Chapter 22: The Ordeal of Reconstuction Flashcards
Why was Davis and his fellow conspirators released?
partly because the odds were that no Virginia jury would convict them. All rebel leaders were finally pardoned by President Johnson as sort of a Christmas present in 1868. But Congress did not remove all remaining civil disabilities until thirty years later
What happened to the economic life in South after the war?
Banks and business houses had locked their doors, ruined by runaway inflation. Factories were smokeless, silent, dismantled. The transportation system had broken down completely.
What happened to the agriculture life in South after the war?
Agriculture—the economic lifeblood of the
South—was almost hopelessly crippled. Once-white cotton fields now yielded a lush harvest of nothing but green weeds. The slave-labor system had collapsed, seed was scarce, and livestock had been driven off by
plundering Yankees.
What happen to Blacks from Texas fleeing to the US?
attacked by slaveowners as they swam across the river that marked the county line.
What did Variety of responses to emancipation illustrated?
startling complexity of the master-slave relationship.
When were all blacks eventually free?
Prodded by the bayonets of Yankee armies of occupation, all masters were eventually forced to recognize their slaves’ permanent freedom.
How did blacks responded to their freedom?
Though some blacks initially responded to news of their emancipation with suspicion and uncertainty, they soon celebrated their newfound freedom.
What did the newly freed black do?
Tens of thousands of emancipated blacks took to the roads, some to test their freedom, others to search for long-lost spouses, parents, and children. Emancipation thus strengthened the black family,
What formed the bedrock of black community life, and mutual aid societies?
churches became a strong pillar of the black community. For example, the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) quadrupled in size in 10 years after the Civil War.
Education for Blacks?
They accepted the aid of Northern white women sent by the American Missionary Association, who volunteered their services as teachers. They also turned to the federal government for help.
What was the brutal reality that emancipators face? What was done about it?
faced with the brutal reality that the freedmen were overwhelmingly unskilled, unlettered, without property or money, and with scant knowledge of how to survive as free people.
To cope with this problem throughout the conquered South, Congress created the Freedmen’s Bureau on March 3, 1865.
Freedmen’s Bureau?????????
intended to be a kind of primitive welfare agency. It was to provide food, clothing, medical care, and education both to freedmen and to white refugees. It was headed by Union general Oliver O. Howard. It taught an estimated 200,000 blacks how to read.
Why did any former slaves had a passion for
learning?
they wanted to close the gap between themselves and the whites and partly
because they longed to read the Word of God.
How was the Freedmen’s Bureau mischievous?
Although the bureau was authorized to settle former slaves on forty-acre tracts confiscated from the Confederates, little land actually made it into blacks’ hands.
How did the South feel about the Freedmen’s Bureau ?
Still, the white South resented the bureau as a meddlesome federal interloper that threatened to upset white racial dominance. Pres. Andrew Johnson unsuccessfully tried to kill it, but it expired in 1872 anyway.
Why was Johnson a man with no home?
The North never accepted him because he was a Southerner and the South distrusted him because he sided with the North.
“10 percent” Reconstruction plan
Lincoln in 1863 proclaimed it. It decreed that a state could be reintegrated into the Union when 10 percent of its voters in the presidential election of 1860 had taken an oath of allegiance to the United States and pledged to abide by emancipation.
Reaction to “10 percent” Reconstruction plan?
Lincoln’s proclamation provoked a sharp reaction in Congress, where Republicans feared the restoration of the planter aristocracy to power and the possible re-enslavement of the blacks.
Wade-Davis Bill?
It required that 50 percent of a state’s voters take the oath of allegiance and demanded stronger safeguards for emancipation than Lincoln’s as the price of readmission.
What to faction formed?
1) The majority moderate group tended to agree with Lincoln that the seceded states should be restored to the Union as simply and swiftly as reasonable— though on Congress’s terms, not the president’s.
2) The minority radical group believed that the South should atone more painfully for its sins.
Johnson view on Reconstruction?
Johnson soon disillusioned them. He agreed
with Lincoln that the seceded states had never
legally been outside the Union. Thus he quickly recognized several of Lincoln’s 10 percent governments
What were Johnson”s stipulations to the “10 percent” Reconstruction plan?
(a) leading Confederates were to be disenfranchised, (b) secession ordinances were to be repealed, (c) Confederate debts would be repudiated, and (d) the states must ratify the 13th Amendment.
What was the fist acts by Johnson?
the passage of the irontoothed Black Codes. These laws were designed to regulate the affairs of the emancipated blacks, much as the slave statutes had done in pre–Civil War days.
