APUSH: Failure of Reconstruction - PDF

Period 5 | 1844-1877 Topic 5.11 | Failure of Reconstruction AP Learning Objective L: Explain how and why Reconstruction resulted in continuity and change in regional and national understandings of what it...

Period 5 | 1844-1877 Topic 5.11 | Failure of Reconstruction AP Learning Objective L: Explain how and why Reconstruction resulted in continuity and change in regional and national understandings of what it meant to be American. 1.​ The 4 Million Dollar Question i.​ Even as the political and legal status of reincorporated southern states was being debated…and debated…and debated in Washington, an additional question loomed large in the South… ii.​ Overnight, millions of Black Americans were freed from a life of bondage. How would the four million formerly enslaved Black Americans be reincorporated into American society? b.​ 40 Acres and a Mule i.​ Even before the war had ended, Northerners were pondering this question. ii.​ On January 16th, 1865, General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15, which gave 40-acre parcels of confiscated land and a mule to Black families (“40 acres and a mule”). iii.​ By June, 40,000 freedmen settled on 400,000 acres of “Sherman Land” along the South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida coasts. However, the order was short-lived. Just months later, President Johnson ordered the land be returned to the planters who originally owned the land. c.​ Freedmen’s Bureau i.​ To assist in the reincorporation of ex-slaves into American society as freemen, Congress and Lincoln created the Freedmen’s Bureau in March 1865. General Oliver O. Howard was put in charge. ii.​ The organization provided food, clothing, education, and job training to freed slaves. By 1870, several thousand teachers – white and black – were teaching in schools for former slaves. iii.​ The Bureau spent $5 million to set up schools for freemen. By the end of 1865, more than 90,000 former slaves were enrolled as students in (segregated) public schools, and attendance rates were over 80%. iv.​ By 1870, there were more than 1,000 schools for freedmen in the South. As a result, one of the most significant transformations for African Americans in the South resulted. Moreover, the Freedmen’s Bureau helped in numerous HBCUs in the South, including Atlanta, Fisk (Jan. 1866), Howard (March 1867), Hampton (April 1868), and Tougaloo (1869). v.​ While the Bureau emerged as a key federal institution shaping black and white life in the South after the war, it operated on a shoestring budget with fewer than 1,000 agents. vi.​ Moreover, in 1872, in the midst of Military Reconstruction, Congress abruptly abandoned the program, refusing to renew. d.​ Political Successes i.​ After the passage of the 15th Amendment, the Reconstructed southern states sent the first African Americans to Congress as both representatives and senators. ii.​ Hiram R. Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, won election to the Senate, becoming the first African American senator. Adding insult to injury for white southerners, the senate seat he filled previously belonged to Jefferson Davis, former president of the Confederacy. iii.​ In the House, the first African American to gain election was Joseph H. Rainey, a Republican from South Carolina. In the Civil War, he had been a barber on a Confederate blockade runner. iv.​ A total of 16 African Americans served in Congress during Reconstruction, but each only served one or two terms. Significantly, nine of the 16 black members of Congress were former slaves. v.​ Moreover, historians have identified over 1,500 Black men who were elected into various local and state government positions during Reconstruction. Southern whites complained loudly of “Negro rule,” but the percentage of black officeholders in the South was small, and always far lower than the percentage of Black Americans in the population. vi.​ Notably, after 1897, the South would not elect a Black representative until 1973—76 years later—with the election of Barbara Jordan of Texas. It would be until 2013—138 years later—that another Black senator would be elected from the South, with the election of Tim Scott of South Carolina. 2.​ Southern Defiance a.​ Black Codes i.​ At the start of Reconstruction, southern legislatures instituted Black Codes, which were legal methods of keeping freed slaves in positions of servitude. ii.​ While they varied from state to state, they typically authorized local officials to apprehend unemployed blacks, fine them for vagrancy, and hire them out to private employers to satisfy the fines. iii.​ Some forbade Blacks to own or lease farms or take any other job than farm workers or domestic servants. b.​ Sharecropping i.​ During Reconstruction, a new economic arrangement was born: sharecropping. This system began on the sugar plantations of Louisiana and quickly spread to the rest of the South. ii.​ Through this system, planters broke up their estates into small units and established on each unit a black or poor white family as tenants. The planter provided housing, tools, draft animals, seed, and other supplies, and the family provided labor. Sometimes tenants obtained supplies from local merchants on a crop lien system, often borrowed with high interest rates. The crop—usually cotton, tobacco, rice, or another cash crop—was then divided between planter and laborer, with usually one-third given to the sharecropping tenants. iii.​ By the 1870s, sharecropping became the primary means of agricultural organization in much of the South. iv.​ Through this system, however, Black sharecroppers fell further and further into debt to landowners.  v.​ High interest rates and unpredictable harvests often kept the tenant families severely indebted, with debt often spanning generations, leading to generational poverty. vi.​ As late as 1880, Black southerners owned less than 10 percent of the agricultural land in the South, although they made up more than half of the region’s farm population. c.​ Violence i.​ Violence and intimidation spread throughout the South during Reconstruction. ii.​ Southerners established a number of secret terrorist societies in this era, including the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camelia, and the Pale Faces. iii.​ The most notorious of these was the Klan, which originated in Tennessee in 1866. By 1868, it was taken over by vigilantes dedicated to driving blacks out of politics, and it was spreading rapidly across the South. iv.​ Klansmen, sometimes claiming to be the ghosts of Confederate soldiers, spread rumors and published broadsides designed to persuade freedmen that it was “unhealthy” for them to participate in politics. v.​ When intimidation failed, the Klansmen resorted to force. They would take Black southerners out of their houses or cabins at night, strip them, whip them, and murder them. Lynchings and beatings became daily occurrences, especially during elections, and it has been estimated that approximately 400 hangings of African Americans occurred between 1868 and 1871. Congress attempted to strike at the Klan with three Force Acts in 1870 and 1871, which placed elections under federal jurisdiction and imposed fines and prison sentences for anyone interfering with a person’s right to vote. vi.​ These acts also allowed the president (Grant, at the time) to use federal troops to protect civil rights—a provision Grant used in nine counties in 1871. vii.​ The acts successfully broke up the Klan, though temporarily. Intimidation of Black voters, however, continued unabated… 3.​ Fading Reconstruction a.​ Waning Northern Resolve i.​ By the 1870s, northern resolve in the South was waning, as the war was fading into the past along with the anger it had generated. Northerners increasingly occupied with issues of industrialization, the economy, and other political matters. ii.​ Especially after the passage of the 15th Amendment, some convinced themselves that their long campaign on behalf of black people was now over. b.​ “Redeemer” Governments i.​ By 1872, all but a handful of Southern whites had regained suffrage. This gave southern whites an opportunity to return state and local governance to Democrats and to push out black officeholders. ii.​ Indeed, by 1876, every southern state returned state governorship and control of the state legislature to Southern Democrats. iii.​ These “Redeemer” governments, led by rich former planters and businessmen, dominated Southern politics from the 1870s to 1910. It was under these governments that the infamous Jim Crow laws would be passed in the following period. iv.​ In fact, two years earlier, Democrats won control of the House of Representatives in 1874 in the national election. c.​ Compromise of 1877 i.​ In the final major action taken by Congress during Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was passed, which prohibited racial discrimination in public accommodations, public transportation, and jury selection. Less than a decade later, however, the Supreme Court would rule parts of this act unconstitutional. ii.​ Reconstruction came to an end, however, with the Election of 1876, which pitted Republican Rutherford B. Hayes against Democrat Samuel Tilden. When the votes were counted, both parties claimed they had won the election. But the votes in Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana were disputed. iii.​ Even with a commission appointed to investigate and determine a winner, Democrats in the House of Representatives threatened to filibuster the vote. iv.​ Just days before Inauguration Day, a controversial back-door negotiation was drawn out (Compromise of 1877) and Hayes was declared elected. As was negotiated, however, he recalled the last troops from the South and April, thus bringing an end to Military Reconstruction and Reconstruction as a whole. 4.​ Key Takeaways a.​ Southern plantation owners continued to own the majority of the region’s land even after Reconstruction. Former slaves sought land ownership but generally fell short of self-sufficiency, as an exploitative and soil-intensive sharecropping system limited blacks’ and poor whites’ access to land in the South. b.​ Segregation, violence, Supreme Court decisions, and local political tactics progressively stripped away African American rights, but the 14th and 15th amendments eventually became the basis for court decisions upholding civil rights in the 20th century. Key Vocabulary [highlighted throughout PowerPoint and Lecture] Pink: fundamentally important Green: Very important Yellow: Somewhat important (“nice to know”) 4 Million Dollar Question Southern Defiance Fading Reconstruction Freedmen’s Bureau Black Codes Waning northern resolve 15th Amendment sharecropping Jim Crow laws Hiram R. Revels Ku Klux Klan Compromise of 1877 “40 acres and a mule” Knights of the White Camelia “Redeemer” governments Joseph H. Rainey Force Acts Civil Rights Act of 1875 Pale Faces Rutherford B. Hayes crop lien system