Chapter 15 - Reconstruction and the New South

Question 0

What was the “Lost Cause”?

Answer 0

This was the romanticized outlook at the Civil War and its outcome taken by many Southerners to ease the pain of their loss. They began to look back nostalgically at the South as it had existed before the terrible disruptions of war. The tremendous sense of loss that pervaded the white South reinforced the determination of many whites to protect what remained of their now-vanished world.

Question 1

How was the South “devastated” after the Civil War?

Answer 1

The quality of Southern cities, towns, and plantations deteriorated heavily. Towns were abandoned and destroyed, plantations were burned, fields were neglected, bridges and railroads were destroyed. Many white southerners had almost no personal property because they had been stripped of their slaves and lost all of the capital they had invested in worthless Confederate bonds and currency. Many families had to rebuild as 20% of the white male population in the South had been killed in the War. Many more still returned home wounded and incapacitated. Some Southerners were starving and homeless.

Question 2

What was the Freedmen’s Bureau?

Answer 2

The Freedmen’s Bureau was an agency of the army established in March 1865 and directed by General Oliver O. Howard. It distributed food to millions of former slaves. It also established schools taught by missionaries and teachers and made modest efforts to settle blacks on lands of their own. The Bureau had the authority to operate for one year and was too small to deal effectively with the enormous problems facing Southern society.

Question 3

What were the differences in the ways that the conservative and radical Republicans wanted to shape Reconstruction?

Answer 3

Conservatives insisted that the South accept the abolition of slavery, but proposed few other conditions for the readmission of the seceded states.

The Radicals, led by Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts (the one who was beaten by Preston Brooks), urged that the civil and military leaders of the Confederacy be punished, that large numbers of Southern whites be disenfranchised, that the legal rights of former slaves be protected, and that the property of wealthy white Southerners who had aided the Confederacy be confiscated and distributed among the freedmen.

Question 4

What was Lincoln’s 10% Plan?

Answer 4

Lincoln announced his Reconstruction plan in December 1863. It offered a general amnesty to white Southerners (other than high officials of the Confederacy), who would pledge loyalty to the government and accept the elimination of slavery. Whenever 10% of the number of voters in 1860 took the oath in any state, those loyal voters could set up a state government. Lincoln also hoped to extend suffrage to blacks who were educated, owned property, and had served the Union army.

Three Southern states reestablished loyal governments under the Lincoln formula in 1864 - Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee.

Question 5

What was the Wade-Davis Bill?

Answer 5

The Radical Republicans were unwilling to allow the three “reconstructed” states under Lincoln’s program to send representatives to Congress and resolved to take stricter action during Reconstruction. Their first effort with coming up with a plan was the Wade-Davis Bill, passed in July 1864 by Congress.

The Bill authorized the president to appoint a provisional governor for each conquered state. When a majority of the white males of the state pledged their allegiance to the Union, the governor could summon a state constitutional convention, whose delegates were to be elected by those who would swear (through the Ironclad Oath) that they had never borne arms against the United States - another departure from Lincoln’s plan.

After the new state constitutions abolished slavery, disenfranchised Confederate civil and military leaders, and repudiated debts accumulated by the state governments during the war, Congress would readmit the state to the Union.

But Lincoln disposed of this bill with a pocket veto.

Question 6

How was Lincoln killed?

Answer 6

Lincoln was shot on April 14, 1865 while attending a play at the Ford’s Theater in Washington. John Wilkes Booth, an advocate of the southern cause, shot Lincoln in the head. He died the next day.

Question 7

What was Johnson’s Plan for “Restoration” (Reconstruction)?

Answer 7

He implemented his plan during the summer of 1865, when Congress was in recess. He offered amnesty to Southerners who would take an oath of allegiance. But unlike Lincoln, he allowed high-ranking Confederate officials and any Southerner with land worth $20,000 or more to take an oath of allegiance if they applied to him personally for individual pardons.

The remainder of his plan resembled the Wade-Davis Bill. Johnson appointed each state with a provisional governor, who was to invite qualified voters to elect delegates to a constitutional convention. He did not explicitly state how many needed to be qualified, but a majority was implied. In order to win readmission to Congress, a state had to revoke its ordinance of secession, abolish slavery, ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, and repudiate the Confederate and state war debts.

Question 8

What were the Black Codes?

Answer 8

The Black Codes were passed in Southern states from 1865 to 1866. They authorized local officials to apprehend unemployed African Americans, fine them for vagrancy, and hire them out to private employers to satisfy the fine. Some of the codes forbade blacks to own or lease farms or to take any jobs other than as plantation workers or domestic servants.

Congress responded to the Black Codes by first passing an act extending the life of the Freedmen’s Bureau and widening its powers. Then, in 1866, Congress passed the first Civil Rights Act, which declared African Americans to be citizens of the United States and gave the federal government the power to intervene in state affairs to protect the rights of citizens. Johnson vetoed both bills and Congress overrode him on each of them.

Question 9

What was the Fourteenth Amendment?

Answer 9

Created in 1866, the Fourteenth Amendment offered the first constitutional definition of American citizenship. Everyone born in the United States, and everyone naturalized, was automatically a citizen and entitled to all the “privileges and immunities” guaranteed by the Constitution, including equal protection of the laws by both the state and national governments.

The amendment also imposed penalties (reduction of representation in Congress and in the electoral college) on states that denied suffrage to any adult male inhabitants.

Finally, it prohibited former members of Congress or other former federal officers who aided the Confederacy from holding any state or federal office unless two-thirds of Congress voted to pardon them.

Question 10

What did the three Republican Reconstruction Bills propose as the final plan for Reconstruction?

Answer 10

Congress rejected the new state governments established by either of the presidential plans. They combined those states into five military districts, each of which was led by a military commander who would register qualified voters. Once registered, the voters elected conventions to prepare new state constitutions, which had to allow for black suffrage, and they had to elect state governments that would ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.

Question 11

What the Fifteenth Amendment?

Answer 11

The Fifteenth Amendment forbade the states and the federal government from denying suffrage to any citizens on account of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Question 12

What were the two laws the Republicans passed in 1867 to prevent the president from stopping their Reconstruction plans?

Answer 12

The first was the Tenure of Office Act, which forbade the president to remove civil officers, including members of his own cabinet, without the consent of the Senate. The pain purpose of this law was to protect Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who was cooperating with the Radicals.

The second law was the Command of the Army Act, which prohibited the president from issuing military orders except through the commanding general of the army (General Grant), who could not be relieved or assigned elsewhere without the consent of the Senate.

Question 13

Why was Johnson Impeached?

Answer 13

Though the Republicans had taken control of Reconstruction, Johnson was still the one charged with administering the Reconstruction programs. This led them to believe that he was a threat to their plans. In 1867, Johnson dismissed Secretary of War Stanton despite Congress’ refusal to agree, thus violating the Tenure of Office Act. As a result, the Radicals in the House impeached the president and sent the case to the Senate for trial. Unfortunately for the Radicals, Johnson was acquitted because the vote was one short of the required two-thirds majority.

Question 14

Who were the “scalawags”?

Answer 14

Scalawags were Southern Republicans who were often former members of the Whig Party who had never felt comfortable in the Democratic Party. Some were wealthy planters or businessmen interested in the economic development of the region. Others were poor farmers who thought the Republican program would help end their economic isolation. Scalawags shared the belief that the Republican Party would serve their economic interests better than the Democrats.

Question 15

Who were “carpetbaggers”?

Answer 15

Carpetbaggers were white men from the North who served as Republican leaders in the South. Southerners criticized these people by calling them carpetbaggers, implying that they were penniless adventurers who arrived with all their possessions in a carpetbag (a cheap suitcase).

In fact, most carpetbaggers were well-educated people of middle-class origin, many of them doctors, lawyers, and teachers. Most were veterans of the Union army who looked on the South as a new frontier, more promising than the West. They had settled there at war’s end as hopeful planters or as business and professional people.

Question 16

How did African Americans play a role in Southern governments?

Answer 16

African Americans served as delegates to the constitutional conventions, they held a variety of public offices. Between 1869 and 1901, twenty blacks served in the U.S. House of Representatives, two in the Senate. African Americans also served in state legislatures and other state offices. No black man was ever elected governor of any state.

Question 17

What was sharecropping?

Answer 17

Sharecropping was a disguised alternative to slavery introduced during Reconstruction. Most African American agricultural laborers became tenants of white landowners, working their own plots of land and paying their landlords either a fixed rent or a share of their crop. Though it was similar to slavery, the tenants enjoyed physical independence from their landlords and had the sense of working on their own land.

Question 18

What was the crop-lien system and what were its effects?

Answer 18

Often few banks and other sources of credit returned to the South after the war. In their stead emerged a system of credit centered on local country stores. Since farmers in these areas did not have the same steady cash flow as other workers, customers usually had to rely on credit from these merchants in order to purchase what they needed. Most local stores had no competition and were able to set interest rates as high as 50 or 60 percent.

Farmers had to give merchants a lien (or claim) on their crops as collateral for the loans (thus the term “crop-lien system”).

This burdensome credit could trap poor farmers - white or black - in a never-ending cycle of debt.

Question 19

What was the Credit Mobilier scandal?

Answer 19

The Credit Mobilier was a construction company that helped build the Union Pacific Railroad. The heads of the company had used their positions as Union Pacific stockholders to steer large fraudulent contracts to their own construction company, defrauding the Union Pacific and the federal government of millions. To prevent investigations, the company had provided free stock to members of Congress. But Congress launched an investigation in 1872 which revealed that some highly placed Republicans, including Grant’s vice president, Schuyler Colfax, had accepted stock.

Question 20

What were the whiskey and Indian rings?

Answer 20

These two scandals furthered the idea that “Grantism” had brought corruption to the government.

The whiskey ring: Some of Grant’s officials and a group of distillers were cheating the government out of taxes with false reports.

The Indian ring: William W. Belknap, Secretary of War, had accepted bribes to retain an Indian-post trader in office.

Question 21

What was the Specie Resumption Act?

Answer 21

In 1875, the Republicans in Congress wanted to crush the greenback movement that was acting in response to the Panic of 1873. They passed the Specie Resumption Act to provide that greenback dollars would be redeemed by the government and replaced with new certificates firmly pegged to the price of gold.

Question 22

What was “Seward’s Folly”?

Answer 22

William H. Seward, Lincoln’s and Johnson’s Secretary of State until 1869, accepted a Russian offer to sell Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million. Many Americans thought Alaska was a frozen wasteland and derided his decision as “Seward’s Folly”. In 1867, Seward also annexed the tiny Midway Islands, west of Hawaii.

Question 23

What were the Alabama Claims?

Answer 23

Hamilton Fish, Grant’s Secretary of State, was determined to resolve the conflict with England, who had supplied ships to the Confederates. Fish demanded that the British government pay for the damage these vessels had caused, which became known as the Alabama Claims. In 1871, Fish forged the Treaty of Washington, which provided for international arbitration and in which Britain expressed regret for the “escape” of Alabama (ship) from England.

Question 24

What were the Ku Klux Klan Acts?

Answer 24

In 1870 and 1871, Congress passed two Enforcement Acts, also called the Ku Klux Klan Acts. The Acts prohibited the states from discriminating against voters on the basis of race and gave the federal government the power to supersede the state courts and prosecute violations of the law. The new laws also authorized the president to protect civil rights and to suspend the right of habeas corpus when violations of the rights seemed particularly egregious.

Question 25

What was “Social Darwinism”?

Answer 25

Social Darwinism was a theory supported by Northern industrialists that individuals who failed economically did so because of their own weakness and “unfitness”.

The belief encouraged a broad critique of government intervention in social and economic life, which further weakened commitment to the Reconstruction program.

Question 26

What was the Compromise of 1877?

Answer 26

President Hayes was in favor of withdrawal of the federal troops from the South, so the Republicans needed to offer more than that if they hoped for Democratic support. the real agreement was that at the price of their cooperation, the Southern Democrats exacted several pledges from the Republicans in addition to withdrawal of the troops: the appointment of at least one Southerner to the Hayes cabinet, control of federal patronage in their areas, generous internal improvements, and federal aid for the Texas and pacific Railroad.

Question 27

What was the Bourbon Rule?

Answer 27

After the federal government left the South, it once again fell under the control of a powerful, conservative oligarchy, whose members were known variously as the “Redeemers” or the “Bourbons” (a term for aristocrats used by some of their critics).

Question 28

Who were “Readjusters”?

Answer 28

Readjusters were people who demanded that states revise their debt payment procedures so as to make more money available for state services, which the Bourbons often cut to develop economic growth.

Question 29

What was the “Convict-Lease” System?

Answer 29

Southern states leased gangs of convicted criminals to private interests as a cheap labor supply. The convicts were often mistreated and denied pay and employment in railroad construction and other projects to the free labor force.

Question 30

Who was Maggie Lena?

Answer 30

Lena was a black woman who became the first female bank president in the U.S. when she founded the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond in 1903.

Question 31

Who was Booker T. Washington?

Answer 31

He was the founder and president of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Born into slaver, Washington had worked his way out of poverty after acquiring an education. He urged other blacks to follow the same road to self-improvement.

He believed that African Americans should forgo agitating for political rights and concentrate on self-improvement and preparation for equality. Only when blacks refined their speech, improved their dress, and adopted habits of thrift and personal cleanliness (white standards), would they win the respect of the white population and then make social gains.

Question 32

What was the Atlanta Compromise?

Answer 32

Crafted by Washington, this was a philosophy of race relations. He said that blacks should engage in “severe and constant struggle” for economic gains, because “no race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized.”

Question 33

What was significant about Plessy v. Ferguson?

Answer 33

In this case, the Supreme Court validated state legislation that institutionalized the separation of the races. The case involved a law in Louisiana that required separate seating arrangements for the races on railroads. The Court held that separate accommodations did not deprive blacks of equal rights if the accommodations were equal. This decision survived for years as part of the legal basis for segregated schools.

Question 34

How did white Southerners disenfranchise blacks?

Answer 34

One way that the Southerners evaded the Fifteenth Amendment was the poll tax, or some form of property qualification. Few African Americans were prosperous enough to meet such requirements. The other way was the “literacy” or “understanding” tests, which required voters to demonstrate an ability to read and to interpret the Constitution. Literacy tests for whites were often much easier than those for blacks.

There were also the grandfather laws, which stated that any man who could not meet the other requirements but who had ancestors who voted before Reconstruction began could vote. The Supreme Court eventually voided this law.

Question 35

What were the Jim Crow laws?

Answer 35

The Jim Crow laws were laws restricting the franchise and segregating schools, and affecting every other aspect of blacks and whites socially. They created an elaborate system of segregation that reached into almost every area of southern life. Blacks and whites could not ride in the same railroad cars, sit in the same waiting rooms, use the same washrooms, eat in the same restaurants, or sit in the same theaters. Much of the new legal structure did no more than confirm what had already been widespread social practice in the South since well before the end of Reconstruction.

But the laws served, too, as a means of stripping the African Americans of what little social gains they had made during Reconstruction, and they served as a means for whites to retain control of social relations between the races in the newly growing cities and towns of the South.