Reconstruction Era Flashcards
Emancipation Proclamation
All of the slaves held in the “states of rebellion” are free
13th Amendment
Abolished slavery throughout the United States.
14th Amendment
Granted citizenship to all persons born in the U.S.
The Citizenship Clause:
- provides a broad definition of citizenship, overruling Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott.
The Due Process Clause:
- Established procedural Due Process (tells ppl their rights before arrest)
-Establishes Substantive Due Process (fundamental rights, having a job, being a parent)
-Requires that both federal and state governments respect due process rights
- Rights are so protected that there is a unanimous method of declaring that rights are infringed.
The Equal Protection Clause:
- required each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction.
hammer v Dagenhart
Allgeyer v. Louisiana (1897)
15th Amendment
- Grants the right to vote for all male citizens regardless of their ethnicity or prior slave status.
*did not includle women despite demands of women’s suffrage activists - Positive rights: rights that are granted to you by the government (requires government action)
- Negative rights: Congress cant limit and infringe on your natural rights (requires the government not to act in a certain way)
Reconstruction (1865-1877)
Period of transformation post-Civil War and slavery.
Feminism emerged in the north and there started to be more job opportunities for women
Women in the south were doing the domestic work
Radical Republican’s View of Freedom
wanted to make lots of change
- The right to vote
- Civil Rights including right to property, education, fair trials, freedom from discrimination
- Equality = Equality of Rights (can only have equal opportunity if equal rights are protected)
Radical Republican’s view of Federal government in relation to freedom
- Federal government should promote and protect equal rights
Moderate Republican’s View of Freedom
- Free to labor (economic autonomy)
- With free labor, every other right would naturally follow
- The South would eventually come to resemble the “free society” of the North, complete with public schools, small towns, and independent farmers.
- Equality = Equality of Opportunity
Moderate Republican’s view of Federal government in relation to freedom
- Employ federal authority as a tool, to ensure blacks’ freedom to labor (economic autonomy) and to secure the other rights that follow from it. (Federal government should give tools to make equal opportunity possible)
Southerner’s (Democrats) View of Freedom
- Absence of slavery
- Every other attribute of citizenship (especially voting) was a privilege reserved for whites
Southerner’s (Democrats) View of Federal Government in Relation to Freedom
- No need for federal involvement. Former slaves are now out of slavery, the rest is up to them.
What are the 4 plans for Reconstruction that are proposed or enacted during the Reconstruction era?
- Lincoln’s 10% Plan
- Wade-Davis Bill
- Presidential Reconstruction
- Radical Reconstruction
*Military Reconstruction
Describe Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction: 10% Plan
What were the Terms of Reincorporation? Treatment of Former Confederates? Treatment of African-Americans?
As President, Lincoln creates first plan for Reconstruction (Proposal, not signed into law because senate didn’t approve)
Terms of Reincorporation:
- 10% of the pop. of each southern state had to swear loyalty to the United States
- Southern states could set up new governments on their own, as long as their government set free all slaves.
Treatment of Former Confederates:
- Except for high ranking officers, all confederate soldiers would be pardoned
Treatment of African-Americans:
-Blacks are free, in order to be readmitted to the Union, states had to pledge to abide by the Emancipation Proclamation
- The federal government needs to provide some basic job training and education for black Americans in order for them to be able to compete in a free labor system. (Freedman’s Bureau)
*Doesn’t completely integrate black people and provide them equal opportunity
What was Freedman’s Bureau? Was it signed into law
Yes, it was signed into law.
- Initiated by Lincoln and established by Congress in 1865
- Federal agency designed to establish a working free labor system
- Bureau was an experiment in government social policy that resembles efforts of the 1960s!
-Goals:
*provide aid to the poor and ages
*Secure former slaves equal treatment from the law
*Distribute abandoned and confiscated land for sale to former slaves - Lasted until 1872, when it died a slow death at the hands of Southern violence and a non-supportive Congress
What was the Congressional Reaction to Lincoln’s 10% plan
- Congress is dominated by Radical Republicans
*Leading figure is Representative Thaddeus Stevens - Say Lincoln’s Plan is too easy on the South and that it doesn’t go far enough to protect the rights and liberties of black people in America. So… they propose a new bill (Wade-Davis Bill)
Describe the Radical Republican’s Plan for Reconstruction: Wade-Davis Bill
What were the Terms of Reincorporation? Treatment of Former Confederates? Treatment of African-Americans?
Senate thought this was not hard enough on the South but the executive branch did not approve this bill.
Terms of Reincorporation:
- 50% of the pop. of each southern state had to swear loyalty to the United States
Treatment of Former Confederates:
- Confederate officials and veterans would lose the right to vote
- Military governors would be appointed by the president to oversee each previously seceded state.
Treatment of African-Americans:
- Southern states had to draft Constitutions banning slavery
- States had to grant blacks the right to vote
When was Lincoln Assassinated? Who took over?
Assassinated in April 1865
Vice President Andrew Johnson comes to office, with another vision of Reconstruction.
Who was Andrew Johnson
- 1808–1775
- Born into poverty in North Carolina; Moved to Tennessee and rose up the poverty ranks (Senator)
- Democrat
- Chosen by Lincoln to serve as VP when Lincoln ran for reelection in 1864
*Gesture of good faith to the South - Opposed slavery, but for very different reason than Lincoln and the Radicals
*Believed slavery was bad for poor whites as it eliminated jobs for unskilled workers
*Viewed himself as the champion of the yeoman and a foe of the planter class whom he described as a “bloated, corrupted aristocracy.” - Personality
*Stubborn, intolerable of criticism, unable to compromise, racist
Describe Johnson’s Plan for Reconstruction: Presidential Reconstruction
What were the Terms of Reincorporation? Treatment of Former Confederates? Treatment of African-Americans?
Presidential Reconstruction was implemented because Congress was out of session (can enact plan without their approval)
Terms of Reincorporation:
- Speedy restoration of the states to the Union (he believed, like Lincoln that they never left and should be recognized back as citizens quickly and easily)
Treatment of Former Confederates:
- Opportunity with Reconstruction shift power from the planter class (plantation owners) to the yeoman farmer (small famers)
- Former confederate leaders and wealthy planters whose prewar property had been valued at more than $20,000 were exempt from pardons
*Though later Johnson offered personal exemptions (going to D.C. and begging him personally)
Treatment of African-Americans:
- Slavery is ended, what else do they need? (racism)
- Viewed vote as a delay and distraction
*State issue, not fed government issue
*Blacks were not deserving of the right to vote
What were The Black Codes?
The absence of a clear Reconstruction plan allowed the South to begin to redesign their social institutions in the way they wanted to
They seek to redesign social life in such a way as to maintain racial hierarchies in the absence of slavery
Black Codes:
Laws passed by the new southern governments that attempted to regulate the lives of former slaves
Granted blacks certain rights (marriage, ownership of property)
Denied them the right to testify against whites, to serve on juries or in state militias, or to vote.
Declared those blacks who failed to sign year labor contracts could be arrested and hired out to white landowners.
Duley convicted yet they can’t testify and Prisoners have to do free labor
Ex: Prison in Georgia might decide to hold an auction, invite farmers and to bid on how much they would be willing to pay for a certain amount of days for the labor of the prisoners, money just goes to the state.
Slavery with another name
Radical Republicans Reaction to the Black Codes and Johnson’s Plan: Presidential Reconstruction
- These actions so flagrantly violated the free labor principles of the North, that the Republicans took action.
- What angered Northern Republicans was the South’s inability to accept emancipation; inability to accept the Union’s definition of democracy.
- Radicals believed that Union victory was an opportunity to institutionalize the principle of equal rights regardless of race.
Johnson’s plan did not call for the establishment of Civil Rights and would let the South continue on the path it was on
Johnson had to be stopped.
Radical Republicans put Forth Their Own Reconstruction Agenda after Johnson becomes President. What did they do?
- Civil Rights Act (1866)
*Johnson veto but overrode - The 14th Amendment (ratified 1868)
- Reconstruction Act (1867)
*Johnson veto but overrode - 15th Amendment (ratified 1870)
