Reconstruction: Post-Civil War PDF

The Problems of Peacemaking (pg. 419) 1. no one in Washington had yet formed a plan for what would happen to the defeated South a. Lincoln could not negotiate a treaty with the Confederate government - he continued to insist that the Confederate government had no legal right to exist;...

The Problems of Peacemaking (pg. 419) 1. no one in Washington had yet formed a plan for what would happen to the defeated South a. Lincoln could not negotiate a treaty with the Confederate government - he continued to insist that the Confederate government had no legal right to exist; neither could he simply readmit the Southern states into the Union as if nothing had happened The Aftermath of War and Emancipation (pg. 419) 1. the devastated South a. Civil War was a catastrophe for the South with no parallel in America's experience as a nation - Towns had been gutted, plantations burned, fields neglected, bridges and railroads destroyed - Many white Southerners, stripped of their enslaved laborers through emancipation and stripped of the capital they had invested in now-worthless Confederate bonds and currency, had almost no personal property - Many families had to rebuild their fortunes without the help of adult males, massive numbers of whom had died in the war - Some white Southerners faced starvation and homelessness 2. myth of the “lost cause” a. more than 258,000 Confederate soldiers (who had died in the war) constituted over 20% of the adult white male population of the region; thousands more returned home wounded or sick; Almost all surviving white Southerners had lost people close to them in the fighting b. A cult of ritualized mourning developed throughout the region in the late 1860s, particularly among white women-many of whom wore mourning clothes (and jewelry) for two years or longer c. At the same time, white Southerners began to romanticize the "Lost Cause" and its leaders & to look back nostalgically at the South as it had existed before the terrible disruptions of war - Such Confederate heroes as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and (later) Jefferson Davis were treated with extraordinary reverence, almost as religious figures. - Communities throughout the South built elaborate monuments in town squares to commemorate their war dead. The tremendous sense of loss that pervaded the white South reinforced the determination of many white people to protect what remained of their now- vanished world 3. conditions were worse for most black Southerners (aka the 4 million men and women emerging from bondage) a. Some of them had also seen service during the war—as servants to Confederate officers or as teamsters and laborers for the Southern armies; Nearly 200,000 had fought for the Union, and 38,000 had died; Others had worked as spies or scouts for Union forces in the South; Many more had flocked to the Union lines to escape slavery b. Even before Emancipation, thousands of enslaved people in many parts of the South had taken advantage of wartime disruptions to leave slaveholders and move off in search of freedom - As soon as the war ended, hundreds of thousands more former enslaved people-young and old, healthy and sick-left their plantations; Some went in search of family members who had been sold by their former slave-holders; many others had nowhere to go; Some trudged to the nearest town or city, roamed the countryside camping at night on the bare ground, or gathered around Union occupation forces, hoping for assistance c. Virtually none owned any land or property. Most had no possessions except the clothes they wore. 4. In 1865, in short, Southern society was in vast disarray. Men and women, regardless of race, faced a future of great uncertainty. Yet all Southerners faced this future with some very clear aspirations. For both African Americans and white people, Reconstruction became a struggle to define the meaning of freedom. But the former enslaved people and the defeated white people had very different conceptions of what freedom meant. Competing Notions of Freedom (pg. 420) 1. For African Americans, freedom meant above all an end to slavery and to all the injustices and humiliation they associated with it a. it also meant the acquisition of rights and protections that would allow them to live as free men and women in the same way white people did. 2. African Americans differed with one another on how to achieve that freedom  a. some demanded a redistribution of economic resources, especially land - others asked simply for legal equality, confident that given the same opportunities as white citizens they could advance successfully in American society b. whatever their particular demands, virtually all former enslaved people were united in their desire for independence from white control - freed from slavery, African Americans throughout the South began almost immediately to create autonomous communities; They pulled out of white-controlled churches and established their own; They created fraternal, benevolent, and mutual aid societies; When they could, they began their own schools. 3. For most white Southerners, freedom meant something very different a. meant the ability to control their own destinies without interference from the North or the federal government - in the immediate aftermath of the war, they attempted to exercise this version of freedom by trying to restore their society to its antebellum form b. Slavery had been abolished in the former Confederacy by the Emancipation Proclamation, and everywhere else (as of December 1865) by the 13th Amendment - many white planters continued a kind of slavery in an altered form by keeping black workers legally tied to the plantations. When many white Southeners fought for what they freedom, they were fighting above all to preserve local and regional autonomy and white supremacy. 4. The Freedmen’s Bureau a. The federal government kept troops in the South after the war to preserve order and protect the freedmen b. In March 1865, Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau - an agency of the army directed by General Oliver O. Howard. The Freedmens Bureau distributed war to millions of former enslaved people - established schools staffed by missionaries + teachers who had been sent to the South by Freedmen's Aid Societies and groups in the North - made modest efforts to settle African Americans on lands of their own c. however, the Freedmen's Bureau was not a permanent solution - It had authority to operate for only one year, and in any case it was far too small to deal effectively with the enormous problems facing Southern society. By the time the war ended, other proposals for reconstructing the defeated South were emerging. Issues of Reconstruction (pg. 421) 1. Reconstruction was determined not just by social realities or ideals. It was also determined by partisan politics. The terms by which the Southern states rejoined the Union had important implications for both major political parties b. Republican victories in 1860 and 1864 had been a result in large part of the division of the Democratic Party and, later, the removal of the South from the electorate - Readmitting the South, leaders of both parties believed, would reunite the Democrats and weaken the Republicans - In addition, the Republican Party had taken advantage of the South's absence from Congress to pass a program of nationalistic economic legislation railroad subsidies, protective tariffs, banking and currency reforms, and other measures to benefit Northern business leaders and industrialists. - Many Northerners believed the South should be punished in some way for the suffering and sacrifice its rebellion had caused - Many Northerners believed, too, that the South should be transformed, made over in the North's urbanized image its supposedly backward, feudal, undemocratic society civilized and modernized. 2. Conservative and Radical Republicans a. Even among the Republicans in Congress, there was considerable disagreement about the proper approach to Reconstruction disagreement that reflected the same factional divisions that had created disputes over emancipation during the war. - Conservatives insisted that the South accept the abolition of slavery, but proposed few other conditions for the readmission of the seceded states - Radicals, led by Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, urged that the civil and military leaders of the Confederacy be punished, that large numbers of white Southerners be disenfranchised, that the legal rights of former enslaved people be protected, and that the property of wealthy white Southerners who had aided the Confederacy be confiscated + distributed among freedmen  Plans for Reconstruction (pg. 422) 1. President Lincoln's sympathies lay with the Moderates and Conservatives of his party. a. he believed that a lenient Reconstruction policy would encourage Southern unionists and other former Whigs to join the Republican Party - thus prevent the readmission of the South from strengthening the Democrats & the Southern unionists could become the nucleus of new, loyal state governments in the South b. Lincoln was not uninterested in the fate of the freedmen, but he was willing to defer questions about their future for the sake of rapid reunification. 2. Lincoln’s 10% plan a. Lincoln's Reconstruction plan (which he announced in December 1863), offered a general amnesty to white Southerners other than high officials of the Confederacy - those high officials would pledge loyalty to the government and accept the elimination of slavery b. Whenever 10 percent of the number of voters in 1860 took the oath in any state, those loyal voters could set up a state government c. Lincoln also hoped to extend suffrage to African Americans who were educated, owned property, and had served in the Union army. d. 3 Southern states LA, AK, and TN (all under Union occupation) reestablished loyal governments under the Lincoln formula in 1864. 3. Wade-Davis Bill a. background: the Radical Republicans were astonished at the mildness of Lincoln's program - they persuaded Congress to deny seats to representatives from the 3 "reconstructed" states and refused to count the electoral vote of those states in the election of 1864 b. for the moment, the Radicals were uncertain about what form their own Reconstruction plan should take - first effort to resolve that question was the Wade-Davis Bill (passed by Congress in July 1864) 1. authorized the president to appoint a provisional governor for each conquered state. When a majority (not Lincoln's 10 percent) of the white males of the state pledged their allegiance to the Union, the governor could summon a state constitutional convention, whose delegates were to be elected by those who would swear (through the so- called Ironclad Oath) that they had never borne arms against the United States another departure from Lincoln's plan - The new state constitutions would have to abolish slavery, disenfranchise Confederate civil and military leaders, and repudiate debts accumulated by the state governments during the war - After a state had met these conditions, Congress would readmit it to the Union. c. Like the president's proposal, the Wade-Davis Bill left up to the states the question of political rights for African Americans - Congress passed the bill a few days before it adjourned in 1864, and Lincoln disposed of it with a pocket veto - His action enraged the Radical leaders, and the pragmatic Lincoln became convinced he would have to accept at least some of the Radical demands. He began to move toward a new approach to Reconstruction. The Death of Lincoln (pg. 422) 1. On the night of April 14, 1865, the president + his wife attended a play at Ford's Theater in Washington. a. As they sat in the presidential box, John Wilkes Booth (a member of a distinguished family of actors and a zealous advocate of the Southern cause), entered the box from the rear and shot Lincoln in the head b. The president was carried unconscious to a house across the street, where early the next morning, surrounded by family, friends, and political associates (among them a tearful Charles Sumner), he died. 2. The circumstances of Lincoln's death earned him immediate martyrdom a. it also produced something close to hysteria throughout the North b. there were accusations that Booth had acted as part of a great conspiracy accusations that contained some truth - Booth did indeed have associates, one of whom stabbed and wounded Secretary of State Seward the night of the assassination (another of whom abandoned at the last moment a plan to murder Vice President Johnson)  c. Booth himself escaped on horseback into the Virginia countryside, where, on April 26, he was cornered by Union troops and shot to death in a blazing barn. A military tribunal convicted eight. other people of participating in the conspiracy (at least two of them on the basis of virtually no evidence). Four were hanged. 3. To many Northerners, however, the murder of the president seemed evidence of an even greater conspiracy one masterminded and directed by the unrepentant leaders of the defeated South a. Militant Republicans exploited such suspicions relentlessly for months, ensuring that Lincoln's death would help doom his plans for a relatively easy peace. Johnson and “Restoration” (pg. 423) 1. Andrew Johnson’s personality a. Leadership of the Moderates and Conservatives fell to Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, who was not well suited, by either circumstance or personality, for the task. b. he became a Republican (former Democrat) president at a moment when partisan passions were growing - Johnson himself was an intemperate and tactless man, filled with resentments and insecurities; was also openly hostile to the freed African Americans and unwilling to support any plans that guaranteed them civil equality or enfranchisement. 2. Johnson revealed his plan for Reconstruction or "Restoration," a. he implemented it during the summer of 1865, when Congress was in recess. - Like Lincoln, he offered amnesty to those Southerners who would take an oath of allegiance - In most other respects, however, his plan resembled that of the Wade-Davis Bill - for each state, the president appointed a provisional governor, who was to invite qualified voters to elect delegates to a constitutional convention; Johnson did not specify how many qualified voters were necessary, but he implied that he would require a majority (as had the Wade-Davis Bill) - In order to win readmission to Congress, a state had to revoke its ordinance of secession, abolish slavery, ratify the 13th Amendment, and repudiate the Confederate and state war debts b. final procedure before restoration was for a state to elect a state government and send representatives to Congress. 3. Whereas Johnson helped white Southerners to return to their land, he did little in support of former enslaved people a. Although freedmen had been given their liberty, holding on to it proved difficult. - Many freedmen who returned to work for white planters found themselves almost enslaved people again b. Johnson offered no help; It was a long time before freedmen truly found liberty. 4. Northern attitudes harden a. By end of 1865, all the seceded states had formed new overnments some under Lincoln's plan, some under Johnson's-and were prepared to rejoin the Union as soon as Congress recognized them - however, Radical Republicans vowed not to recognize the Johnson governments, just as they had previously refused to recognize the Lincoln regimes b. Northern opinion had hardened and become more hostile toward the South than it had been a year earlier when Congress passed the Wade-Davis Bill - Many Northerners were disturbed by the apparent reluctance of some delegates to the Southern conventions to abolish slavery & by the refusal of all the conventions to grant suffrage to any African Americans - they astounded that states claiming to be "loyal" should elect prominent leaders of the recent Confederacy as state officials and representatives to Congress. 1. Particularly hard to accept was Georgia's choice of Alexander H. Stephens, former Confederate vice president, as a United States senator. Radical Reconstruction (pg. 423) 1. Reconstruction under Johnson's plan often known as presidential Reconstruction"- a. continued until Congress reconvened in December 1865 b. Congress refused to seat the representatives of the "restored" states and created a new Joint Committee on Reconstruction to frame a Reconstruction policy of its own c. The period of "congressional," or "Radical," Reconstruction had begun  The Black Codes (pg. 423) 1. Meanwhile, events in the South were driving Northern opinion in more-radical directions a. throughout the South in 1865 and early 1866, state legislatures were enacting sets of laws known as the "Black Codes," - designed to give white people substantial control over freed African Americans - the codes authorized local officials to apprehend unemployed African Americans, fine them for vagrancy, and hire them out to private employers to satisfy the fine. - Some of the codes forbade African Americans to own or lease farms or to take any jobs other than as plantation workers or domestic servants. 2. Johnson’s vetoes a. Congress first responded to the Black Codes by passing an act extending the life of the Freedmen's Bureau & widening its powers so that it could nullify work agreements forced on freedmen under the Black Codes b. in April 1866, Congress passed the first Civil Rights Act - declared African Americans to be citizens of the United States & gave the federal government power to intervene in state affairs to protect the rights of citizens c. Johnson vetoed both bills, but Congress overrode him on each of them The 14th Amendment (pg. 423) 1. In April 1866, the Joint Committee on Reconstruction proposed a new amendment to the Constitution a. Congress approved this in early summer and sent to the states for ratification b. became one of the most important provisions in the Constitution. 2. citizenship for African Americas a. 14th Amendment offered the first constitutional definition of American citizenship: - everyone born in the United States, and everyone naturalized, was automatically a citizen and entitled to all the 'privileges and immunities" guaranteed by the Constitution, including equal protection of the laws by both the state and national govt’s - there could be no other requirements (for example, being a white person) for citizenship b. also imposed penalties reduction of representation in Congress and in the electoral college on states that denied suffrage to any adult male inhabitants  - the wording reflected the prevailing view in Congress and elsewhere that the franchise was properly restricted to men. - finally, it prohibited former members of Congress or other former federal officials who had aided the Confederacy from holding any state or federal office unless two- thirds of Congress voted to pardon them 3. Congressional Radicals offered to readmit to the Union any state whose legislature ratified the 14th Amendment a. only Tennessee did so - all the other former Confederate states, along with DE and KY, refused, leaving the amendment temporarily without the necessary approved three-fourths of the states 4. Radicals were growing more confident and determined a. bloody race riots in New Orleans and other Southern cities (riots in which African Americans were the principal victims) were among the events that strengthened their hand b. in 1866 congressional elections, Johnson actively campaigned for Conservative candidates, but he did his own cause more harm than good with his intemperate speeches. - The voters returned an overwhelming majority of Republicans, most of them Radicals, to Congress. - The South remiained largely unrepresented in Senate and the House Congressional - Republicans were now strong enough to enact a plan of their own even over the president’s objections. The Congressional Plan (pg. 424) 1. 3 Reconstruction Bills a. Radicals passed three Reconstruction bills early in 1867 and overrode Johnson's vetoes of all of them - These bills finally established, nearly 2 years after the end of the war, a coherent plan for Reconstruction b. Under the congressional plan, TN, which had ratified the 14th Amendment, was promptly readmitted - however, Congress rejected the Lincoln-Johnson govt’s of the other 10 Confederate states; instead, combined those states into five military districts 1. A military commander governed each district and had orders to register qualified voters (defined as all adult black males and those white males who had not participated in the rebellion). Once registered, voters would elect conventions to prepare new state constitution. which had to include provisions for black suffrage. Once votes ratified the new constitutions, they could elect state govt’s. Congress had to approve a state's constitution, and the state legislature had to ratify the 14th Amendment. 2. Once that happened, and once enough states ratified the amendment to make it part of the Constitution, the then former Confederate states could be restored to the Union. 2. 15th amendment a. By 1868, seven of the ten former Confederate states (AK, NC, SC, LA, AL, GA, FL) had fulfilled these conditions (including ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, which now became part of the Constitution) b. they were readmitted to the Union - Conservative white voters held up the return of VA and TX until 1869 and MS until 1870 c. By then, Congress had added one more requirement for readmission - it was ratification of 15th amendment 1. forbade the states and the federal government to deny suffrage to any citizen on account of race, color, or previous condion of servitude." 3. To stop the president from interfering with their plans, the congressional Radicals passed 2 remarkable laws of dubious constitutionality in 1867 a. the Tenure of Office Act - forbade the president to remove civil officials, including members of his own cabinet, w/o the consent of the Senate - principal purpose of the law was to protect the job of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton (who was cooperating with the Radicals) b. other law was the Command of the Army Act - prohibited the president from issuing military orders except through the commanding general of the army (General Grant), who couldn’t be relieved or assigned elsewhere without the consent of the Senate  4. The congressional Radicals also took action to stop the Supreme Court from interfering with their plans a. In 1866, the Court had declared in the case of Ex parte Milligan that military tribunals were unconstitutional in places where civil cours were functioning - it was a decision that seemed to threaten the system of military gov’t the Radicals were planning for the South b. Radicals in Congress immediately proposed several bills: would require 2/3’s of justices to support any decision overruling a law of Congress, would deny the Court jurisdiction in Reconstruction cases, would reduce is membership to three, and would even abolish it - The justices apparently took notice c. Over the next two years, the Court refused to accept jurisdiction in any cases involving Reconstruction (and the congressional bills concerning the Court never passed). The Impeachment of the President (pg. 425) 1. Tenure of Office Act a. President Johnson had long since ceased to be a serious obstacle to the passage of Radical legislation, but he was still the official charged with administering the Reconstruction programs - As such, the Radicals believed, he remained a serious impediment to their plans b. Early in 1867, they began looking for a way to impeach him and remove him from office - Republicans found grounds for impeachment, they believed, when Johnson dismissed Secretary of War Stanton despite Congress's refusal to agree, thus deliberately violating the Tenure of Office Act in hopes of testing the law before the courts c. Elated Radicals in the House quickly impeached the president and sent the case to the Senate for trial. By that time, the Radicals were determined to impeach President Johnson 2. Johnson acquitted a. The trial before the Senate lasted throughout April + May 1868 - Radicals put heavy pressure on all the Republican senators, but the Moderates (who were losing faith in the Radical program) vacillated - On the first three charges to come to a vote, 7 Republicans joined the Democrats and independents to support acquittal b. vote was 35 to 19, one short of the constitutionally required 2/3’s majority - After that, the Radicals dropped the impeachment effort. The South in Reconstruction (pg. 426) 1. When white Southerners spoke bitterly in later years of the effects of Reconstruction, they referred most frequently to the governments Congress helped impose on them a. it were govt’s they claimed were both incompetent and corrupt, that saddled the region with enormous debts, and that trampled on the rights of citizens b. When black Southerners + their defenders condemned Reconstruction, in contrast, they spoke of the failure of the national and state governments to go far enough to guarantee freedmen even the most elemental rights of citizenship a failure that resulted in a harsh new system of economic subordination The Reconstruction Govt’s (pg. 426) 1. In the 10 states of the South that were reorganized under the congressional plan, approximately 1/4 of the white males were at first excluded from voting or holding office. a. produced black majorities among voters in SC, MS, and LA (states where African Americans were also a majority of the population) & in AL and FL (where they were not) - however, the gov’t soon lifted most suffrage restrictions so that nearly all white males could vote - After that, Republicans maintained control only with the support of many white Southerners 2. “Scalawags” a. Crities called these Southern white Republicans "scalawags.” - many were former Whigs who had never felt comfortable in the Democratic Party; some of them wealthy (or once wealthy) planters or businessmen interested in the economic development of the region; others were farmers who lived in remote areas where there had been little or no slavery + hoped the Republican program of internal improvements would help end their economic isolation - despite their diverse social positions, scalawags shared a belief that the Republican Party would serve their economic interests better than the Democrats. 3. “carpetbaggers” a. white men from the North also served as Republican leaders in the South - critics of Reconstruction referred to them pejoratively as "carpetbaggers," 1. this conveyed an image of penniless adventurers who arrived with all their possessions in a carpet bag (a common kind of cheap suitcase covered with carpeting material) b. most of the so-called carpetbaggers were well-educated people of middle-class origin, many of them doctors, lawyers, and teachers; most were veterans of the Union army who looked on the South as a new frontier, more promising than the West c. they settled there at war's end as hopeful planters or as business and professional people. 4. freedmen a. most numerous Republicans in South were the black freedmen, most of whom had no previous experience in politics and who tried, therefore, to build institutions through which they could learnt to exercise their power b. in serveral states, African American voters held their own conventions to chart their future course - one such “colored convention,” as white Southerners called them, assembled in Alabama in 1867 and announced: “We claim exactly the same rights, privileges and immunities as are enjoyed by white men—we ask nothing more and will be content with nothing else.” - black churches that freedmen created after emancipation also helped give unity and political self-confidence to former enslaved people c. African Americans played a significant role in the politics of the Reconstruction South - served as delegates to the constitutional conventions - held public offices of practically every kind. Between 1869 and 1901, twenty African Americans served in the U.S. House of Representatives, two in the Senate (Hiram Revels of Mississippi and Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi) - African Americans served, too, in state legislatures and in various other state offices d. White Southerners complained loudly (both at the time and for generations to come) about "Negro rule" during Reconstruction, but no such thing ever actually existed in any of the states  - No black man was ever elected governor of a Southern state (although Lieutenant Governor P. B. S. Pinchback briefly performed gubernatorial duties in Louisiana). - African Americans never controlled any of the state legislatures, although they held a majority in the lower house in South Carolina for a short time. - In the South as a whole, the percentage of black officeholders was always far lower than the percentage of African Americans in the population. 5. record of the Reconstruction governments is mixed a. critics at the time and since denounced them for corruption and financial extravagance; there is some truth to both charges - officeholders in many states enriched themselves through graft and other illicit activities - State budgets expanded to hitherto unknown totals & state debts soared to previously undreamed of heights. In South Carolina, for example, the public debt increased from S7 million to $29 million in eight years. 6. corruption in the South was hardly unique to the Reconstruction govt’s a. corruption was at least as rampant in the Northern states b. in both North and South, corruption was both as a result of a rapid economic expansion of gov’t services (and revenues) - this put new strains on (and new temptations before) elected officials everywhere c. end of Reconstruction did NOT end corruption in Southern state govt’s. In many states, in fact, corruption increased. 7. state expenditures of the Reconstruction years were huge only in comparison with the meager budgets of the antebellum era a. represented an effort to provide the South with urgently needed services that antebellum governments had never offered: public education, public works programs, relief for the poor, and other costly new commitments - there were graft and extravagance in Reconstruction governments; there were also positive and permanent accomplishments. Education (pg. 427) 1. perhaps the most important of those accomplishments was a dramatic improvement in the education of African Americans and white Southerners with scant learning a. in first years of Reconstruction, much of the impetus for educational reform in the South came from outside groups from the Freedmen's Bureau, from Northern private philanthropic organizations, from many Northern women, black and white (who traveled to the South to teach in freedmen's schools), and from black Southerners themselves - Over the opposition of many white Southerners, who feared that education would give African Americans "false notions of equality," these reformers established a large network of schools for former enslaved people 4,000 schools by 1870, staffed by 9,000 teachers (half of them African American), teaching 200,000 students (about 12 percent of the total school-age population of the freedmen) b. In 1870s, Reconstruction govt’s also began to build a comprehensive public school system in the South - By 1876, more than half of all white children and about 40% of all black children were attending schools in the South - Several black "academies," offering more advanced education, also began operating 1. gradually, these academies grew into an important network of black colleges and universities, which included such distinguished schools as Fisk and Atlanta Universities and Morehouse College. 2. segregated schools a. Southern education was becoming divided into two separate systems based on race - early efforts to integrate the schools of the region were a dismal failure - ex: Freedmen's Bureau schools were open to students of all races, but almost no white students attended them - New Orleans set up an integrated school system under the Reconstruction government; again, white students almost universally stayed away - one federal effort to mandate school integration (Civil Rights Act of 1875) had its provisions for educational desegregation removed before it was passed b. As soon as the Republican governments of Reconstruction were replaced, the new Southern Democratic regimes quickly abandoned all efforts to promote integration.  Landownership & Tenancy (pg. 428) 1. failure of land distribution a. most ambitious goal of the Freedmen's Bureau (and of some Radical Republicans in Congress) was to make Reconstruction the vehicle for a fundamental reform of landownership in the South - the effort failed b. in last years of the war + first years of Reconstruction, the Freedmen's Bureau did oversee the redistribution of substantial amounts of land to freedmen in a few areas notably the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia & areas of Mississippi that had once belonged to the family of Jefferson Davis - By June 1865, the bureau had settled nearly 10,000 black families on their own land 1. most of the land drawn from abandoned plantations arousing dreams among former enslaved people throughout the South of "forty acres and a mule." c. by end of 1865, however, the experiment was already collapsing. - Southern plantation owners were returning and demanding the restoration of their property - President Johnson was supporting their demands - despite resistance of Freedmen's Bureau, the government eventually retumed most of the confiscated land to the original white owners, 2. very few Northern Republicans believed that the federal government had right to confiscate property a. even so, distribution of landownership in the South changed considerably in the postwar years - among white Southerners, there was significant decline in landownership, from 80% before the war to 67% by end of Reconstruction - Some white Southerners lost their land because of unpaid debt + increased taxes; some left the marginal lands they had owned to move to more-fertile areas, where they rented. 3. During same period, # of African Americans who owned land rose from virtually none to more than 20% a. many black landowners acquired their properry through hard work or luck or both; some relied unwisely on assistance from white-dominated financial or philanthropic institutions. - One of them was the Freedman's Bank, established in 1865 in an effort to promote landownership among African Americans 1. they persuaded thousands of freedmen to deport their modest savings in the bank, but then invested heavily to unsuccessful enterprises. It was ill prepared, therefore, for the national depression of the 1870s and it failed in 1874. 4. sharecropping (no punctuation here) a. yet, most African Americans (and a growing minority of white Southerners), did not own their own land during Reconstruction; and some who acquired land in the 1860s had lost it by the 1890s - these people worked for others in one form or another - Many African American agricultural laborers (perhaps 25% of the total) simply worked for wages - Most, however, became tenants of white landowners = working their own plots of land and paying their landlords either a fixed rent or a share of their crop 5. new system was a repudiation of African Americans of the gang a. it was a labor system of the antebellum plantation, in which enslaved people had lived and worked together under the direction of a slaveholder b. As tenants and sharecroppers, African Americans enjoyed at least a physical independence from their landlords and had the sense of working their own land, even if in most cases they could never hope to buy it - tenantry also benefited landlords in some ways, relieving them of any responsibility for the physical well-being of their workers. The Crop-Lien System (pg. 429) 1. In some respects, the postwar years were a period of remarkable economic progress for African Americans a. If the material benefits they had received under slavery are calculated as income, then prewar African Americans had earned about a 22% share of the profits of the plantation system - By end of Reconstruction, they were earning 56% b. Measured another way, the per capita income of black Southerners rose 46 percent between 1857 and 1879, while the per capita income of white Southerners declined 35% - represented one of the most significant redistributions of income in American history 2. But these figures are somewhat misleading a. While the African American share of profits was increasing, the total profits of Southern agriculture were declining - this was a result of the dislocations of the war and a reduction in the world market for cotton - In addition, while African Americans were earning a greater return on each hour of labor than they had under slavery, they were working fewer hours 1. Women and children were less likely to labor in the fields than in the past. Adult men tended to work shorter days b. In all, the black labor force worked about 1/3 fewer hours during Reconstruction than enslaved people had been compelled to work under slavery - this was a reduction that brought the working schedule of African Americans roughly into line with that of white farm laborers. Nor did the income redistribution of the postwar years lift many African Americans out of poverty - Black per capita income rose from about one quarter of white per capita income to about 1/2 in the first few years after the war. And after this initial increase, it rose hardly at all. 3. new system of credit a. For African Americans and poor white Southerners alike, whatever gains there might have been as a result of land and income redistribution were often overshadowed by the ravages of the crop-lien system - Few of the traditional institutions of credit in the South (the "factors" and banks) returned after the war b. In their stead emerged a new system of credit, centered in large part on local country stores, some of them owned by planters, others by independent merchants - African Americans and Southern whites, landowners and tenants all depended on these stores for such necessities as food, clothing, seed, and farm implements - since farmers did not have the same steady cash flow as other workers, customers usually had to rely on credit from these merchants in order to purchase what they needed. Most local stores had no competition (and went to great lengths to ensure that things stayed that way) - As a result, they were able to set interest rates as high as 50 or 60% 1. Farmers had to give the merchants a lien (or claim) on their crops as collateral for the loans (thus the term "crop-lien system*). Farmers who suffered a few bad years in a row, as often happened, could become trapped in a cycle of debt from which they could never escape. 4. This burdensome credit system had a number of effects on the region, almost all of them unhealthy a. 1 effect was that some African Americans (who had acquired land during the early years of Reconstruction) gradually lost it as they fell into debt. So, to a lesser extent, did white small landowners. b. another effect was that Southern farmers became almost wholly dependent on cash crops and most of all on cotton - since only such marketable commodities seemed to offer any possibility of escape from debt - from this, Southern agriculture, never sufficiently diversified even in the best of times, became more one-dimensional than ever. The relentless planting of cotton, moreover, was contributing to an exhaustion of the soil c. crop-lien system, in other words, was not only helping to impoverish small farmers; it was also contributing to a general decline in the Southern agricultural economy. The African American Family in Freedom (pg. 430) 1. One of the most striking features of the African American Tasponse to Reconstruction was the effort to build or rebuild family structures and to protect them from the interference they had experienced under slavery a. major reason for the rapid departure of so many emancipated enslaved people from plantations was the desire to find lost relatives and reunite families - thousands of African Americans wandered through the Southousands of Arica Americooking for husbands, wives, children, or other relatives from whom they had been separated - In the few black newspapers that circulated in the South, there were many advertisements by people searchings for information about their relatives; Former enslaved people rushed to have marriages, previously without legal standing b. sanctified by church and law, black families resisted living in the former slave quarters and moved instead to small cabins scattered widely across the countryside (where they could enjoy at least some privacy) - Within the black family, the definition of male and female roles quickly came to resemble that within white families 1. Many women and children ceased working in the fields. Such work, they believed, was a badge of slavery. Instead, many women restricted themselves largely to domestic tasks-cooking, cleaning, gardening, sewing, raising chidren, attending to the needs of their husbands. Some black husbands refused to allow their wives to work as servants in white homes. 2. changing gender roles a. still, middle-class notions of domesticity were often difficult to sustain in the impoverished circumstances of most former enslaved people - Economic necessity required many black women to engage in income- producing activities, including activities that they and their husbands resisted: working as comestic servants, taking in laundry, or helping in the field b. By the end of Reconstruction, half of all black women over the age o sixteen were working for wages. And unlike white working woen, most black female income earners were married. Grant Administration (pg. 431) 1. Exhausted by the political turmoil of the Johnson administration, American voters in 1868 yearned for a strong, stable figure to guide them through the troubled years of Reconstruction. - turned trustingly to General Ulysses S. Grant, the hero of the war and, by 1868, a revered national idol.  The Soldier President (pg. 431) 1. US Grant a. Grant could have had the nomination of either party in 1868. - believing that Republican Reconstruction policies were more popular in the North, he accepted the Republican nomination; The Democrats nominated former governor Horatio Seymour of New York b. campaign was a bitter one, and Grant's triumph was surprisingly narrow - w/o the 500,000 new black Republican voters in the South, he would have had a minority of the popular vote. 2. Grant entered the White House with no political experience, and his performance was clumsy and ineffectual from the start a. most members of the cabinet were ill equipped for their tasks. - except for Hamilton Fish, whom Grant appointed secretary of state and who served for eight years with great distinction b. Grant relied chiefly, and increasingly, on established party leaders the group most ardently devoted to patronage - His administration used the spoils system even more blatantly than most of its predecessors, embittering reform-minded members of his party. 1. spoils system was the practice of a successful political party giving public office to its supporters - Grant also alienated the many Northerners who were growing disillusioned with Radical Reconstruction policies, which the president continued to support c. Some Republicans suspected, correctly, that there was also corruption in the Grant administration itself. 3. liberal Republicans a. By the end of Grant's first term, therefore, members of a substantial faction of the party (who referred to themselves as Liberal Republicans) had come to oppose what they called "Grantism." b. In 1872, hoping to prevent Grant's reelection, they bolted the party and nominated their own presidential candidate: Horace Greeley, veteran editor and publisher of the New York Tribune  - The Democrats, somewhat reluctantly, named Greeley their candidate as well, hoping that the alliance with the Liberals would enable them to defeat Grant c. But the effort was in vain. Grant won a substantial victory, polling 286 electoral votes to Greeley's 66, and nearly 56% of the popular total. The Grant Scandals (pg. 431) 1. Crédit Mobilizer a. During the 1872 campaign, the first of a series of political scandals came to light that would plague Grant and the Republicans for years - involved the Crédit Mobilier construction company 1. they had helped build the Union Pacific Railroad b. heads of Crédit Mobilier had used their positions as Union Pacific stockholders to steer large fraudulent contracts to their construction company, thus bilking the Union Pacific (and the federal government, which provided large subsidies to the railroad) of millions - To prevent investigations, the directors had given Crédit Mobilier stock to key members of Congress c. In 1872, Congress launched an investigation, which revealed that some highly placed Republicans (including Schuyler Colfax, now Grant's vice president) had accepted some of the stock. 2. One dreary episode followed another in Grant's 2nd term. a. Benjamin H. Bristow (Grant's third Treasury secretary) discovered that some of his officials and a group of distillers operating as a "whiskey ring" were cheating the government out of taxes by filing false reports - Then a House investigation revealed that William W. Belknap, secretary of war, had accepted bribes to retain an Indian-post trader in office (the so-called Indian ring). - Other, lesser scandals added to the growing impression that “Grantism” had brought rampant corruption to government. Greenback Question (pg. 432) 1. Panic of 1873 a. Compounding Grant's and the nation's, problems was a financial crisis, known as the Panic of 1873 - began with the failure of a leading investment banking firm, lay Cooke and Company, which had invested too heavily in postwar railroad building - There had been panics before in 1819, 1837, and 1857; but this was worse than any earlier economic crisis b. The depression it produced lasted 4 years 2. Debtors now pressured the government to redeem federal war bonds with greenbacks, paper currency of the sort printed during the Civil War a. this would increase the amount of money in circulation b. however, Grant and most Republicans wanted a "sound" currency-based solidly on gold reserves - this would favor the interests of banks and other creditors c. Approximately $356 million in paper currency issued during the Civil War was still in circulation. In 1873, the Treasury issued more in response to the panic. d. But in 1875, Republican leaders in Congress, in an effort to crush the greenback movement for good, passed the Specie Resumption Act - this provided that after January 1, 1879, the greenback dollars (whose value constantly fluctuated), would be redeemed by the gov’t and replaced with new certificates, firmly pegged to the price of gold - The law satisfied creditors, who had worried that debts would be repaid in paper currency of uncertain value; But *resumption" made things more difficult for debtors b/c the gold-based money supply could not easily expand. 3. National Greenback Party a. In 1875, the "greenbackers, as the inflationists were called, formed their own political organization: the National Greenback Party - It was active in the next 3 presidential elections, but it failed to gain widespread support - It did, however, keep the money issue alive. The question of the proper composition of the currency was to remain one of the most controversial and enduring issues in late-nineteenth-century American politics.  Republican Democracy (pg. 432) 1. The Johnson and Grant administrations achieved their greatest successes in foreign affairs a. accomplishments were the work not of the presidents themselves, who displayed little aptitude for diplomacy, but of 2 outstanding secretaries of state - William H. Seward, who had served Lincoln and who remained in office until 1869 & Hamilton Fish, who served throughout the two terms of the Grant administration 2. “Seward’s Folly” a. An ardent expansionist, Seward acted with as much daring as the demands of Reconstruction politics and the Republican hatred of President Johnson would permit Seward accepted a Russian offer to sell Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million - despite criticism from many Americans who considered Alaska a frozen wasteland and derided it as "Seward's Folly." In 1867, Seward also engineered the American annexation of the tiny Midway Islands, west of Hawaii. 3. Alabama claims a. Hamilton Fish's 1st major challenge was resolving the long-standing controversy w/ England over the American claims - the claims were that British gov’t had violated neutrality laws during the Civil War by permitting English shipyards to build ships (among them the Alabama) for the Confederacy - American demands that England pay for the damage these vessels had caused became known as the "Alabama claims b. In 1871, after a number of failed efforts, Fish forged an agreement, the Treaty of Washington - provided for international arbitration and in which Britain expressed regret for the escape of the Alabama from England. Abandonment of Reconstruction (pg. 432) 1. As the North grew increasingly preoccupied with its own political and economic problems, interest in Reconstruction began to wane a. Grant administration continued to protect Republican govt’s in the South, but less b/ c of any interest in ensuring the position of freedmen than b/c of a desire to prevent the reemergence of a strong Democratic Party in the region b. even the presence of federal troops was not enough to prevent white Southerners from overturning the Reconstruction regimes c. By the time Grant left office, Democrats had taken back (or, as white Southerners called it, "redeemed") the govt’s of 7 of the 11 former Confederate states - For 3 other states (SC, LA, and FL) the end of Reconstruction had to wait for the withdrawal of the last federal troops in 1876, a withdrawal that was the result of a long process of political bargaining and compromise at the national level 1. 1 former Confederate state, TN, had never been part of the Reconstruction process b/c it had ratified the 14th Amendment and rejoined the Union in 1866 The Southern States “Redeemed” (pg. 432) 1. In the states where white people constituted a majority a. the states of the upper South overthrowing Republican control was relatively simple - By 1872, all but a handful of white Southerners had regained suffrage; Now a clear majority of electorate, they needed only to organize and vote for the candidates 2. In other states (where African Americans were a majority or the black and white populations were almost equal), white people used intimidation and violence to undermine the Reconstruction regimes a. Secret societies (the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camellia, and others) used terrorism to frighten or physically bar African Americans from voting or otherwise exercising citizenship b. Paramilitary organizations (the Red Shirts and White Leagues) armed themselves to 'police elections and worked to force all white males to join the Democratic Party & to exclude all African Americans from meaningful political activity 3. Ku Klux Klan a. Ku Klux Klan was the largest and most effective of these organizations - formed in 1866 and led by former Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest b. it gradually absorbed many of the smaller terrorist organizations in the South - Its leaders devised nituas, costumes, secret languages, and other airs of mystery to create a bond among its members + make the organization seem even more terrifying to those it was attempting to intimidate c. The Klan's "midnight rides” (bands of men clad in white sheets and masks), their horses covered with white robes and with hooves muffled - created terror in black communities throughout the South. 4. Many white Southerners considered the Klan and the other secret societies and paramilitary groups proud, patriotic societies a. Together such groups served, in effect, as a military force (even if a decentralized and poorly organized one) continuing the battle against Northern rule - worked in particular to advance the interests of those with the most to gain from a restoration of white supremacy 1. above all the planter class and the Southern Democratic Party b. Even stronger than the Klan in discouraging black political power, however, was the simple weapon of economic pressure - some planters refused to rent land to black Republicans; storekeepers refused to extend them credit; employers refused to give them work. Ku Klux Klan Acts (pg. 433) 1. Enforcement Acts a. Republican Congress tried for a time to turn back this new wave of white repression - In 1870 and 1871, it passed 2 Enforcement Acts, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Acts, which were in many ways the most radical measures of the era b. Enforcement Acts prohibited the states from discriminating against voters on the basis of race & gave the federal government power to supersede the state courts and prosecute violations of the law - first time the federal gov’t had ever claimed the power to prosecute crimes by individuals under federal law 1. Federal district attorneys were now empowered to take action against conspiracies to deny African Americans such rights as voting, holding office, and serving on Juries - the new laws also authorized the president to use the military to protect civil rights & to suspend the right of habeas corpus when violations of the rights seemed particularly egregious c. In October 1871, President Grant used this provision of the law when he declared a "state of lawlessness" in 9 counties in SC & sent in federal troops to occupy the area. Hundreds of suspected Klan members were arrested; some were held for long periods without trial; some were eventually convicted under the law and sent to jail. 2. decline of the Klan a. Enforcement Acts were seldom used as severely as they were in SC, but they were effective in the effort by African Americans and white Northerners to weaken the Klan. By 1872, Klan violence against African Americans was in decline throughout the region. Waning Northern Commitment 1. The Ku Klux Klan Acts marked the peak of Republican commitment to enforce the new rights Reconstruction was extending to black citizens a. that commitment did not last for long - Black Southerners were gradually losing the support of many of their former backers in the North - As early as 1870, after the adoption of the 15th Amendment, some Northern reformers convinced themselves that their long campaign on behalf of black people was now over—that with the vote, African Americans ought to be able to take care of themselves. b. Over the next several years, former Radical leaders such as Charles Sumner and Horace Greeley now began calling themselves Liberals, cooperating with Democrats and, at times, outdoing even the Democrats in denouncing what they viewed as black and carpetbag misgovernment - Within the South itself, many white Republicans joined the Liberals and eventually moved into the Democratic Party. 2. impact of social darwinism a. Panic of 1873 further undermined support for Reconstruction - economic crisis spurred Northern industrialists + their allies to find an explanation for the poverty and instability around them b. they found it in a new idea known as "Social Darwinism" - a harsh theory that argued that individuals who failed did so b/c of their own weakness and "unfitness." - those influenced by Social Darwinism came to view the large number of unemployed vagrants in the North (and poor African Americans in the South) as irredeemable misfits. - Social Darwinism also encouraged a broad critique of government intervention in social and economic life 1. this further weakened commitment to the Reconstruction program; Support for land redistribution, never great, and willingness to spend money from the depleted federal treasury to aid the freedmen, waned quickly after 1873; State + local governments also found themselves short of funds, and rushed to cut back on social services a. which in the South meant the end of almost all services to the former enslaved people 3. In the congressional elections of 1874, the Democrats won control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1861 a. Grant took note of the changing temper of the North and made use of military force to prop up the Republican regimes that were still standing in the South - By end of 1876, only 3 Southern states were left in the hands of the Republicans-South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida. In state elections that year, Democrats (after using terrorist tactics) claimed victory in all 3 - But the Republicans challenged the results and claimed victory as well, and they were able to remain in office because of the presence of federal troops; Without federal troops, it was now clear, the last of the Republican regimes would quickly fall. Compromise of 1877 (pg. 434) 1. Hayes vs Tilden a. Grant had hoped to run for another term in 1876 - however, most Republican leaders were shaken by recent Democrat success, afraid of the scandals with which Grant was associated, and concerned about the president's declining health 1. instead, they sought a candidate not associated with the problems of the Grant years, one who might entice Liberals and unite the party again b. they settled on Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio, a former Union army officer, governor, and congressman, champion of civil service reform - Democrats united behind Samuel J. Tilden, the reform governor of New York who had been instrumental in challenging the corrupt Tweed Ring of New York City's Tammany Hall.  2. Although the campaign was a bitter one, there were few differences of principle between the candidates, both of whom were conservatives committed to moderate reform. a. the November election produced an apparent Democratic victory. - Tilden carried the South and several large Northern states, and his popular margin over Hayes was nearly 300,000 votes - disputed returns from LA, SC, FL, and OR (whose total electoral vote was 20), threw the election in doubt; Tilden had undisputed claim to 184 electoral votes, only one short of a majority. But Hayes could still win if he managed to receive all 20 disputed votes. 3. The Constitution had established no method to determine the validity of disputed returns. a. it was clear that the decision lay with Congress, but it was not clear with which house or through what method. (The Senate was Republican, the House, Democratic.) - Members of each party naturally supported a solution that would yield them the victory. 4. special electoral commission a. late January 1877, Congress tried to break the deadlock by creating a special electoral commission to judge the disputed votes - the commission would be composed of five senators, five representatives, and 5 justices of the Supreme Court; congressional delegation would consist of 5 Republicans and 5 Democrats; Court delegation would include 2 Republicans, 2 Democrats, and an independent 1. the independent seat ultimately went to a justice whose real sympathies were with the Republicans b. commission voted along straight party lines, 8 to 7, awarding every disputed vote to Hayes. Congress accepted their verdict on March 2 = 2 days later, Hayes was inaugurated 5. Behind the resolution of the deadlock, however, lay a series of elaborate compromises among leaders of both parties a. When a Democratic filibuster threatened to derail the commission's report, Republican Senate leaders met secretly with Southern Democratic leaders to work out terms by which the Democrat would allow the election of Hayes - According to traditional accounts, Republicans and Southern Democrats met at Washington's Wormley Hotel - in return for a Republican plede that Hayes would withdraw the last federal troops from the South 1. since this would permit the overthrow of the last Republican govt’s there, the Southerners agreed to abandon the filibuster 6. Compromise of 1877 a. the story behind the "Compromise of 1877% was more complex - Hayes was already on record favoring with drawal of the troops, so Republicans needed to offer more than that if they hoped for Democratic support - The real agreement (aka the one that won over the Southern Democrats), was reached well before the Wormley meeting - As the price of their cooperation, the Southern Democrats (among them some former Whigs) exacted several pledges from the Republicans in addition to withdrawal of the troops 1. this included the appointment of at least 1 Southerner to the Hayes cabinet, control of federal partronage in their areas, generous internal improvements, and federal aid for the Texas and Pacific Railroad - Many powerful Southern Democrats supported industrializing their region; believed Republican programs of federal support for business would aid the south more than the states’ rights policies of the Democrats 7. in his inaugural address, Hayes announced that South’s most pressing need was the restoration of “wise, honest, and peaceful local self government" a. this was a signal that he planned to withdraw federal troops and let white Democrats take over the state governments - That statement, and Hayes's subsequent actions, supported the widespread charges that he was paying off the South for acquiescing in his election and strengthened those who referred to him as "his Fraudulency." 1. Hayes tried to counter such charges by projecting an image of stern public (and private) rectitude b. however, the election had already created such bitterness that even Hayes's promise to serve only one term could not mollify his critics. 8. Republican failure in the South a. The president and his party had hoped to build up a "new Republican” organization in the South drawn from Whiggish conservative white groups and committed to some modest acceptance of African American rights - however, all such efforts failed 1. Although many white Southern leaders sympathized with Republican economic policies, popular resentment of Reconstruction + its attack on white supremacy was so deep that supporting the party was politically impossible 2. At same time, the withdrawal of federal troops signaled that the national government was giving up its attempts to control Southern politics and to improve the lot of African Americans in Southern society. Debating the Past: Reconstruction (pg. 435) 1. debate over the nature of Reconstruction has created so much controversy over the decades that one scholar, writing in 1959, described the issue as a "dark and bloody ground a. For many years, a relatively uniform and highly critical view of Reconstruction prevaled among historians Legacies of Reconstruction (pg. 436) 1. Reconstruction made some important contributions to the efforts of former enslaved people to achieve dignity and equality in American life a. it was not as disastrous an experience for white Southerners as most of them believed at the time b. however, Reconstruction was in the end largely a failure - for in those years the US abandoned its first serious effort to resolve the nation's oldest and deepest social problem 1. this is the problem of race - Moreover, the experience so disappointed, disillusioned, and embittered white Americans that it would be nearly a century before they would try again in any serious way 2. ideological limits a. Why did this great assault on racial injustice not achieve more? - In part, it was b/c of the weaknesses and errors of the people who directed it. - in greater part, it was b/c attempts to produce solutions ran up against conservative obstacles so deeply embedded in the nation's life that they couldn’t be dislodged  b. Veneration of the Constitution sharply limited the willingness of national leaders to infringe on the rights of states and individuals - A profound respect for private property and free enterprise prevented any real assault on economic privilege in the South - Above all, perhaps, a pervasive belief among many of even the most liberal white people that African Americans were inherently inferior served as an obstacle to equality. 1. Given the context within which Americans of the 1860s and 1870s were working, what is surprising is not that Reconstruction did so little, but that it did as much as it did 3. Considering the odds confronting them, therefore, African Americans had reason for pride in the gains they made during Reconstruction a. future generations had reason far gratitude for 2 great charters of freedom - they were the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution 1. although they largely ignored at the time, would one day serve as the basis for a "Second Reconstruction" that would renew the drive to bring freedom and equality to all Americans New South (pg. 436) 1. agreement between Southern Democrats and Northem Republicans that helped settle the disputed election of 1870 was supposed to be the first step toward developing a stabe permanent Republican Party in the South a. In that respect, at least, it falled in the years following South in Re white Southerners established the Democratic Party as the only viable political organization for the region's white votes. - even so, the South did change in the years after Reconstruction in some of the ways he ramen she year Compromise of 1877 had hoped The “Redeemers” 1. Bourbon Rule a. by end 1877 (after last withdrawal of federal troops), every Southern state gov’t had been “redeemed” by white Democrats. - Many white Southerners rejoiced at the restoration of what they liked to call "home rule." - But in reality, political power in region was soon more restricted than at any time since the Civil War b. once again, the South fell under the control of a powerful, conservative oligarchy, - their members were known variously as the "Redeemers" (to themselves and their supporters) or the "Bourbons" (a term for aristocrats used by some of their critics) 2. In a few places, this post-Reconstruction ruling class was much the same as the ruling class of the antebellum period a. ex: in AL, the old planter elite (despite challenges trom new merchant and industrial forces) retained much of its former power and continued largely to dominate the state for decades b. In most areas, the Redeemers constituted a genuinely new ruling class. They were merchants, industrialists, railroad developers, and financiers; Some of them were lomer planters, some of them Northern immigrants who had become absorbed into the region's life, some of them ambitious, upwardly mobile white Southerners from the region's lower social tiers. - They combined a commitment to "home rule” and social conservatism w/ a commitment to economic development 3. various Bourbon govt’s of the New South behaved similarly to one another. a. Conservatives had complained that the Reconstruction govt’s fostered widespread corruption, but the Redeemer regimes were even more awash in waste and fraud. - (In this, they were little different from governments in every region of the country.) b. At the same time, virtually all the new Democratic regimes lowered taxes, reduced spending, and drastically diminished state services-including many of the most important accomplishments of Reconstruction - In one state after another, for example, state support for public school systems was reduced or eliminated. "Schools are not a necessity," an economy-conscious governor of Virginia commented. 4. the Readjuster Challenge a. By the late 1870s, significant dissenting groups were challenging the Bourbons: - protesting the cuts in services and denouncing the commitment of the Redeemer governments to paying off the prewar and Reconstruction debts in full, at the original (usually high) rates of interest  - ex: in VA, a vigorous "Readjuster" movement emerged, demanding that the state revise its debt payment procedures so as to make more money available for state services. b. In 1879, the Readjusters won control of the legislature, and in the next few years they captured the governorship and a U.S. Senate seat - Other states produced similar movements, some of them adding demands as well for greenbacks, debt relief, and other economic reforms. (A few such independent movements included significant numbers of African Americans in their ranks, but all consisted primarily of lower income white people.) c. By the mid-1880s, however, conservative Southerners (largely by exploiting racial prejudice) had destroyed most of the dissenting movements. Industrialization and “New South” (pg. 437) 1. Henry Grady a. Some white Southern leaders in the post-Reconstruction era hoped to see their region become the home of a vigorous industrial economy - South had lost the war (such leaders argued), b/c its economy had been unable to compete with the modernized manufacturing capacity of the North 1. Now the region must "out-Yankee the Yankees" and build a "New South." b. Henry Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, and other prominent spokesmen for a New South seldom challenged white supremacy, but they did advocate other important changes in Southern values - Above all, they promoted the virtues of thrift, industry, and progress qualities that prewar Southerners had often denounced in Northern society 1. "We have sown towns and cities in the place of theories," Grady boasted to a New England audience in the 1880s, *and put business above politics.... We have fallen in love with work." - however, even the most fervent advocates of the New South creed were generally unwilling to break entirely with the Southern past. That was evident in, among other things, the popular literature of the region c. At the same time that white Southern writers were extolling the virtues of industrialization in newspaper editorials and speeches, they were painting nostalgic portraits of the Old South in their literature. - Few Southerners advocated a literal return to the old ways, but most white Southerners eagerly embraced romantic talk of the "Lost Cause."; they responded warmly to the local-color fiction of such writers as Joel Chandler Harris 1. whose folktales (the most famous being Uncle Remus (1880)) portrayed the slave society of the antebellum years as a harmo nious world marked by engaging dialect and close emotional bonds between the races. - The writer Thomas Nelson Page similarly extolled the old Virginia aristocracy. d. The growing popularity of minstrel shows also reflected the romanticization of the Old South. The white leaders of the New South, in short, faced their future with one foot still in the past. 2. Southern industry expanded dramatically in the years after Reconstruction and became a more important part of the region's economy than ever before a. Most visible was the growth in textile manufacturing, which increased ninefold in the last twenty years of the century. - in the past, Southern planters had usually shipped their cotton out of the region to manufacturers in the North or in Europe - now textile factories appeared in the South itself 1. many of them drawn to the South from New England by the abundance of water power, the ready supply of cheap labor, the low taxes, and the accommodating conservative governments - The tobacco-processing industry, similarly, established an important foothold in the region, largely through the work of James B. Duke of North Carolina, whose American Tobacco Company established for a time a virtual monopoly over the processing of raw tobacco into marketable materials b. in the lower South, particularly in Birmingham, Alabama, the iron (and, later, steel) industry grew rapidly. - By 1890, the Southern iron and steel industry represented nearly a fifth of the nation's total capacity.  3. railroad development a. Railroad development increased substantially in the post Reconstruction years - this was at a rate far greater than that of the nation at large b. Between 1880 and 1890, trackage in the South more than doubled - in addition, the South took a major step toward integrating its transportation system with that of the rest of the country when, in 1886, it changed the gauge of its trackage to correspond with the standards of the North 1. gauge is distance between the 2 rails c. Yet Southern industry developed within strict limits & its effects on the region were never even remotely comparable to the effects of industrialization on the North - The Southern share of national manufacturing doubled in the last 20 yrs of the century, to 10% of the total - however, that percentage was the same the South had claimed in 1860 d. the region, in other words, had done no more than regain what it had lost during the war and its aftermath - The region's per capita income increased 21% in same period e. at the end of the century, average income in the South was only 40% of that in the North - in 1860 it had been more than 60% - even in those areas where development had been most rapid textiles, iron, railroads much of the capital had come from the North f. In effect, the South was developing a colonial economy. 4. growth of industry in the South required the region to recruit a substantial industrial workforce for the first time a. From the beginning, a high % of the factory workers (and an especially high percentage of textile workers) were women - Heavy male casualties in the Civil War had helped create a large population of unmarried women who were in dire need of employment; Factories also hired entire families, many of whom were moving into towns from failed farms. - Workdays were long (often 12hrs a day) and wages were far below the northern equivalent - indeed, one of the greatest attractions of the South to industrialists was that employers were able to pay workers there as little as one-half what northern workers received 5. Life in most mill towns was rigidly controlled by the owners and managers of the factories a. they rigorously suppressed attempts at protest or union organization - Company stores sold goods to workers at inflated prices and issued credit at exorbitant rates (much like country stores in agrarian areas, and mill owners ensured that no competitors were able to establish themselves in the community - At the same time, however, the conditions of the mill town helped create a strong sense of community and solidarity among workers (even if they seldom translated such feelings into militancy). 6. Some industries, textiles for example, offered virtually no opportunities to African American workers a. Others including tobacco, iron, and lumber did provide some employment for African Americans, usually the most menial and lowest-paid positions - Some mill towns, therefore, were places where black and white culture came into close contact - That proximity contribated less to the growth of racial harmony than to the determination of white leaders to take additional measures to provect white supremacy. 7. “Convict-Lease” system: a. At times, industrialization proceeded on the basis of no wage paying employment b. Through "convict-lease" system, Southern states leased gangs of convicted criminals to private interests as a cheap labor supply - The system exposed the convicts to brutal and at times fatal mistreatment 1. It paid them nothing (the leasing fees went to the states, not the workers); it denied employment in railroad construction and other projects to the free labor Tenants and Sharecroppers (pg. 438) 1. Despite significant growth in Souther industry, the region remained primarily agrarian a. most important economic reality in the post-Reconstruction South, was the impoverished state of agriculture - 1870s and 18805 saw an acceleration of the trends that had begun in the immediate prewar years: the imposition of systems of tenantry and debt pesonage on much of the region - the reliance on a few cash crops rather than on a diversified agricultural system, and increasing absente ownership of valuable farmlands (many of them purchased by merchants and industrialists who paid little attention to whether the land was being properly used) b. During Reconstruction, perhaps a 1/3 or more of the farmers in the South were tenants - by 1900, the figure had increased to 70% 1. that was in large part the result of the crop-lien system - a system by which farmers borrowed money against their future crops and often fell deeper and deeper into debt. 2. Tenantry took several forms a. Farmers (who owned tools, equipment, and farm animals or who had the money to buy them) usually paid an annual cash rent for their land - many farmers (including most black farmers) had no money or equipment. - Landlords would supply them with land, a crude house, a few tools, seed, and sometimes a mule - In return, farmers would promise the landlord a large share of the annual стор- hence the term "sharecropping." - After paying their landlords and their local merchants (who were often the same people, sharecroppers seldom had anything left to sell on their own. African Americans and the New South (pg. 438) 1. black middle class a. The New South creed" was not the property of white Southerners alone - Many African Americans were attracted to the vision of progress and self improvement as well b. Some Alrican Americans succeeded in elevating themselves into a distinct middle class (most of them economically inferior 10 the white middle class), but nevertheless significant - These were former enslaved people (and, as the decades passed, their offspring) who man enter aged to acquire property, build small bust professions c. A few African Americans accumulated substantial fortunes by establishing banks and insurance companies to serve the black community  - One of them was Maggie Lena, a black woman who became the 1st female bank president in the United States when she founded the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond in 1903 d. Most middle class African Americans experienced more-modest gains by becoming doctors, lawyers, nurses, or teachers serving African American communities 2. A cardinal tenet of this rising group of African Americans was that education was vital to the future of their race a. with the support of Northern missionary societies and, to a far lesser extent, a few Southem state governments, they expanded the network of black colleges and institutes that had taken root during Reconstruction into an important educational system. 3. Booker T. Washington a. The chief spokesman for this commitment to education, and for a time the major spokesman for African Americans in the South (and beyond), was Booker T. Washington - he was founder and president of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama b. Born into slavery, Washington had worked his way out of poverty after acquiring an education (at Virginia's famous Hampton Institute), He urged other African Americans to follow the same road to self-improvement. 4. Atlanta Compromise a. Washington's message was both cautious and hopeful. - African Americans should attend school, learn skills, and establish a solid fooring in agriculture and the trades. Industrial, not classical, education should be their goal; They should, more-over, refine their speech, improve their dress, and adopt habits of thrift and personal cleanliness b. African Americans should, in short, adopt the standards of the white middle class. - Only thus, he claimed, could they win the respect of the white population, the prereq uisite for any larger social gains - African Americans should forgo agitating for political rights, he said, and concentrate on self-in-provement and preparation for equality c. In a famous speech in Georgia in 1895, Washington outlined a philosophy of race relations that became widely known as the Atlanta Compromise. "The wisest among my race understand," he said, "that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly* Rather, African Americans should engage in severe and constant struggle" for economic gains; for, as he explained, "no race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized." If African Americans were ever to win the rights and privileges of citizenship, they must fist show that they were "prepared for the exercise of these privi leges - Washington offered a powerful challenge to those white people who wanted to discourage African Americans from acquiring an education or winning any economic gains 1. He helped awaken the interest of a new generation to the possibilities for self advancement through self improvement 2. yet, his message was also an implicit promise that African Americans would not overtly challenge the system of segregation that white people were then in the process of erecting The Minstrel Show: Patterns of Popular Culture (pg. 439) 1. one of the most popular forms of entertainment in America in the second half of the nineteenth century a. it was also a testament to the tigh awareness of race (and the high level of racism) in American society both before and after the Civil War - Minstrel performers were mostly white men usualy disguised as black men. - But African American performers also formed their own minstrel shows and transformed thern into vehicles for training black entertainers and developing new forms of music and dance. 2. before and during the Civil War, when minstrel shows consistod almost entirely of white performers, performers blackened their faces with cork and prosented gresque stereotypes of the slave culture of the American South. 3. Ater the Civil War, white minstrels began to expand their repertoire. 4. One reason white minstrels began to move in these new directions was that they were now facing competition from black performers, who could provide more-authentic versions of black music, dance, and humor. 5. The black minstrel shows had few openly political aims. They did help develop some important forms of African American entertainment and transform them into a part of the national culture. 6. Eventually, black minstrelsy (like its white counterpart) evolved into other forms of theater, including the beginnings of serious black drama. Birth of Jim Crow (pg. 440) 1. Few white Southerners had ever accepted the idea of racial equality. a. That former enslaved people acquired any legal and political rights at all after emancipation was in large part the result of federal support. - That support all but vanished after 1877. 1. Federal troops withdrew. Congress lost interest. And the Supreme Court effectively stripped the 14th and 15th Amendments of much of their significance b. In the so-called civil rights cases of 1883, the Court ruled that the 14th Amendment prohibited state govt’s from discriminating against people b/c of race - however, they didn’t restrict private organizations or individuals from doing so. 1. Thus railroads, hotels, theaters, and workplaces could legally practice segregation. 2. Plessy v. Ferguson a. Eventually, the Court also validated state legislation that institutionalized the separation of the races b. In Plessy D. Ferguson (1896), the case involved a Louisiana law that required separate seating arrangements for the race on railroads - the Court held that separate accommodations did not deprive African Americans of equal rights if the accommodations were equal, a decision that survived for years as part of the legal basis for segregated schools c. In Cumming v. County Board of Education (1899), the Court ruled that laws establishing separate schoos for white students were valid even if there were no compare ble schools for African Americans. 3. Before these decisions, white Southerners were working to strengthen white supremacy and to separate the races to the greatest extent possible a. One illustration of this movement from subordination to segregation was black voting rights in some states  - disenfranchisement had begun almost as soon as Reconstruction ended - But in other areas, black voting continued for some time after Reconstruction 1. this was largely b/c white conservatives believed they could control the black electorate and use it to beat back the attempts of poor white farmers to take control of the Democratic Party b. In the 1890s, however, franchise restrictions became much more rigid - During those years, some small white farmers began to demand complete black disenfranchisement 1. both b/c of racial prejudice and b/c they objected to the black vote being used against them by the conservative planters (known as "Bourbons") c. At same time, many members of the conservative elite began to fear that poor white Southerners might unite politically with poor African Americans to challenge them - They too began to support further franchise restrictions. 4. restricting the franchise a. In devising laws to disenfranchise black males, the Southern states had to find ways to evade the 15th Amendment - this amendment prohibited states from denying anyone the right to vote b/c of race. b. 2 devices emerged before 1900 to accomplish this goal - one was the poll tax or some form of property qualification 1. few African Americans were prosperous enough to meet such requirements - another was the "literacy" or "understanding" test 1. this required voters to demonstrate an ability to read and interpret the Constitution 2. Even those African Americans who could read had trouble passing the difficult test white officials gave them. Such restrictions were often applied unequally. Literacy tests for white people, for example, were sometimes much easier than those for African Americans 3. Even so, the laws affected poor white voters as well as African Americans. c. By the late 1890s, the black vote had decreased by 62%, the white vote by 26%. - One result was that some states passed so-called grandfather laws 1. this permitted men, who couldn’t meet the literacy and property qualifications to be enfranchised, if their ancestors had voted before Reconstruction began,  - thus barring the descendants of enslaved people from the polls while allowing poor white men access to them 1. In many areas, however, ruling elites were quite content to see poor white men, a potential source of opposition to their power, barred from voting. 5. The Supreme Court proved as compliant in ruling on the disenfranchising laws as it was in dealing with the civil rights cases a. The Court eventually voided the grandfather laws - however, it validated the literacy test (in the 1898 case of Williams v. Mississippi) & displayed a general willingness to let the Souther states define their own suffrage standards as long as evasions of the 15th Amendment were not too glaring 6. white control perpetuated a. Laws restricting the franchise and segregating schools were only part of a network of state statutes that by the first years of the 20th century, it had institutionalized an elaborate system of segregation reaching into almost every area of Southern life - known as the Jim Crow laws b. African Americans and white people couldn’t ride in the same railroad cars, sit in the same waiting rooms, use the same washrooms, eat in the same restaurants, or sit in the same theaters. African Americans had no access to many public parks, beaches, and picnic areas; they could not be patients in many hospitals c. Much of the new legal structure did no more than confirm what had already been widespread social practice in the South since well before the end of Reconstruction - But the Jim Crow laws also stripped African Americans of many of the modest social, economic, and political gains they had made in the more fluid atmosphere of the late nineteenth century d. The laws served, too, as a means for white Southerners to retain control of social relations between the races in the newly growing cities and towns of the South - where traditional patterns of deference and subjugation were more difficult to preserve than in the coun tryside. What had been maintained by custom in the rural. South was to be maintained by law in the urbanizing South.  7. lynchings a. More than legal efforts were involved in this process b. The 1890s witnessed a dramatic increase in white violence against African Americans, which, along with the Jim Crow laws. served to inhibit black agitation for equal rights - The worst such violence lynching of African Americans by white mobs, either b/c the victims were accused of crimes or b/c they had seemed somehow to violate their expected station, reached appalling levels - In the nation as a whole in the 1890s. there was an average of 187 lynchings each year, more than 80% of them in the South 1. The vast majority of victims were black 8. The most celebrated lynchings occurred in cities and towns, where large, well- organized mobs-occasionally with the tacit cooperation of local authorities seized black prisoners from the jails and hanged them in great public rituals a. Such public lynchings were often planned well in advance and elaborately organized. They attracted large audiences from surrounding regions. Entire families traveled many miles to witness the spectacles - But such great public lynchings were relatively fare. Much more frequent, and more dangerous to African Americans because less visible or predictable, were lynchings. b. Petitioned by small vigilante mobs, often composed of friends or relatives of the victim (or supposed victim) of a crime - Those involved in lynchings often saw their actions as a legitimate tom of law enforcement; and indeed, some victims of lynchings had in fact committed crimes - But lynchings were also a means by which white people controlled the black population through terror and intimidation = some lynch mobs killed Afican Americans whose only crime had been presumptuousness; others chose as victims outsiders in the community, whose presence threatened to disturb the normal pattern of race relations - Black men who had made any sexual advances toward white women (or who white men thought had done so) were particularly vulnerable to lynchings c. the fear of black sexuality, and the unspoken fear among many men that white women might be attracted to that sexuality, was always an important part of the belief system that supported segregation  d. Whatever the reasons or circumstances, the victims of lynch mobs were denied the protection of the laws and the opportunity to prove their innocence 9. rise of lynchings shocked the conscience of many white Americans in a way that other forms of racial injustice did not a. Almost from the start there was a substantial anti-lynching movement - In 1892 Ida B. Wells, a committed black journalist, launched what became an international anti-lynching movement with a series of impassioned articles after the lynching of three of her friends in Memphis, Tennessee, her home - The movement gradually gathered strength in the first years of the twentieth century, attracting substantial support from white people (particularly white women) in both the North and the South 1. its goal was a federal anti-lynching law a. this would allow the national gov’t to do what state and local govt’s in the South were generally unwilling to do: punish those responsible for lynchings. 10. white unity a. But the substantial white opposition to lynchings stood as an exception to the general white support for suppression of African Americans - just as in the antebellum period, the shared commitment to white suprema