Concordia 4 4 Summaflexion

Curtis Wong Concordia 5th Chapter 4.4 Key Terms Andrew Johnson – Succeeded Abraham Lincoln as president, determined how to bring the defeated Confederate states back into the Union. Reconstruction – The time period following the Civil War, lasted from 1865 to 1877. Fourteenth Amendment – Prevented states from denying rights and privileges to any US citizen, now defined as “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” Fifteenth Amendment – Introduced by Radicals, which states that no one can be kept from voting because of “race, color, or previous conditions of servitude. Scalawags – White Southerners who joined the Republican Party. Carpetbaggers – Northerners who moved to the South after the war. Sharecropping – System where landowners divided their land and gave each head of household a few acres, along with seed and tools. Tenant Farming – System where croppers who saved a little becomes tenants and rent land for cash. Ku Klux Klan – The most notorious and widespread of the Southern vigilante groups. Rutherford B Hayes – Nominated Governor of Ohio by the Republicans in 1876. Summary A – Politics of Reconstruction) Reconstruction is the time period where the US began to rebuild after the Civil war. Lincoln announced a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, or the Ten-Percent Plan, where the government would pardon all Confederates. In July of 1864, the Radicals passed the Wade-Davis bill, which the majority of those eligible to vote would have to support the Constitution in order to form a state government. Lincoln was assassinated before he would start his reconstruction plan, so his successor, Andrew Johnson, announced his own plan, which would dismay of the Radicals. The Radicals thought Johnson was blocking Reconstruction, they looked for ways to impeach him. The House brought 11 charges of impeachment against Johnson, 9 of which were based on violations of the Tenure of Office Act. The Civil War hero Grant, was elected president in 1868, he won by 310,000 votes. About 500,000 Southern African Americans had voted, mostly for Grant. The Radicals have introduced the Fifteenth Amendment after the election. B – Reconstructing Society) Conditions of the South was very bad, the value of their property has gone down, and those that have invested in Confederate bonds had very little hope of recovering their investments. Many small farms were ruined in the South. The population of the region was also bad, one fifth of the adult white men died, as well as tens of thousands of the Southern African American men, from either fighting for the Union, or working in Confederate labor camps. The government created programs to repaid the damage and provide social services, but the economic problems made it very hard to. The South had increase taxes. Scalawags, carpet baggers and African Americans constituted the Republican party in the South. After the war, African Americans held office in local, state, and federal government. C – Changes in the Southern Economy) In January of 1865, General Sherman promised the former slaves who followed his army, 40 acres of land per family, and use of army mules. The freed African Americans farmed on the land until August 1865, when President Johnson ordered that the original landowners can reclaim their land. The poor whites and African Americans still wanted to own small farms, yet the planter class wanted to restore the plantation system. The poor whites and African-Americans tried to support their own families and worked for mills or railroad construction. Without land, the freed African Americans couldn’t grow crops which made them can’t sell or feed their own families. That forced many former slaves to become sharecroppers. Where land owners gave each of them tools and a few acres, and they can keep a few crops and give the rest to the landowners. D – The Collapse of Reconstruction) Many whites were pissed and dropped their feelings about the African-American suffrage. They formed groups and used violence to intimidate African Americans. One of the worst groups was the Ku Klux Klan. Their goals were to destroy the Republican Party, and throw out the Reconstruction government, and to prevent African Americans from exercising their political rights. Congress passed a series of Enforcement Acts which gave power to use federal troops in areas where the Klan was active. Grant was elected for a second term in 1872. The Reconstruction ended and nothing much has been done about the discrimination of the African-Americans. Reflection In this chapter, I’ve learned a lot about the Reconstruction in 1865. I first felt bad for the people that has suffered after the Civil War, then it became more than that, much more. The discrimination was very intense, especially while everybody was in a crisis at that time. I thought that scalawags and carpetbaggers were insult names, but just realized they came from the past and actually played an important role in history. This section was very interesting because we talked and reviewed about it in class.