all right this is open stocks u.s history chapter 16 section 3 radical reconstruction 1867 to 1872 [Music] so uh in the last section we talked about congress looking to push the 14th amendment and the question was how do you get three-fourths of the states to agree to that currently under president johnson's plan for reconstruction and that you know the answer to that question is essentially for congress to present its own plan for reconstruction which is technically called the 1867 military reconstruction act but we'll just call it radical reconstruction and that's typically what it's referred to sometimes it's called congressional reconstruction not gonna fit okay uh so if we're paying attention at the very onset i mentioned that there are three plans for reconstruction we should have all three of them now there is lincoln's plan which never really went into effect because of uh his assassination there is johnson's plan which was the process by which states were being readmitted to the union up to 1867 and then lastly we have the radical or congress's plan now congress again like we mentioned before what the radicals want and where they stand you know they're much more about you know punishing the south for what they did rather than forgiving them and um you know especially considering the progress by which reconstruction was taking place under president johnson um you know they really are looking out in a lot of ways for the rights of former slaves and black black citizens in the south so the radical republicans propose in their reconstruction plan to divide up the states that did not sign or approve of the 14th amendment into five military districts five districts you can see in the map here the military districts that were drawn up by congress so you know here's one here's two three four and five those are the five military districts each military district will have a union general in charge with about 20 000 troops at their disposal so we might say union generals in charge of each district and the important part is with troops to enforce right we had sort of mentioned this in the last section right that you know how are these things going to be enforced upon the south how is the south going to be forced to follow the 13th and 14th amendment well this is the answer right the south essentially is going to be militarily occupied troops will be there in order to protect the rights of former slaves so it's a very hands-on approach and what uh congress is requiring is that you know these states then requ you know then have as part of their um you know as part of the reconstruction process are required to ratify the 14th amendment the military reconstruction acts of course as we can probably guess at this point is vetoed by president johnson however congress does override it and so with that we answer sort of the um you know the next phase of reconstruction and that is radical reconstruction where under the oversight of union generals the 14th amendment is being required or you know really forced on the south in order to um you know in order to uh be part of the union again um so all this battle between johnson and uh congress ultimately leads to kind of like the climax or the crescendo of the back and forth and that is the impeachment of the president recall impeachment is the process to remove the president and really this had been not just the fact that andrew johnson was openly vetoing pretty much all of congress's legislation right you know recall that the freedmen's bureau was vetoed the civil rights act was vetoed by the johnson uh by johnson and radical reconstruction was vetoed by uh president johnson so johnson really in every capacity is just kind of getting in the way of what congress wants to do after the war but also for his open support of white supremacy uh you know we might say president johnson's uh endorsement of something like the black codes and not wanting to see something like the 14th amendment which would extend citizenship and extend equality under the law to former slaves in the south so congress is really looking for a way to get rid of johnson primarily for these reasons but you know technically speaking there's nothing really impeachable per se about vetoing legislation or openly advocating white supremacy however congress does move to pass laws that will in some sense you could say tripp johnson up one of those laws is the tenure of office acts excuse me tenure of office act it requires president uh to get senate and again in this case the senate is congress the president is the president uh president uh requires the president to get senate approval to dismiss cabinet members and this is the sort of technicality you might say that johnson gets impeached for he dismisses a member of his cabinet without senate approval that is a no-no and so uh congress acts or begins the process of impeachment the house of representatives so again technically that's why johnson was impeached because he violated this law the kind of you know reality of it is that you know it's all this right it's everything that we've been talking about in a chapter when it came to the process of impeachment you know impeachment kind of works as a two-layer process one is that impeachment is brought up and then the second one is whether or not the president gets removed from office so johnson was impeached they did hold a vote but he was one vote short of being removed from office so johnson will say kept is we'll just say job but really after this was you know he was pretty quiet and you know not um not really uh you know not really historically relevant or significant anymore and um you know with that uh congress got their way and radical reconstruction um would would continue now congress wanted to add one more ingredient to this you know the 13th amendment so maybe this is a good time talk about our three reconstruction amendments uh recall that the 13th amendment abolished slavery slavery was now gone the 14th amendment was about citizenship to make former slaves citizens and equality and equal under the law [Music] uh so congress acted to pass the 15th amendment which would sort of take care of what was perceived as to be a loophole and the 15th amendment is concerned with voting rights voting rights by that time andrew johnson was out of office ulysses s grant was elected president again grant was a republican a northerner he was the uh general of union forces during the civil war the highest ranking general a war hero very easily won this election and uh on the side of the republicans you know he was certainly someone who wanted to um you know see the the process of radical reconstruction continue as an individual probably inflicted more harm on the south during their harm on the confederacy during the civil war than perhaps anybody else however in running for office republicans brought up or did frequently bring up the fact that the south was responsible for the civil war uh southerners refer to this strategy as waving the bloody shirt we might say you know using the memory of the civil war specifically um you know uh you know specifically you know northerners saying you know don't forget don't vote for the democratic party um you know they're the ones responsible for the war and then in response the democratic party is saying you know you're waving the bloody shirt of the civil war you're using the memory of the civil war we'll just say you know to win uh you know elections and um with grants winning the presidency and with uh you know radical republicans firmly in office the 15th amendment was passed it allowed for universal manhood suffrage of course we mean white and black men constitutionally have the right to vote this image here is showing the celebration of the 15th amendment now the issue of universal manhood suffrage in the 15th amendment also reignited the debate about women's suffrage and in a lot of ways helped split or not really well i guess help split the civil rights movement there were some like elizabeth cady stanton and susan b anthony who continued to advocate women's suffrage um in many ways we could say that their opinions said uh you know advocate women's suffrage um as opposed to suffrage for former slaves against suffrage just means the right to vote those who suffered for former slaves in other words there was one sort of section of the women's suffrage movement that looked at the 15th amendment and saw it as an insult that it was prioritizing the voting rights of black men over the voting rights of women and therefore the 15th amendment should not be supported and there were some who did not support it there were others like frederick douglass who looked at the 15th amendment as kind of progress you know black men getting the vote today women getting the vote tomorrow seen more as sort of a step so frederick douglass we might say someone who supported the 15th but also uh women's suffrage so again a split between you know should black men get the right to vote before women or should women come first um that is to say that the issue of women's suffrage continued uh after the period of reconstruction organizations like the national women's suffrage association or nwsa continued to i guess we'll say fight or [Music] women's voting rights and that's not going to come until much later 1920 we'll just make a note of it now but in the meantime the 15th amendment only enfranchised um all men and of course the targeted demographic there were black men so what you had in the south then between the years of 1865 and essentially you know 1870 when the 15th amendment takes place is really a radical transformation you know really hard press to find um something happened so fast so quickly in such a short amount of time uh four million people in the south who had been enslaved in 1865 were now free with the right to vote uh with protection under the laws or equal protection under laws and citizens of the united states and maybe most importantly during radical reconstruction had a force that was present in order to um in order to enforce those laws and so um you know you saw for the very first time uh really especially in uh you know the southern states you know people african-americans holding office uh blanchey bruce harem rebels these were two black men elected to the u.s senate the u.s senate and that's not to say and that's not to you know mention kind of all the um other minor minor much smaller political positions that were held a lot of black people were elected as local sheriffs mayors state legislatures you know in ways that really had never been experienced in the south before again a radical transition transformation taking place uh in the south um this also required organization uh union leagues union leagues were in some cases we'll call northern political bodies who became active in the south and you know due to the uh you know the policies of radical reconstruction the fact that there are you know practically uh you know one million more votes coming in from the formerly enslaved population much of these governments went uh republican especially in the years immediately following radical reconstruction and you know this radical transformation though did receive a pretty significant backlash especially in the south there was much resentment especially coming from those former confederate states in the south towards reconstruction um former confederates labeled reconstruction governments as negro miss rule so we might say label used by we'll say confederate or we'll say radical reconstruction by reconstruction opponents and oftentimes accusations of corruption against those radical reconstruction governments where in some cases it did occur but this was also part of the gilded age which we'll talk about later but in many cases this time period in american history is the height of political corruption and the point here is that this is and and again you know make sure to uh make this point this is the case both north and south so political corruption was the norm of the day but it you know the corruption could be used as a motivation to resent these reconstruction governments which were dramatically different than war and soon democrats in the south began to demand a redemption or that states be redeemed to redeem a state is to really in some ways overturn reconstruction you know we got to call we've got to recall that at the time and this is important differentiation to make at this time specifically between you know 18 well won't get too much into the long history here but you know the bottom line is that you know specifically at this time the republican party is the party of the north and the democratic party is the party of the south um in this particular moment and to overturn reconstruction means to poor democrats to take back power and sort of slowly by you know slowly but surely in the south a lot of those governments that had previously been dominated by republicans were soon being replaced by democratic governments this was a tactic that included um you know political uh you know tactics but also a lot of vigilante violence the period of reconstruction is an especially violent period in american history um and it also required a sort of retelling of the story to portray these vigilante groups and reconstruction governments um or i should say to portray vigilante groups in a positive light and to portray reconstruction governments in a negative light um sort of gave way to a retelling of the civil war in which reconstruction was seen as evil in which northerners were seen as oppressing the former confederate states and this was captured in a film that was made in 1915 called a birth of a nation or the birth of a nation which portrays right so it's a very popular film a little bit later on but it kind of goes into this retelling of uh you know of the uh you know the history of the south it portrays groups like the kkk which we'll talk about next section as heroes and reconstruction just say as uh you know we'll just say as evil right sort of that story was injected into or that narrative i should say was injected into the american culture