this lecture covers reconstruction by looking at the ambitious goals and comparing them to the limited on the ground changes that actually were made what reconstruction looked like depended upon who wielded the levers of power in the end the will and energy for long-term investment in the south simply just would not be there and by the end of the 1870s that would allow old guard white power to come back into control in the south this slide just reminds you that even lincoln went through an evolutionary or change process during his time in office he comes into the presidency hoping to preserve the union when secession occurs his immediate goal is to reconnect the southern states with the rest of the united states but over time he also becomes dedicated to ending the slavery question eliminating slavery from any kind of reconnected union this slide lays out some of the possibilities for reconstruction what could possibly change in the south by 1865 we know that the institution of slavery is now illegal beyond that though would the freedmen have a public voice in his community would he have economic autonomy the ability to own land build businesses even work for wages finally social interaction how much integration would there be on a social scale in a reconstructed south there was optimism in the beginning and this poster reflects that optimism it presents to you three leading black figures during the reconstruction era frederick douglass is in the center you know him well the other two gentlemen the left and the right were among the early representatives and senators in the u.s congress which was made possible by changes during reconstruction on the right is senator hiram revels he was appointed to sit in the mississippi senatorial seat formerly held by jefferson davis who had been president of the confederacy now hiram revels was appointed to this position on the left blanche bruce would be elected to it he would hold the senate seat from 1875 to 1881. congress realized that the former slaves would need help even before the war ended in march of 1865 congress created the freedmen's bureau its immediate goal was relief food clothing and shelter for the former slaves over its lifetime the friedman's bureau expanded its agenda friedman's agents became the liaison for the former slaves with white civilian authorities they represented the slaves in court transactions in efforts to secure property on which the former slaves could live and farm the most extensive activity and the most successful many believe was in the area of education the freedmen's bureau facilitated many northern teachers coming south to help set up schools it's estimated that some 4 000 of these schools began in the immediate post-war period serving over 200 000 students now these would be very rudimentary things they might meet only in the evening they might even meet outside but nonetheless they responded to a hunger on the part of the former slaves for learning even after the freedmen's bureau was ended congress cut off its funding in 1870 education continued many of the transplanted teachers remained and there was effort to fund what have become the historically black colleges in the south education a lasting legacy of the freedmen's bureau overall reconstruction planning fell to andrew johnson lincoln's successor remember johnson himself was a southerner he was not anti-slavery per se though he had resented the power that large plantation owners had wielded in the pre-civil war south for that reason he did not go with the rest of the congressional delegation of the southern states and leave congress he was the only confederate representative to stay with the union which is why lincoln had gravitated towards him as a way to try and build a broader voter base in 1864. johnson's plan was extremely generous to the south it became very easy in the short term for white southerners and white southern states to regain entry into the union and as soon as white southerners could vote they began to retake control of southern governments those governments were the ones that passed black codes which i'll talk about in another slide these were harsh laws aimed only at the former slave the reaction to the black codes on the part of congress was to repudiate them and to repudiate johnson's reconstruction plan congress takes over reconstruction they go radical with their planning frustrated andrew johnson will actually counsel the south to resist the efforts of the radical reconstructionists in congress in response radical congress impeaches andrew johnson and attempts to remove him from office he is saved by a single vote though he remains president andrew johnson is out removed from any of the levers of power and he watches as the radicals take control of the process congress's actions are considered radical because they add significant changes to the united states constitution in addition to the 13th amendment two more are added collectively the 13th 14th and 15th amendments are known as the reconstruction amendments the overarching purpose is to fully integrate the freedmen into the fabric of the us body politic and civic so the 13th amendment abolished slavery the 14th amendment lays out a national citizenship category clearly including the former slave that's a direct repudiation of the dred scott decision of 1857 the 14th amendment also declares that no one can be deprived of their rights as a national citizen without due process finally the 15th amendment extended voting rights to all black males in the u.s the southern states are now required to rewrite their constitutions their constitutions must accept all three reconstruction amendments integrate them into their state constitutions only then will those states be allowed to participate in government independently no representation in congress no local state government until this happens in the interim the south is divided into five military districts and the states must prove their readmission criteria and only then will military oversight be withdrawn the map shows you the distribution of the five districts it also gives you dates the oldest date is the date on which whatever state it is earns readmission to the union you've met the criteria and now you can have your own state government and you can also send representation to congress and you can participate in federal elections the second date is the date by which white politics reasserts himself in that state basically it's when democrats re-seize control of the levers of state government sometimes the dates are several years separated sometimes they're unfortunately very close together the freed slave hoped very much that the federal government would help them secure as the phrase goes 40 acres and a mule to be independent as farmers for themselves remember most slaves in the south their skill was tied to farming and southern economy did depend mostly on farming however the federal government decides not to undergo vast redistribution of land in the south that allowed the status quo to remain owners of land continued to own land if they owned it before the civil war they owned it after the civil war if they could pay the taxes what that meant was the former slave was now in the position of a laborer someone who would have to negotiate with an employer in arrangement work for some kind of compensation what we get instead of fair negotiation is the re-emergence of of the exploitation of the labor of the freed slave just under a new system the new system is referred to as crop lien or sharecropping characterized by the legal document known as the labor contract the freed slave would sign a contract with the land owner the freed slave would offer his labor on this land in exchange for a share of the crop a share of the profit at the end of the season in the interim the owner of the land would provide the land the seed even housing and temporarily food for the former slave during the period when he was working on the land and before the harvest came in but all of those things were advanced to the former slave to the freedmen not given to him and the accounting at the harvest time was where the exploitation would come through the harvest would never seem to yield enough for the freedmen to make a profit rather he often found that his share of the profit was used up in recompensing the owner of the land for the seed for the housing for the temporary food for the rental of the farm equipment sometimes quite often actually the sharecropper would would not even break even he would find himself in debt to the landowner at the end of the season you would have no other option but to re-up your contract for another season where you would hope that the next harvest would allow you to work your way out of debt get a small profit and then accumulate resources so that ultimately you could buy your own land much of the time sharecropping was rigged and so what you have are freedmen tied to the land and sometimes this becomes a generational tying sharecropping as a system will persist into the 1960s what you're looking at with the map on the slide is the early development of this sharecropping sometimes it's referred to as tenancy because you are essentially a tenant on the land that you are working and you can see how in the deep south where cotton had been the prime product the prime crop share cropping takes hold and the majority of friedman become retied to the land as sharecropping tenant farmers the black codes were the first volley in the south's efforts to resist reconstruction these were a harsh sets of laws passed by local localities to restrict the newly freed slave and to deny him any rights that other free individuals would have there were no rights to movement nor could you vote nor could you be on a jury if you were unemployed and think about it the newly freed slaves are in large numbers immediately not employed well white authorities stepped in and assigned them white advisors and assigned them to jobs limiting their ability to travel it was the harshness of the black codes in part that pushed congress to assert itself and begin radical reconstruction so as congress intervened and created those military districts we looked at sales resistance goes more underground and you get a number of secret organizations engaging in vigilante actions to intimidate the former slave and deny him his rights that way these vigilante organizations also went after white republicans who were in the south trying to organize the freed slaves politically for the republican party the most egregious of the vigilante actions would be lynching these this would be the extra-legal mob rule rather than wait for the law to handle a situation the mob would intervene and someone without any due process at all could be beaten or killed these intimidation tactics were under the were extra legal and even during radical reconstruction these organizations did strike fear into the local free population reconstruction continued through the presidency of ulysses s grant 1868 to 1876 but by the end of grant's presidency the continuing resentment and resistance in the south coupled with a kind of weariness in the north brought an end to reconstruction the end came through an election bargain over the presidency in 1876. the republican candidate was the governor of ohio rutherford b hayes the democratic candidate was samuel tilden governor of new york tilden had won the popular vote but neither man had won an outright majority in the electoral college there were still however three southern states with some semblance of military rule overseeing that state's electoral votes those three states electoral votes would decide who would be president a special commission was created the commission ended up hashing out what became the end of reconstruction an agreement whereby all the disputed votes went to hayes so the presidency would go to a republican in exchange the military would be removed all of it out of the south congress would authorize dollar investment to help rebuild the south hayes would include a southerner in his cabinet tilden was the loser in all of this he probably deserved to win the presidency that year rather he was sacrificed on the altar of finding a compromise that ended reconstruction what happens after reconstruction ends is an erosion of even the progress that was made between 1865 and 1876 the promise of political participation begun during reconstruction ended with the reassertion of southern democratic power and their efforts to disenfranchise the black voter during reconstruction we saw 16 black individuals elected to congress either the house of representatives or the senate that would no longer happen as white democrats moved to prevent black males from exercising their right to vote as we talked about before economic dependency became entrenched that had even happened during reconstruction the hope that national citizenship defined in the 14th amendment would have broad rights associated with it was dashed in the 19th century the interpretation of the 14th amendment was narrowed only certain types of governmental action were would be considered violations of due process much of the discrimination that would take place against blacks in the south would be excluded from coverage in the 14th amendment it would not be until the 20th century when the due process clause would be extended to state constitutions and state legislation in addition empowered with political control again white democrats would pass state laws that would force and mandate the separation of races in all public places in the south segregation laws passed in the 1870s and 1880s often went by the nickname jim crow laws and the south itself was often referred to as the jim crow south this is regarded as a racial slur where it comes from i thought you might find interesting in the 1830s a white minstrel performer thomas rice would blacken his face and dance to the song his theme song jump in jim crow where he would make fun of blacks through his act that racial slur became the unofficial name for that set of segregation laws over time blacks did mount a legal effort against segregation laws the case that wound its way to the supreme court was plessy v ferguson homer plessy had intentionally violated the 1890 separate car law in louisiana that law mandated there be separate cars for black and white passengers inside the state of louisiana plessy agreed to be the test case he was also interested in testing the definition of black since he was only one eighth black and seven eighths white the supreme court in a near-majority decision upheld the segregation law and established what has come to be known as the separate but equal doctrine that mandating the use of separate facilities is not in and of itself creating a legal inequality so long as the facilities though separate are equal they are acceptable that judicial decision will stand and segregation laws will be upheld until the 1954 brown versus board of education decision that overturned segregated education