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US History II Chapter 15—Reconstruction (1865-1877) Aug. 18, 2011 The Civil War was fought over state’s rights and slavery. Reconstruction- to rebuild the Union after the Civil War; coined by Lincoln. Secession- to leave a union or country as a whole. Franchise- the right to vote Suffrage- the right to vote 620,000 men were killed during the war. 4 million slaves were freed. The executive and legislative (Republican) branch fought over the rights and protection of freedmen. Lincoln’s 10% plan- Amnesty to states which was achieved once 10% of a state’s eligible voters swore an oath, that state had to offer emancipation and then re-join the Union. Black codes- Laws which limited the freedom of freed blacks. Alexander Stephens (GA) was the VP of the Confederacy. Newly elected Senators were not allowed to sit in Congress. Johnson just wanted to have the states be admitted to the Union before he dealt with freed slaves. Johnson granted pardons by the thousands. 13 th^ amendment- Made slavery illegal; ratified in December 1865. Monroe Doctrine- No more colonies; hands off the Western hemisphere. Seward’s folly- His purchase of Alaska; sect’y of State. The U.S. purchased it for 7.2 million in 1867. The treaty was negotiated in 1868. This was during the administration of Andrew Johnson. It took 50k to start a bank.
- The Constitution does not address the procedure for reconstruction, nor does it say which branch of government should handle the readmission of rebellious states. Lincoln’s plan was a generous attempt to avoid violence and prolonged conflict while the South began the process of reintegrating its political and economic systems with the North. (See the section titled The Struggle for National Reconstruction.)
- Blacks acquired land in South Carolina, but after a struggle, most acreage eventually ended up back in the hands of its original owners. The freedmen never had extensive tracts of land. Sharecroppers were given land to live on and farm but were not the owners. (See the section titled The Meaning of Freedom.)
- Johnson demanded that high-ranking officials go beyond the oath he required of everyone else and petition directly to him for a pardon. Southern governments had to accept
the abolition of slavery to be readmitted to the Union , but Johnson never supported African American suffrage. (See the section titled The Struggle for National Reconstruction.)
- The Fourteenth Amendment was intended to give some protection for civil rights by declaring all the former slaves citizens and guaranteeing them protection under the law****. It did not end slavery—the Thirteenth Amendment did that —and although it was aimed at changing Johnson’s Reconstruction policies, it was not primarily to embarrass him. Although it did mention voting rights, it only prescribed penalties for violations; it did not forbid the denial of voting rights. (See the section titled The Struggle for National Reconstruction.)
- Johnson’s opposition to and active campaigning against the Fourteenth Amendment only made matters worse for the Democrats and contributed to the huge Republican majority in the 1866 election. He gave more power to the Radicals by opposing the amendment, and he failed to unite conservative Republicans and Democrats. His impeachment, although connected to his opposition of the Fourteenth Amendment, was based on other charges. (See the section titled The Struggle for National Reconstruction.)
- Although many considered Johnson to be a traitor to the Republicans, this was not a crime; neither was coming up with his own version of Reconstruction. Allowing ex- Confederates back into government was not a crime either, and there was no constitutional guarantee of blacks’ civil rights yet in existence when Johnson’s actions toward former Confederates were taken. Johnson’s dismissal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton led to Johnson’s impeachment
- The problem with sharecropping was that the initial loans needed could rarely be paid off because of the ever-declining price of cotton. Farm size varied and was a hindrance to
agricultural sector were real but not the source of political opposition. (See the section titled The Undoing of Reconstruction.) • Confederate General Forrest on April 12, 1864, led his troops to commit one of the war’s worst atrocities, the massacre of unarmed black Union troops at Fort Pillow, Tennessee. Forrest’s troops refused to take prisoners, instead shooting down black soldiers as they tried to surrender. (See the section titled The Undoing of Reconstruction.)
• Most impressive of Reconstruction Republican governments was in the arena of public
education. Republicans viewed education as the foundation of a true democratic order. By 1875, over half of black children were attending school in Mississippi, Florida, and South Carolina. Blacks of all ages rushed to the newly established schools, even when they had to pay tuition. (See the section titled The Meaning of Freedom.) • As the reconstructed governments began to function in 1867, African American politicians increased their advocacy to reform the South. Though never proportionate to their numbers in the population, blacks became officeholders across the South. In South Carolina, African Americans constituted a majority in the lower house of the legislature in
- (See the section titled The Meaning of Freedom.)
1) The Struggle for National Reconstruction a) Presidential Approaches: From Lincoln to Johnson Wade-Davis bill signed on July 2, 1864. Required an oath of allegiance to the Union by a majority of each state’s white adult males, new governments to be formed by only those who had never taken up arms against the North, and permanent disenfranchisement of ex- Confederate leaders. Johnson was TN’s military governor in 1862. In May 1865, Johnson advanced his own version of Reconstruction. His plan offered full amnesty to all Southerners who swore allegiance to the US (excluding high-ranking Confederate leaders, provisional governors for southern states and only asked them to revoke succession, repudiate Confederate debts and ratify the 13th Amendment.
b) Congress vs. the President Johnson vetoed the Freedman’s Bureau. He also vetoed the very first civil rights bill passed in the U.S but Congress was able to override this and it passed. After these vetoes, he lost the support of the modern Republicans. Johnson invented a new party. Congress was able to pass the Fourteenth Amendment (defines American citizenship). It is extended to all persons born and naturalized in the US. States where prohibited to limiting citizens of life, liberty, property, without due process and equal protection under the law. He urged the states to reject the Fourteenth Amendment (this attempt fails.) During the elections of 1866, the Democrats lost most of their seats in both houses.
c) Radical Reconstruction The Reconstruction Act of 1867 divided the South into 5 military districts, each under the command of a U.S. general. Each commander was required to register all eligible adult males (black and white), supervise new state constitutional conventions; and ensures that new constitutions guaranteed black males suffrage. To be readmitted, the states had to write new state constitutions (which had to be approved) and ratify the 14th^ Amendment. VA, Miss, GA, and TN were the last states to be readmitted to the Union.
d) The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson Tenure of Office Act- States that Congress (Senate) must approve of presidential firings. In 1867, Johnson “suspended” Sect’y of War, Andrew M. Stanton (a Radical) and replaced him with Gen. Ulysses Grant. Although Johnson thought Grant would be a good soldier and follow commands, he openly
The Alabama Claims – The name of a ship. During 1862-64, it captured and sunk merchant ships. England had to pay 15.5 million because they helped the ships even though they claimed neutrality. f) Woman Suffrage Denied Feminist movement began in 1848 at Seneca Falls, N.Y. May 1869 = Convention of Equal Rights Association (ERA). The Declaration of Sentiment- Modeled after the DOI, women just blamed men. Frederick Douglass asked white women to understand the plight of former slaves, which did not end well. Lucy Stone/Julia Ward Howe = American Woman Suffrage Association, who remained loyal to the Repubs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton/Susan B. Anthony= National Woman Suffrage Association, which focused exclusively on women’s rights. In 1873, NWSA members went to register to vote and S.B.A. ended up being arrested. In Minor vs. Happersett ( 1875), the Supreme Court dashed suffragist’s hopes. It decided that suffragists rights were not inherent citizen’s rights and that states could deny women the right to vote. Wyoming Territory gave women the right to vote in 1869. National American Woman Suffrage Association- A merger of the two groups. Alice Paul- Instrumental in getting women the right to vote.
2) The Meaning of Freedom a) The Quest for Land Sherman had reserved large coastal tracks for freed slaves and settled them on 40-acre plots. After the war ended, the Freedmen’s Bureau (FB) distributed the land. In Oct. 1865, Johnson ordered General Oliver O. Howard, head of the FB, to restore plantations on Sea Island (off the coast of S. Carolina) back to their white owners.
b) Freed Slaves and Northerners: Conflicting Goals Many congressional leaders believed that because slavery was dead, a new economic revolution would change the South. Thaddeus Stevens believed that slaves had already earned the rights to land. In 1869, S. Carolina established a land commission to buy and resell property with easy terms to the landless; about 14k black families acquired land.
c) Wage Labor and Sharecropping Contract labor-system eventually led into sharecropping. Sharecropping- the blacks were paid wages in crops. In the south, stores doubled as money lenders (banks.) The stores kept prices and interest rates high, which pretty much kept blacks in servitude. Gang-labor system- Basically paying people for the slave-work they were still doing. Since they were being paid crap wages, many left the fields for other jobs/sharecropping. Freed people had conflicts over the labor of women. Domesticity- Women stay home to cook and clean and mind their husbands. Peonage- forced labor. Sharecropping pretty much kept black farmers in debt to their “employers.” Farms were leased on a year-to-year basis, so owners and workers had no incentives to improve on the property. Crop-lien laws were used in the interest of international merchants and bankers who initially put up the capital (money.)
d) Republican Governments in the South
remained on Capitol Hill for 5 years. Some believed that if the bill would pass, it would encourage race-mixing and interracial marriage. In 1875, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875 , which required “full and equal” access to jury service, transportation and public accommodations, irrespective of race.
1) The Undoing of Reconstruction
a) The Republican Unraveling i) A severe depression hit in 1873. ii) The depression was triggered by the bankruptcy of Northern Pacific Railroad, backed by Jay Cooke. iii) By 1874, 50% of U.S. iron manufacturing had stopped. iv) By 1877, half of the railroad companies had filed for bankruptcy. v) 2 swindlers from N. Carolina gave more than 200k in bribes and loans to legislators to gain millions to be used for rail construction. They instead used to money to speculate in stocks and bonds in Europe. vi) Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company- Founded in 1865 and worked closely with the FB and Union army across the south. In June 1874, the bank failed.
b) The Disillusioned Liberals i) Classic liberals: believers in freed trade, smaller gov’t, and limited voting rights. ii) Horace Greely was the nominee for the Liberal Republican party. iii) Grant captured 56% of the popular vote & every single electoral vote. iv) Liberals claimed freedmen men were unfit to vote & decried universal suffrage. v) Credit Mobilier- a sham company set up by shareholders in the Union Pacific Railroad to secure gov’t grants at enormous profit. Those in charge protected it from fed. Investigation by providing C.M. stock to members of Congress.
vi) Whiskey Ring- a network of liquor distillers & treasury agents who defrauded the gov’t millions of $$$$ of excise taxes on whiskey. The ringleader was a Grant appointee & his private sect’y, Orville Babcock. It is believed that Grant had to perjure himself to keep Babcock from going to prison. c) Counterrevolution in the South i) April 12, 1864, Nathan Bedford Forrest & his troops slaughtered black Union soldiers at Fort Pillow in TN. ii) NBF was a highly decorated Confed officer. iii) William G. Brownlow, elected as TN’s Repub governor in 1865, put his enemies on blast. So, Forrest & his goons targeted Brownlow’s supporters, esp. the blacks. iv) The first KKK groups were formed around 1865-66. Forrest became the first Grand Wizard in 1866, in Nashville. v) The KKK claimed to be the ghosts of former Confed soldiers. vi) Klan members were in domination of TN’s delegation to the DNC in ‘68. vii)Btw 1869-1871, Congress held extensive meetings & passed laws to put down the Klan & enforce the rights of freedmen under the 14/15th Amendments. viii) After 1872, prosecutions against the KKK began to fall. TX fell to the Demos in 1873; Bama and Ark in 1874. ix) Democratic “Redeemers” swept the 1875 elections and took Miss; Recon was over by 1876. d) The Supreme Court Rejection of Equal Rights i) Slaughterhouse cases- the Court cuts the power of the 14th^ Amendment. ii) U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876) - the justices argued that the 14th^ Amendment offered few and trivial federal protection to citizens. iii) Cruikshank- a case which emerged from the massacre of black farmers by ex-Confed soldiers in Colfax, LA. This was later followed by a Demo coup. iv) The courts ruled that unless the state itself was violating citizen’s voting rights, the fed. Courts could not do anything. Issues with the Klan and other groups needed to be handled by the state.
Yes, because the South ended up passing things like Black Codes and whatnot and the North needed to “police” the South to make sure that they didn’t keep the blacks “down.”
What should have been the policy to follow for Fed and State gov’t in regard to the black people? The FB was not enough, so the Feds would have needed to have elected officials to explain and help out with financial and business things and to have the schools be integrated. Also, they would have needed to have military or police force to keep the order. Were Radical Republicans correct in saying that the Blacks had to be given the same legal and political rights as all other Americans? Yes, because you can’t free people and then just forget about them. Free = same rights. If not, they are technically not free.
The American West---August 30, 2011 After the American Revolution, the 13 colonies became the U.S. The West becomes anything unsettled beyond the Mississippi.
After the Civil War, white Americans claimed the right to expand beyond the Mississippi River. The West became a source of raw materials. By the 1890’s, the buffalo were gone. For a long time, people thought the West was uninhabitable. By the 1860’s, there were 15 million buffalo roaming around the West. Dakota Teton Sioux Idaho, Montana Blackfeet West Nebraska Pawnee Central Plains Cheyenne, Crow, Arapaho
The buffalo = Indian Wal-Mart Non-Intercourse Act = If whites wanted to go out West, they needed a license. Generally, only women cultivated the land. The gold mining boom began in 1849 and many people did placer mining , which only required water and a pan. By the early 1850’s, people put pressure on the Fed. Gov’t to deal with the Indians. Homestead Act (1862) - A $10 registration fee allowed the head of a household to “rent” 160 acres but they had to live on it for 5 years and make a profit. Sand Creek Massacre- 700 Indians massacred by the Colorado military. Fetterman Massacre (1866) - Bozeman Trail was being built on sacred land. Red Cloud (chief of Sioux Indians) was killed and mutilated in the Fetterman Massacre. By removing the Indians, they could in theory stop the wars. Young Indian warriors did not want to live on the small reservations, so more wars occurred. June 25, 1876- Custer’s Last Stand- Only the horse survived (LOL). Significance of Custer’s Last Stand – It accelerated the end of the Sioux Indians, because they were outnumbered.
they could become U.S. citizens and own the land. Any surplus land was sold to white men and the profits went to Indian schools or the gov’t held it in trust for 25 years. Extermination of the buffalo- o It was said that every buffalo gone was an Indian gone. o Hunters would kill the buffalo and only eat the meat and abandon the rest of the body. o Buffalo Bill was hired by the Pacific Railroad as a hunter. o Killing the buffalo was intentional. September 6, 2011 o Ch. 16 Notes The Bonanza West o Cattle Bonanza- Cattle was cheap and people would ship them to Chicago. After refrigeration, many people switched from cattle to sheep. Dry Farming- an agricultural technique for non-irrigated lands. Deep planting to bring subsoil moisture to the roots after rainfalls. Sod houses- a house found primarily in the prairies; it had poor insulation and was very cheap to build. About 6,000 blacks went to the west (Kansas) to become farmers (exodusters). o Mining boom--The gold mining boom began in 1849 and many people did placer mining, which only required water and a pan. o Vaqueros- Cowboys in Mexico By March 1889, Harrison and his people opened the O.K. Territory. April 22 nd; people who wanted to become homesteaders lined up at the territory to get land; by the end of the day, all of the land had been claimed. By 1890, the US Census claimed that frontiers were no more. Frederick Jackson Turner believed the spirit and success of the U.S. was directly tied to its western expansion ( Frontier Thesis.)
Industrialization (Capital and Labor in the age of enterprise)
1876 Grand Centennial Expo—Philly, PA.
o Machinery Hall
Had the telephone, typewriter, etc.
Had the steam engine
Industrial Development
o It developed very fast
o The American people welcomed it
o The railroads helped the U.S. industrialize faster
o The U.S. had plenty of coal, iron, timber, petroleum, etc.
o Labor was in abundance
o 1870-80’s: 8 million immigrants came into the U.S.
o 1890’s-1914- 15 million immigrants come in.
o By 1900: U.S. pop = 76 million
o Fed, state and local gov’t helped build the railroads
The “Robber Barons”
o Refers to the millionaires during the time
o Businessmen who monopolized their own sectors, kept
wages low, prices high and pocketed the profits.
A Revolution in Transportation & Communication
o Cornelius Vanderbilt
o Gauge = distance between rails
o By 1883, the U.S. Railroad Association divided the U.S. into
time zones.
o Became a dominant figure in railroading
o Helped establish a national system
In Europe, the states would build the railroad
In U.S., the private companies built them. The gov’t
doesn’t initiate the building.
In Europe, they were linking cities that already existed.
In America, new towns were being built as the
railroads were expanding.
Andrew Carnegie
o He started working in the cotton mill
o He became a telegrapher
o He caught the attention of Thomas Scott and became his
personal telegrapher
o He was working for the Penn. Railroad
o He sold stocks of the Penn Railroad
o They found oil on his property
The Bessemer Process
o Henry Bessemer
o A blast of air forced through molten iron burned all of the
impurities, which helped it turn into steel.
o This allowed mass production.
Andrew Carnegie “Vertical Integration”
o When a company controls all aspects of production
o By 1890, Carnegie Steel produced 4x as much as Great
Britain.
o Carnegie gave away some of his well.
o Carnegie sold “Carnegie Steel” to J.P. Morgan for $
million.
o U.S. Steel was the first billion-dollar company in America.
John D. Rockefeller
o There was a lot of competition in the oil business
o Founded “Standard Oil” and it was vertically integrated.
o It owned well, timberlands, chemical plants, refineries, etc.
o He bribed politicians, he had spies, and he extorted railroad
rebates to lower his transportation costs.
o By the late 1870’s, he owned 90% of the country’s oil
production.
o In 1882, Rockefeller’s lawyers created a trust.
o In a trust, biz owners assigned a small group of associates---
the board of trustees—to hold stock from all the combined
firms, managing them as a single entity.
o Today, monopolies are called joint-ventures.
o He moved his company to New Jersey.
Inventions:
o Cyrus Field—Telegraph cable
o George Eastman, Kodak Camera
o A.G.B—Telephone
AT&T was created around this time.
o Edison—“Wizard at Menlo Park”
Not an immigrant
Had very little schooling
Was very well-read
Most prolific inventor in history
Held over 1,000 U.S. patents to his name
Was worth 6 million by the time he retired.
