Hey there and welcome back to Heimler’s History. We’ve been going through Unit 5 of the AP U.S. History curriculum and in the last video we ended with the surrender of the South to the North which brought the Civil War to an end. And in this video we’re going to look at the process of knitting two regions back together again, a process which was known as Reconstruction. So if you’re ready to get them brain cows milked, let’s get to it. So we’re basically aiming at one thing in this video and it is as follows: Explain the effects of government policy during Reconstruction on society from 1865 to 1877. Now in order to understand those effects, we need to set the stage first. Now the most crucial question to be answered after the Civil War was over was this: should the Confederacy be treated with leniency or as a conquered foe? And how different policy makers answered that question determined the kinds of Reconstruction policies they proposed. Now Abraham Lincoln was of the lenient persuasion. His position is that the South never actually left the Union because it was legally impossible for them to do so. He could see that to treat the Southerners harshly would only renew and exacerbate the tension that led to secession in the first place. Therefore, Lincoln’s plan for Reconstruction, also known as the Ten-Percent Plan, established a minimum test of political loyalty for southern states to return to the Union. So under this plan, if a Southern state was going to return to the Union, they had to agree to the following terms. First, they could reestablish their state governments if 10% of the 1860 electorate pledged loyalty to the Union. Second, the state legislature had to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment which abolished slavery. And that’s it. That kind of plan put the barrier for reentry very low and allowed the South to save face and retain whatever honor they had left. It was an astonishing offer. And Lincoln had been working on this plan for years before the war was over because he was not interested in healing the wound lightly that led to separation in the first place. He fought for the Union and wanted to make sure that it was never again rent asunder. But unfortunately, a few weeks before the war officially ended and Lincoln would have been able to enact this gracious plan of reunion, a man by the name of John Wilkes Booth walked into Lincoln’s box at the Ford Theater and assassinated him. Now, Lincoln’s vice president, Andrew Johnson, became the president, and to his credit, he attempted to carry out Lincoln’s plan for Reconstruction. However, Johnson was not the magnanimous leader that Lincoln was and in fact can be squarely classified in the turd category. He was a southerner from Tennessee who had really had no sympathy for emancipation or for the equality of the black and white races. He was irascible and unbending in this respect. And while he carried out Lincoln’s plan for reuniting the North and the South, he stood by while the former slave-owning class assumed power and recreated conditions in the South which were largely the same as they were before the war. Case in point, many states passed a series of restrictive laws known as Black Codes which restricted the freedom of southern black folks and forced them to work for low wages. Now there was a group of folks in Congress known as the Radical Republicans, and they appreciated neither Johnson’s leniency nor his complicity in resegregating the South. To the Radical Republicans the South’s secession had caused untold damage and death and therefore they needed to pay. Now that the South was defeated, the Radical Republicans wanted to kick them, insult their mothers, and then deliberately hurt their feelings. More to the point, because they hated Johnson and his policies, they wanted the process of Reconstruction to be led not by the president, but by Congress. So the Radical Republicans were concerned to pass legislation that upheld and extended rights for black people in the South while simultaneously suppressing any attempt at Southern resurgence. To this end, they passed two pieces of legislation. First was an extension of the Freedman’s Bureau, which was an agency set up to help newly freed black people to get on their feet. The second was the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which protected citizenship of black folks and gave them equal protection under the laws. Now to me, those sound like good laws and uphold the outcome and intention of the Civil War. But apparently they did not in fact seem good to Andrew Johnson who summarily vetoed both pieces of legislation. Enraged by this, the Radical Republicans in Congress mustered a two-thirds majority to override Johnson’s veto and got the laws passed. So as you can clearly see, things are a little tense between the president and Congress. Now, because the Republicans feared the overturning of the Civil Rights Act, they went ahead and proposed a constitutional amendment to solidify these rights, and that’s how you get the Fourteenth Amendment. Essentially it said that all persons who were born or naturalized in the United States were citizens of the United States, and that every citizen enjoyed equal protection of the laws on the state level. And the final contest between these two foes involved the Reconstruction Acts of 1867. Again, these were passed into law over Johnson’s veto, and it was these laws in particular that would ultimately pressage the failure of Reconstruction. The first thing these acts did was to assure that all the laws being passed would be enforced in the South. To that end, Republicans divided the South into five districts and put them under military occupation with federal troops. The second thing these acts did was to increase the requirement for southern states to rejoin the Union. Now the states would also have to ratify the 14th amendment and add to their state constitution a provision for universal male voting rights, and when I say universal, I mean white AND black men would get the franchise. Now that provision would ruffle American women who also demanded voting rights, but we’ll get to that in a moment. Now, let’s talk about the crowning achievement of this nasty conflict between Andrew Johnson and the Radical Republicans, namely, the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Now, stop for a second. Any time I mention impeachment I feel I need to explain what it means, because in everyday conversation, when people talk about impeachment of a president, what they mean is the REMOVAL of a president. That’s not what impeachment means. Impeachment is the TRIAL which determines if a president should be removed from office, not the removal itself. So Bill Clinton was impeached, and remained the president after. Donald Trump was impeached, and remained president afterward. Okay, so back to Andrew Johnson’s impeachment. Congressional Republicans really wanted Johnson out of office. And so to jingle the bait in front of his face, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act of 1867 which made it illegal for the president to fire a member of his cabinet without congressional approval. Johnson was like, ain’t nobody tell me what to do. And went ahead and fired a member of his cabinet. As a result, Congress brought a full-fledged impeachment trial against Johnson, and after a three month trial, the Senate failed to oust him by one vote. Even so, this process basically rendered Johnson powerless to direct any future policies of Reconstruction. Now, we’re going to talk about the end, and more to the point, the failure, of Reconstruction in the next video. But for now, we need to talk about the women’s rights movement in relation to Reconstruction. Now, I already told you about the 13th Amendment which abolished slavery. I already told you about the 14th Amendment which granted citizenship to everyone born in America AND that each citizen would enjoy equal protection of the laws. And I have one more Reconstruction amendment to tell you about, namely, the Fifteenth Amendment. This amendment granted voting rights to the newly freed black population of the South. But women’s rights advocates like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony got a little saucy about this amendment because it emphatically did NOT recognize the right of women to vote. And debates over this amendment split the movement into two groups. Stanton and Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association which continued to fight for the franchise to be extended to women. Others like Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell shared the disappointment over the 15th amendment’s wording, but argued that it was important to support Reconstruction efforts federally while working for women’s suffrage on the state level. The organization they formed to work for these goals was the American Woman Suffrage Association. And it’s like when they named these associations they were just TRYING to make it hard for high schoolers to remember for their exams. National Woman Suffrage Association. American Woman Suffrage Association. You’re KILLING me. Well, if you’re having trouble remembering the difference between these two, try this. When you ask whether each of these groups likes the 15th Amendment, these guys say NA, and these guys say EEYY. That’s probably not helpful at all. Sorry. Thank you for watching. There are more videos here on Unit five if you need an A in your class and a five on your exam in May. And if you found this video helpful and want me to keep making them, then subscribe and let me know. Heimler out.