Isabel Brooks - Amsco Reading Guide 15 PDF

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Reconstruction Plans of Lincoln and Johnson continued… Key Concepts & Main Ideas The Civil War and Reconstruction altered power relationships between the states and the federal government and among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, ending slavery and the notion of a divisible union, but leaving unresolved questions of relative power and largely unchanged social and economic patterns. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, bringing about the war’s most dramatic social and economic change, but the exploitative and soilintensive sharecropping system endured for several generations.

Notes

Analysis Support, refute, or modify the following statement: The Presidential Plans for Reconstruction reflected the belief that the primary goal post-war was to reunite the nation. Write a complete thesis, and then defend your answer with evidence.

Johnson and Reconstruction… - Johnson was a Southern Dem, White supremacist, clashed with congress about slavery issue

Johnson’s Reconstruction Policy… - May 1865: Johnson issued his own Reconstruction proclamation similar to 10% plan - Provided for the disfranchisement (loss to vote and hold office) of all former leaders and officeholders of the Confed. & Confederates with more than $20,000 in taxable property - President retained power to grant individual pardons to disloyal Southerners - Many presidential pardons → many former Confederate leaders were back in office by fall of 1865 Southern Governments of 1865… - All 11 southern states drew up constitutions that repudiated secession, negated the debts of the Conf. gov, and ratified the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery - None of the new constitutions extended voting rights to blacks - Former leaders of Confederacy won seats in Congress (ex. Alexander Stephens) - Republicans in congress upset

As many Americans would agree the reason for the Civil War was the to reunite the Union and free slaves. While the current Presidential Plans have successfully brought the Confederacy to an end it has not completely freed the ex-slaves. So I support this statement only on the grounds of a reunited nation economically but not socially or politically. I also believe that Lincoln tried his best to fight for African American rights while rebuilding the Union. I have concluded that Lincoln's primary goals were to reunite and rebuild the Union and free all blacks. Johnson's primary goal was to simply unite the nation and rebuild with little regard for anyone else but himself and his political agenda.

Thirteenth Amendment… Black Codes…

- Repubs even more mad with Johnson when Southern state legislatures adopted Black Codes that restricted the rights and movements of former slaves - Codes prohibited blacks from renting land or borrowing money to buy land; placed freedmen into a form of semibondage by forcing them as vagrants and apprentices to sign work contracts; and prohibited blacks from testifying against whites in court - Contract-labor system: blacks worked cotton fields under white supervision for deferred wages - 1866: unhappiness w/ Johnson developed into rift when Northern Repubs in Congress challenged the results of election in the south - Refused to seat Alexander Stephens and other elected reps from ex-Confederate states

Johnson’s Vetoes… - 1866: Johnson alienated moderate Repubs. by vetoing a bill increasing the services and protection offered by the Freedmen’s Bureau and a civil rights bill that nullified the Black Codes and guaranteed full citizenship and equal rights to Af Ams - Vetoes marked end of 1st round of Reconstruction - Lincoln and Johnson restored 11 ex-CSA states to former position in union - ex-CSA’s returned to high offices - Southern states began passing Black Code

1. Congressional Reconstruction, pp 295-297 Key Concepts & Main Ideas The Civil War and Reconstruction altered power relationships.

Notes Congressional Reconstruction…

- Spring 1866: angry response of many Congressmen to Johnson’s policies led to 2nd round of Reconstruction - Dominated by Congress and had policies that were harsher on Southern whites and protective of freed Blacks

Radical Republicans…

- Repubs divided between moderates (concerned w/ economic gains for white middle class) and Radicals (civil rights for blacks) - Most were moderates, became radical in 1866 out of fear that reunified Dem party become dominant - Federal census now counts everyone equally, South gets more reps in Congress and more strengthing electoral college - Leading Radical Repub in Senate was - Charles Sumner of MA (returned 3 years after he got caned) - Thaddeus Stevens of PA hoped to revolutionize Southern society by military rule, Af Ams would be free to exercise civil rights, educated in schools by fed gov, and receive confiscated lands from planter class - Benjamin Wade of OH (and others) endorsed women’s suffrage, rights for labor union, and civil rights for Northern Af Ams - Program never fully implemented, struggle to get equal rights to all Americans

Analysis Was Congressional Reconstruction more about racial equality or political power? Explain your answer.

Depends on which side you were on at the time. Moderate Republicans sought Reconstruction as a chance to gain economic power for middle class whites, while radical Republicans saw it as a chance to gain civil rights for blacks. Democrats believed that it was a chance to gain economic and political power for whites. But overall I think Congressional Reconstruction was more about abolishing Johnson's policies to gain racial equality.

Congressional Reconstruction continued… Key Concepts & Main Ideas Efforts by radical and moderate Republicans to reconstruct the defeated South changed the balance of power between Congress and the presidency and yielded some shortterm successes, reuniting the union, opening up political opportunities and other leadership roles to former slaves, and temporarily rearranging the relationships between white and black people in the South.

Notes

Analysis

Civil Rights Act of 1866… - First actions in congressional Reconstruction were votes to override, w/ modifications, Johnson’s vetoes of Freedmen’s Bureau Act and first Civil Rights Act which said all Af Ams were US citizens (Dred Scott case) and attempted to provide legal shield against South’s Black Codes - Repubs feared they would be repealed if Dems ever got majority of Congress - Decided on Constitutional Amendment

Fourteenth Amendment… - June 1866, Congress passed, sent states amendment that when ratified in 1868 would... - Declare all persons born/naturalized in US as citizens - Obligate states to respect rights of US citizens, provide w/ equal protection of laws, due process of law (future generations, minorities, women, children, disabled people, and those accused of crimes) - First time states and fed gov have to uphold rights of citizens - Disqualify former CSA political leaders from holding fed or state office - Repudiated the debts of defeated govs of CSA - Penalized a state if they kept any eligible person from voted by reducing state’s proportional rep in Congress and electoral college

Report of the Joint Committee… The constitutional changes of the Reconstruction period embodied a Northern idea of American identity and national purpose and led to conflicts over new definitions of citizenship, particularly regarding the rights of African Americans, women, and other minorities.

- June 1866, joint committee of House and Senate issued report recommending reorganized states of Confed, weren’t entitled to rep in Congress, so senators and reps from South shouldn’t take their seats - Congress not Pres should have authority to determine conditions for allowing reconstructed states to rejoin Union - Officially rejected Pres’s plan of Reconstruction and promised to substitute its own plan, partly embodied in 14th Amendment

What was the primary purpose of the 14th Amendment? To prevent the Democrats from repealing their actions towards racial equality. And also prevented states from enforcing laws not written by the government. By defining citizens as anyone born in the United States, how did this Amendment create future conflict? It affected immigrants and gaining citizenship in the U.S.. For immigrants it formed a problem because their children could be considered U.S. citizens because they were born in the U.S. but the parent was not. But it was a small conflict.

The Election of 1866… - Couldn’t work w/ Congress, Johnson took to road in 1866 w/ “swing around the circle” to attack opponents - Speeches appealed to racial prejudices of white by arguing that equal rights for blacks would result in “Africanized” society - Repubs counter attack by calling him drunkard and traitor, appealed to Anti-Southern prejudices by employing tactic “waving the bloody shirt” inflaming anger of Northern voters by reminding them of war - Propaganda emphasized that Southerners were Dems and by gross jump in logic, branded the entire Dem party as rebellion and treason - Repubs overwhelming victory - After 1866, Johnson’s political adversaries - moderate and Radical Republicans- had more than ⅔majority in House and Senate

The image at left was a two page spread in Harpers Weekly by artist Thomas Nast, printed in 1866. President Andrew Johnson was chosen as Lincoln’s Vice President in 1864 (National Union Party… not Republican or Democrat) to secure re-election at a time of waning support. He was actually a pro-Union Democrat from Tennessee who had seen his property, home, and slaves stolen by Confederates during the first year of the war. He became president in 1865 following Lincoln’s assassination. In 1866, Johnson led his “Swing around the Circle,” a 1966 campaign trip through the Midwest, attempting to win popular support for his lenient Reconstruction policy. He was battling the Radical Republicans who feared allowing ex-rebel Democrats would regain control of the South. They had prevented them from being seated in Congress in protest of the Southern Black Codes. On the Circle Tour… in one speech lasting an hour, the President referred to himself more than two hundred times. In another, he went so far as to imply that the murder of Abraham Lincoln had been part of God's plan to make him president. At a third event, he said that Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, the Republican majority leader, deserved to be hanged. (He said this after a heckler in the crowd said, “Hang Jeff Davis!”)

Johnson accused Radical Republicans of planting hecklers, inciting riots, including the New Orleans Riot, and of wanting to keep the nation divided rather than re-uniting it. After Johnson compared himself to Jesus by saying that like the Savior, he too liked to pardon repentant sinners, his remaining speeches were drowned out by hecklers. State government officials refused to be seen with him. In the midterm elections that November, so disgusted were most Americans at Andrew Johnson that Republicans won two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress. The GOP was then able to enact legislation to “rescue” southern states from the “neo-Confederate” Democrats. Thus began Radical Reconstruction. Reading Guide written by Rebecca Richardson, Allen High School Sources include but are not limited to: 2015 edition of AMSCO’s United States History Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination, 2012 and 2105 Revised College Board Advanced Placement United States History Framework, The Mental Floss History of the United States by Erik Sass , and other sources as cited in document and collected/adapted over 20 years of teaching and collaborating.....