office workers, and teachers. - Women were nurses in the Civil War. More than a million were killed or wounded in the Civil War. A generation of women— single, widowed, or with disabled husbands- had to support themselves and their families - Women began to attend colleges and became teachers, social workers, and nurses - However, these women could not vote and were only gaining the right to own property state by state

Jim Crow Laws

- The Compromise of 1877 allowed southern states to reassert their control over African Americans without concern about federal intervention. This led to the Jim Crow Laws - Jim Crow Laws: state laws that segregated whites and Blacks - Due to the Jim Crow laws, widespread segregation was everywhere, railroad cars, schools, restaurants, parks, cemeteries, hospitals, and juries. - Jim Crow laws were used to limit African American suffrage

State Governments Limit Voting Rights

- The Fifteenth Amendment prohibited state governments from denying someone the right to vote because of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." - After Reconstruction, southern states got around the 15th Amendment by passing a series of restrictive measures that severely limited African Americans' ability to vote - The tactics used by state governments included poll tax, literacy tests, grandfather clauses

Expanding Suffrage: The Fifteenth Amendment

- The Fourteenth Amendment extended citizenship to former slaves by making any person born or naturalized in the United States a citizen. - The Fifteenth Amendment specifically stated that the right to vote could not be denied to any citizen "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." - Susan B. Anthony, a leader of the Suffrage Movement, did not support the passage of the 15th Amendment because it did not protect the right of women to vote. Susan B. Anthony wanted women included with African American men.

Significance of Plessy v. Ferguson

- The Plessy v. Ferguson verdict enshrined the doctrine of "separate but equal" as a constitutional justification for segregation, ensuring the survival of the Jim Crow South for the next half-century. - Intrastate railroads were among many segregated public facilities the verdict sanctioned; others included buses, hotels, theaters, swimming pools and schools.

Redeemers in the South Gain Political Power

- The Southern Democrats and moderate Republicans focused on common issues that united white southerners around the goal of regaining power in Congress. These groups became known as Redeemers, politicians who aimed to "redeem" the South by gaining seats in Congress - The redeemers believed that racial segregation should be the rule of the new South - Southern Democrats and moderate Republicans joined forces and impeded the agenda of the Radical Republicans. They argued that programs like public education and road building resulted in higher taxes. - These redeemers won seats in Congress. Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives in 1872.

Impact of the Civil Rights Cases of 1883

- The Supreme Court's decision in the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 virtually stripped the federal government of any power to ensure Black Americans equal protection under the law. - Southern states, freed of the threat of federal restrictions, began enacting laws sanctioning racial segregation. - In 1896, the Supreme Court cited its Civil Rights Cases ruling in its landmark Plessy v. Ferguson decision, declaring that requiring separate facilities for Black people and white people was constitutional as long as those facilities were "equal" and that racial segregation itself did not amount to unlawful discrimination. - So-called "separate but equal" segregated facilities, including schools, would persist for more than 80 years until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s swayed public opinion to oppose racial discrimination. - Eventually, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968, enacted as part of the Great Society program of President Lyndon B. Johnson, incorporated several key elements of the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

Voting Rights Expand

- The U.S. Constitution, before the passage of the voting rights amendments, did not guarantee suffrage (the right to vote) to anyone . State legislatures determined who could vote. - Early on, only white men with property could vote. During the 1820s, states began to grant the right to white men who did not own property. By the end of the 1820's, attitude and state laws shifted in favor of universal male suffrage. The 1828 presidential election of Andrew Jackson was an example of this expansion of voting rights to men without property.

Violence undermines reform efforts

- The struggle to make a living in a region devastated by war led to fierce economic competition. Economic uncertainty in turn fueled the fire of white southerners' outrage. White southerners were resentful of the Republican Party takeover of local politics and of occupation by federal troops. White southerners from all economic classes were united in their insistence that African Americans be denied full citizenship. - The more progress African Americans made, the more hostile white southerners became as they tried to keep freedmen in a subservient role.

Three Major Issues develop after the Civil War

1) How will the Southern states rejoin the Union?—- Some felt the Southern states should be allowed to enter the Union with few obstacles. Others felt the Southern states should be held to certain stipulations like swearing loyalty to the federal government and guaranteeing freedmen's rights in their state constitutions. 2) How will the Southern economy be rebuilt?—- Should Southern land be confiscated by the federal government and be redistributed to former slaves? Southern landowners rejected this idea. 3) What rights will African Americans have?——Many leaders of the Republican Party felt that African Americans should have full political rights, including voting rights, and access to education. Most Southerners rejected this idea because they felt that it would undermine their political power and status in society.

Tenant Farming

Tenant farming allowed for more independence than the sharecropping system. Tenant Farming: the tenant paid cash rent to a landlord and then was free to choose and manage his own crop. This system also posed significant challenges for tenant farers because of the potential for exploitive rental prices

Era of Reconstruction (1865- 1877)

The state of the US after the Civil War: parts of the South lay in ruins—homes burned, businesses closed, many properties abandoned. African Americans, though emancipated, lacked full citizenship and the means to make a living. During the era of Reconstruction (1865-1877), the federal government struggled with how to return the eleven southern states to the Union, rebuild the South's ruined economy, and promote the rights of former slaves

Grandfather Clauses

These clauses allowed someone to vote as long as his ancestors had voted prior to 1866. Of course, the ancestors of the Black freedmen did not vote prior to 1866, but the ancestors of many whites did. The grandfather clauses allowed poor whites and illiterate whites but not African Americans to vote.

Poll Taxes

states required voters to pay a tax. This stopped many poor African Americans from voting

Literacy Tests

were used to keep African Americans and, sometimes, poor whites -- from voting, and they were administered at the discretion of the officials in charge of voter registration. If the official wanted a person to pass, he could ask the easiest question on the test

Radical Reconstruction in Congress

• A coalition of Radical Republicans and moderate Republicans in Congress developed a sweeping Reconstruction program. Key elements of the Reconstruction Program: Congress proposed (and states ratified) the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth amendment guaranteed equality for all under the laws. Under this amendment, any state that refused to allow black people to vote would risk losing the number of seats in the House that were represented by its Black population Congress overrode a veto by President Johnson to pass the Military Reconstruction Act of 1867. This act divided the 10 southern states yet to be admitted into the Union into five military districts governed by Union generals. The states also had to write a new state constitutions which guaranteed the suffrage for African American men and ratify the 14th Amendment before being admitted into the Union The Fifteenth Amendment was proposed by Congress (and ratified by the states). The 15th Amendment forbade any state from denying suffrage on the grounds of race, color, or previous condition of servitude

Andrew Johnson Becomes President

• Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in April of 1865. His Vice President, Andrew Johnson became president. • Andrew Johnson followed in Lincoln's footsteps and wanted to restore the Union as quickly as possible and make it easy for the Southern states to rejoin. • Andrew Johnson did not support African American political rights, such as voting. • Andrew Johnson supported states' rights, which would allow the laws and customs of the state to outweigh federal regulations. States would, therefore, be able to limit the freedoms of former slaves.

Formation of the KKK

• During Reconstruction, dozens of loosely organized groups of white southerners emerged to terrorize African Americans • The Ku Klux Klan became the most well known of these groups • Klan members roamed the countryside burning homes, schools, and churches. They also beat and killed African Americans and their white allies. • They dressed in white hoods to obscure their faces and rode horses to enhance their intimidation of African Americans • They attempted to scare freedmen from voting. This was very prevalent in many rural counties and thus limited African American voting • They took aim at the symbols of Black freedom: teachers and schools, churches and ministers, and anyone who encouraged African Americans to vote

Schools and Churches

• Freed people now had access to an education and understood the value of an education. Schools created by the Freedmen's Bureau quickly filled • The Freemen's Bureau aided Black colleges • Churches were also an important component of Reconstruction education. • Under slavery, slave owners sometimes allowed their slaves to hold their own religious services. Now with freedom, Black churches were established throughout the South and often served as school sites, community centers, employment agencies, and political rallying points • Churches provided an arena for organizing, public speaking, and group planning. Churches helped develop African American political leaders.. Many African American political leaders began their careers as ministers

Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan

• Lincoln believed the first post Civil War goal was to unify the Union. • Lincoln created a plan which provided leniency and moderation to the South • Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan: • As soon as 10% of a state's voters took a loyalty oath to the Union, that state could set up a new government. If the state's constitution abolished slavery and provided education for African Americans, the state would regain representation in Congress. • He was also willing to grant pardons to former confederates and compensate them for lost land • Lincoln did not require a guarantee of social or political equality for African Americans. He recognized southern states that did not allow African Americans to vote

The Radical Republicans

• Many Republicans in Congress opposed Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan because it was too lenient to the South and did not provide for the political and social rights of African Americans. These Republican Congressmen became known as the Radical Republicans. • The Radical Republicans insisted that the confederates had committed crimes—by enslaving African Americans and entangling the nation in war. • The Radical Republicans advocated full citizenship, including the right to vote, for African Americans. • They favored punishment and harsh terms for the South. They believed that confederate land should be confiscated and be given to the freedmen. • Radical Republicans favored federal power over state power to achieve these goals

Southern States Limit African American Political Rights

• Many Southern states limited suffrage (the right to vote) to white men • Southern states instituted black codes—laws that sought to limit the rights of African Americans and keep them as landless workers. • Some black codes prohibited African Americans from owning land and arrested any unemployed African Americans through harsh and racially motivated vagrancy laws • white southerns openly used violence and intimidation to enforce the black codes

Work and Family

• Millions of freedmen had to create new lives for themselves after the end of the Civil War and the passage of the 13th Amendment • Many freedmen moved away from the plantation. "As long as the shadow of the great house falls across you, you ain't going to feel like no free men and no free women." • For the first time, many African Americans men and women could legalize and celebrate their marriages, create homes for their families, and make choices concerning where they could reside. • Some freedmen moved to the cities where they could develop churches, schools, and other social institutions. They hoped to find work as skilled craftsmen. However, many African Americans faced discrimination in the cities. • Other freedmen chose to stay in rural areas where many farmed land for landowners—- white or black—who were often poor themselves

Sharecropping

• Sharecropping was used by most of the South's Black and white poor • The Sharecropping system: the landowner dictated the crop grown and provided the sharecropper with a place to live as well as seeds and tools, in return for a "share" of the harvested crop. The landowner often bought the tools and seeds for a high price and on credit from the supplier. The high price of the tools and seeds was passed along to the sharecropper. This led to a constant cycle of debt—the sharecropper was perpetually in debt to the landowner, and the landowner was always in debt to the supplier. • Sharecroppers could easily be exploited by the landowners and were constantly in debt. • Agriculture remained key to the Southern economy long after the Civil War. Sharecropping was a major source of labor until the 1940s when mechanized farming reduced the need for human laborers

Freedmen's Bureau

• The Freedmen's Bureau was government sponsored program during Reconstruction • Goals of the Freedmen's Bureau included providing providing food, clothing, healthcare, and education for Black and refugees in the South • Freedmen's Bureau helped reunite families that had been separated by slavery and war • It negotiated fair labor contracts between former slaves and white landowners. The purpose of these labor contracts was to guarantee fair treatment and wages for freedmen • The Freedmen's Bureau represented African Americans in the courts and thus established a precedent that African Americans had legal rights • The Freedmen's Bureau established many schools for African Americans. By 1866, there were as many as 150,000 African American students—both children and adults—acquiring basic literacy

Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

• The power dispute between Congress and the President reached a crisis when the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson tried to remove a member of his cabinet- Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Edwin Stanton was a Radical Republican and Johnson wanted to remove the influence of Radical Republicans from the executive branch. • Andrew Johnson was not convicted of impeachment because fewer than 2/3 of the Senate voted to convict him of impeachment.

Compromise of 1877

• The presidential election of 1876 was contested. Congress had to mediate the crisis and this lead to the Compromise of 1877 • Compromise of 1877: Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican candidate, was elected president. In return, the remaining federal troops were withdrawn from the South • Compromise of 1877 led to the end of Federal Reconstruction. The South and the millions of recently freed African Americans were left to negotiate their own fate. The loss of federal control and oversight allowed the southern states plenty of opportunity to pass discriminatory laws which promoted racial segregation and restricted African Americans' access to the polls.

Congress vs. President

•Reconstruction highlighted the divide between Congressional and Executive Power •Radical Republicans in Congress argued that federal intervention was needed to advance African American political and civil rights. •Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This bill was designed to overturn the black codes by creating federal guarantees of civil rights for African Americans and supersede any state laws that limited them. • President Andrew Johnson disagreed with the Radical Republicans because he didn't believe African Americans should receive political rights and he believed in states' rights. Andrew Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 •Congress responded by overriding the veto with 2/3 votes of both houses in Congress (House of Representatives and the Senate); thus the Civil Rights Act of 1866 became law.