GRADE 8

Restoration of the South & the Assination of Lincoln

Prejudice Then

Lincoln warned the South in his Inaugural Address: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you.... You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it."

Lincoln thought secession illegal, and was willing to use force to defend Federal law and the Union. When Confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter and forced its surrender, he called on the states for 75,000 volunteers. Four more slave states joined the Confederacy but four remained within the Union. The Civil War had begun.

The son of a Kentucky frontiersman, Lincoln had to struggle for a living and for learning. Five months before receiving his party's nomination for President, he sketched his life: "I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks.... My father ... removed from Kentucky to ... Indiana, in my eighth year.... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.... Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher ... but that was all."

Lincoln made extraordinary efforts to attain knowledge while working on a farm, splitting rails for fences, and keeping store at New Salem, Illinois. He was a captain in the Black Hawk War, spent eight years in the Illinois legislature, and rode the circuit of courts for many years. His law partner said of him, "His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest."

 

Abraham Lincoln

Sixteenth President 1861-1865

 

 

 

 

The South Under Reconstruction

Reconstruction, in United States history, the process of rebuilding that followed the American Civil War (1861-1865). Since the United States had never before experienced civil war, the end of hostilities left Americans to grapple with a set of pressing questions over what to do with the South after the defeat of the Confederacy and the overthrow of slavery.

Reconstruction, also known as Radical Reconstruction, was the period after the American Civil War. During this time the South was in political, social, and economic turmoil, and eleven Confederate states had seceded. In response, the Union attempted to regain order in the Confederate states.

In 1865, in an effort to assist former slaves, Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, also known as the Freedmen’s Bureau. It provided food, medical care, helped with resettlement, and its most notable task, it established schools. Over 1,000 schools were built, teacher-training institutions were created, and several black colleges were founded and some were financed with the help of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Despite the bureau’s successes, it was unable to cure all problems.

An Act supplementary to an Act entitled "An Act to provide for the more efficient Government of the Rebel States," passed . . . [March 2, I867] .; . , and the Act supplementary thereto, passed
. . . [March 23, I867].

Civil War to the Present

 

John Wilkes Booth, born May 10, 1838, was an actor who performed throughout the country in many plays. He was the lead in some of William Shakespeare's most famous works. Additionally, he was a racist and Southern sympathizer during the Civil War. He hated Abraham Lincoln who represented everything Booth was against. Booth blamed Lincoln for all the South's ills. He wanted revenge.

In late summer of 1864 Booth began developing plans to kidnap Lincoln, take him to Richmond (the Confederate capital), and hold him in return for Confederate prisoners of war. By January, 1865, Booth had organized a group of co-conspirators that included Samuel Arnold, Michael O'Laughlen, John Surratt, Lewis Powell (also called Lewis Paine or Payne), George Atzerodt, and David Herold. Additionally, Booth met with Dr. Samuel Mudd both in Maryland (where Mudd lived) and Washington, and he began using Mary Surratt's boardinghouse to meet with his co-conspirators.

On March 17, 1865, the group planned to capture Lincoln who was scheduled to attend a play at a hospital located on the outskirts of Washington. However, the President changed plans and remained in the capital. Thus, Booth's plot to kidnap Lincoln failed.

 

Assassination of President Lincoln

Bureau Office

The Freedman's Bureau helped newly freed slaves

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands was established in March 3, 1865 after two years of bitter debate. The Freedmen Bureau, as it was commonly called, was to address all matters concerning refugees and freedmen within the states that were under reconstruction. The Bureau was not appropriated a budget of its own, but was instead commissioned as a subsidiary of the War Department and depended upon it for funds and staff. (Lawson and McGary 63)

    Freedmen was the term given to those slaves who became free men after the U.S. Congress passed the Confiscation Act of 1862. Under this act, Confederates who did not surrender within 60 days of the act's passage were to be punished by having their slaves freed. It also dealt with a problem that had plagued field commanders occupying Southern territory. As troops advanced, slaves sought refuge in Union camps, and Federal commanders were confused over their obligations to the refugees. Some freed the slaves, other sent them back to their master for lack of means to care for them. The Confiscation Act declared all slaves taking refuge behind Union lines captives of war who were to be set free. The Act essentially paved the way for the Emancipation Proclamation and solved the immediate dilemma facing the army concerning the status of slaves within its jurisdiction.
 
The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

President Andrew Johnson

The Congressional Globe, the predecessor to the Congressional Record, was published from 1833 to 1873. After the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson in 1868 the Globe published a supplementary volume that provides a record of the documents and debates from the Senate trial. Other Library of Congress online resources related to the impeachment of President Johnson include the following Today in History Web pages:

  • On May 16, 1868, the U.S. Senate failed by just one vote to convict President Johnson on articles of impeachment.

     
  • Andrew Johnson, the seventeenth president of the United States, was born in Raleigh, North Carolina on December 29, 1808.

     
  • When impeachment proceedings were brought against President Johnson, Senator Reverdy Johnson of Maryland was instrumental in securing the President's acquittal.

     
  • Salmon P. Chase, appointed on December 6, 1864, by President Abraham Lincoln as chief justice of the United States, presided over the Senate's impeachment trial of President Johnson in 1868.

Presidential Impeachment Proceedings

Image, Source: b&w film copy neg. 

Andrew Johnson

With the Assassination of Lincoln, the Presidency fell upon an old-fashioned southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced states' rights views. Although an honest and honorable man, Andrew Johnson was one of the most unfortunate of Presidents. Arrayed against him were the Radical Republicans in Congress, brilliantly led and ruthless in their tactics. Johnson was no match for them.

Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1808, Johnson grew up in poverty. He was apprenticed to a tailor as a boy, but ran away. He opened a tailor shop in Greeneville, Tennessee, married Eliza McCardle, and participated in debates at the local academy.

Entering politics, he became an adept stump speaker, championing the common man and vilifying the plantation aristocracy. As a Member of the House of Representatives and the Senate in the 1840's and '50's, he advocated a homestead bill to provide a free farm for the poor man.

During the secession crisis, Johnson remained in the Senate even when Tennessee seceded, which made him a hero in the North and a traitor in the eyes of most Southerners. In 1862 President Lincoln appointed him Military Governor of Tennessee, and Johnson used the state as a laboratory for reconstruction. In 1864 the Republicans, contending that their National Union Party was for all loyal men, nominated Johnson, a Southerner and a Democrat, for Vice President.

After Lincoln's death, President Johnson proceeded to reconstruct the former Confederate States while Congress was not in session in 1865. He pardoned all who would take an oath of allegiance, but required leaders and men of wealth to obtain special Presidential pardons.

By the time Congress met in December 1865, most southern states were reconstructed, slavery was being abolished, but "black codes" to regulate the freedmen were beginning to appear.

Radical Republicans in Congress moved vigorously to change Johnson's program. They gained the support of northerners who were dismayed to see Southerners keeping many prewar leaders and imposing many prewar restrictions upon Negroes.

The Radicals' first step was to refuse to seat any Senator or Representative from the old Confederacy. Next they passed measures dealing with the former slaves. Johnson vetoed the legislation. The Radicals mustered enough votes in Congress to pass legislation over his veto--the first time that Congress had overridden a President on an important bill. They passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which established Negroes as American citizens and forbade discrimination against them.

A few months later Congress submitted to the states the Fourteenth Amendment, which specified that no state should "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

All the former Confederate States except Tennessee refused to ratify the amendment; further, there were two bloody race riots in the South. Speaking in the Middle West, Johnson faced hostile audiences. The Radical Republicans won an overwhelming victory in Congressional elections that fall.

In March 1867, the Radicals effected their own plan of Reconstruction, again placing southern states under military rule. They passed laws placing restrictions upon the President. When Johnson allegedly violated one of these, the Tenure of Office Act, by dismissing Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the House voted eleven articles of impeachment against him. He was tried by the Senate in the spring of 1868 and acquitted by one vote.

In 1875, Tennessee returned Johnson to the Senate. He died a few months later.

Scalawags and Carpetbaggers

Aftermath & Reconstruction

The American Civil War was over. The soldiers were coming home! But the war had brought many changes to the southern United States. It was like a big jigsaw puzzle with the pieces all mixed up. No one was sure how to sort it out.
 
    One thing that had to be fixed was the leadership. The southern states had made their own government at the beginning of the Civil War. They called themselves the Confederate States of America. The United States had sent the Union Army to bring these states back under national rule. The U.S. did not agree that states could make their own rules.
 
    The Union had won the war against the Confederate States. It was time to put the damaged country back together. Could the Southern states be made to fit back into the United States? Each state would need a person to take charge. Each would need lawmakers and judges. But who would these leaders be?
 
   Different people came to do these jobs. Some people came from the northern states to find jobs and make money in the South. Union soldier Marshall Twitchell took a job in Louisiana to help freed slaves. Part of his job was collecting taxes to pay for the new government. All the white planters thought the taxes were unfair. They thought Mr. Twitchell was spending the money on himself.
 
   Southerners didn't like these Northerners. They called them carpetbaggers, after the cloth bags that some carried. "These carpetbaggers didn't come to help," Southerners thought. "They're only after money!"
 
    Some Southern white people worked in the new governments. People who were loyal to the Confederacy hated these Southerners. "You are scalawags!" they said. A scalawag is a person who can't be trusted. By helping bring back national rule, these Southerners seemed to be joining the enemy.
 
  Confederate General James Longstreet was one of Robert E. Lee's most trusted officers. Longstreet became a friend to Ulysses Grant after the war and worked for the federal government. To many Southerners, this made Longstreet an enemy even though he had fought bravely for them.
 
    After the war, new governments meant new laws. In some places black people were allowed to vote. Because there were many of them, their vote was powerful. Some of these newly freed slaves became leaders too. They were elected to city, county, and state jobs. Some were even sent to Congress

Lee's "Warhorse", Gen. James Longstreet, and partisan ranger John S. Mosby were probably the two most prominent ex-Confederates to embrace the Republicans and earn the name scalawag. Col. Franklin J. Moses, Jr., is an example of the worst of the scalawags. He had been an ardent secessionist and had raised the Confederate flag over Fort Sumter in 1861. After the war he joined the Republicans, became governor of SOuth Carolina, and looted the state treasury.

Fascinating Fact:  The dictionary defines scalawag as "scamp, reprobate, or an animal of little value because of its small size, condition, or age". The term has been traced to Scalloway, a town in the Shetland Islands known for its stunted cattle.
 

 

 

.Carpetbaggers, epithet used in the South after the Civil War to describe Northerners who went to the South during Reconstruction to make money. Although regarded as transients because of the carpetbags in which they carried their possessions (hence the name carpetbaggers), most intended to settle in the South and take advantage of speculative and commercial opportunities there. With the support of the black vote the carpetbaggers played an important role in the Republican state governments. The corrupt activities of some made the term carpetbagger synonymous with any outsider who meddles in an area's political affairs for his own benefit .

Scalawags , derogatory term used in the South after the Civil War to describe native white Southerners who joined the Republican party and aided in carrying out the congressional Reconstruction program. A Republican who came from the north was called a carpetbagger.

 

A Student from another school wrote this: The picture I drew is a scalawag. A scalawag is a person who was in the south but agreed with the radical republicans. Most Southerners did not agree with the scalawags. I agree with the scalawags. They were good people

Jim Crow Laws

After the American Civil War most states in the South passed anti-African American legislation. These became known as Jim Crow laws. This included laws that discriminated against African Americans with concern to attendance in public schools and the use of facilities such as restaurants, theaters, hotels, cinemas and public baths. Trains and buses were also segregated and in many states marriage between whites and African American people.

In the United States, the so-called Jim Crow laws were made to enforce racial segregation, and included laws that would prevent African Americans from doing things that a white person could do. For instance, Jim Crow laws regulated separate use of water fountains and separate seating sections on public transport. Jim Crow laws varied among communities and states. The term is not applied to all racist laws, but only to those passed post-Reconstruction starting in about 1890, the start of a period of worsening race relations in the United States. Similar laws passed immediately after the civil war were called the Black Codes.

Jim Crow laws were tested in 1896 by Homer Plessey when convicted in Louisiana for riding in a white only railway car. Plessey took his case to the Supreme Court but the justices voted in favour of the Louisiana Court. William B. Brown established the legality of segregation as long as facilities were kept "separate but equal". Only one of the justices, John Harlan, disagreed with this decision.

In the early 1950s the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People concentrated on bringing an end to segregation on buses and trains. In 1952 segregation on inter-state railways was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. This was followed in 1954 by a similar judgment concerning inter-state buses. However, states in the Deep South continued their own policy of transport segregation. This usually involved whites sitting in the front and blacks sitting nearest to the front had to give up their seats to any whites that were standing.

African American people who disobeyed the state's transport segregation policies were arrested and fined. In 1956 African Americans, led by Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, organized the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Transport segregation continued in some parts of the Deep South, so in 1961, a civil rights group, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) began to organize Freedom Rides. After three days of training in non-violent techniques, black and white volunteers sat next to each other as they traveled through the Deep South. On their journeys they also campaigned against other forms of racial discrimination. They sat together, in segregated restaurants, lunch counters and hotels. This was especially effective when it concerned large companies who, fearing boycotts in the North, began to desegregate their businesses.

In 1964, President, Lyndon Baines Johnson, managed to persuade Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act. This made racial discrimination in public places, such as theaters, restaurants and hotels, illegal. It also required employers to provide equal employment opportunities. Projects involving federal funds could now be cut off if there was evidence of discriminated based on colour, race or national origin.

The term Jim Crow comes from the minstrel show song "Jump Jim Crow" written in 1828 by Thomas D. Rice, a white English migrant to the U.S., the originator of blackface performance. The song and blackface itself were an immediate hit. "Jim Crow" became a standard character in Minstrel shows, being a caricature of a shabbily dressed rural black; "Jim Crow" was often paired with the character "Zip Coon", a flamboyantly dressed urban black who associated more into white culture. By 1837, Jim Crow was being used to refer to racial segregation.

 Amendments to the Constitution of the United States

Amendment XIV

(The proposed amendment was sent to the states June 16, 1866, by the Thirty-ninth Congress. It was ratified July 9, 1868.)

Section 1

[Citizenship defined; privileges of citizens.]

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2

[Apportionment of Representatives.]

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3

[Disqualification for office; removal of disability.]

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4

[Public debt not to be questioned; payment of debts and claims incurred in aid of rebellion forbidden.]

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5

[Congress given power to enforce this article.]

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Amendment XV

(The proposed amendment was sent to the states Feb. 27, 1869, by the Fortieth Congress. It was ratified Feb. 3, 1870.)

Section 1

[Right of certain citizens to vote established.]

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2

[Congress given power to enforce this article.]

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

 

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