The ten percent plan required apex

Chapter 15

Consolidating a Triumphant Union, 1865–1877

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CREATED EQUAL A History of the United States

Combined Volume | Fifth Edition

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Children at School, Charleston, South Carolina

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An illustration in Harper’s Weekly, from December 15, 1866, shows African American pupils in a schoolroom in Charleston, South Carolina. After the Civil War, many southern black communities created, or enlarged and solidified, their own institutions, including schools and churches. At the same time, these communities pressed for full and equal citizenship rights.

The Library of Congress [LC-USZ62-117666]

Journal Prompt 15.1

Was there a conflict between freedpeople’s goals of cultural and economic autonomy, on the one hand, and integration into the American body politic, on the other? Why or why not?

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Answer: At the end of the war, many, if not most, former slaves wanted to set themselves up as small, independent farmers. Having lived their whole lives under the control and for the benefit of their former owners, they wanted to use their farming skills and knowledge to support themselves and to make freedom a genuine reality. This desire was in direct conflict with the needs of white landowners. Slavery may have come to an end, but white landowners still required a large, stable, and inexpensive labor force. It was also in conflict with the expectations of white Northerners, many of whom assumed that newly freed blacks would become wage laborers, an assumption that was consistent with free-labor ideology.

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Focus Questions (1 of 2)

15.1 The Struggle over the South

How did various groups of Northerners and Southerners differ in their vision of the postwar South?

15.2 Claiming Territory for the Union

What human and environmental forces impeded the Republican goal of western expansion?

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Focus Questions (2 of 2)

15.3 The Republican Vision and Its Limits

What were some of the inconsistencies in, and unanticipated consequences of, Republican notions of equality and federal power?

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15.1 The Struggle over the South (1 of 2)

Wartime Preludes to Postwar Policies

Presidential Reconstruction, 1865–1867

The Postbellum South’s Labor Problem

Building Free Communities

Congressional Reconstruction: The Radicals’ Plan

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Focus Question:

How did various groups of Northerners and Southerners differ in their vision of the postwar South?

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15.1 The Struggle over the South (2 of 2)

A ruined South

260,000 fatalities among soldiers

Lost $2 billion investment in slaves

Countryside in ruins

Freed slaves

Lacked resources to be self-sufficient

Travelled far to find families

Republicans

How do deal with the South

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Lecture Outline:

A ruined South

260,000 fatalities among soldiers

Lost $2 billion investment in slaves

Whites resisted citizenship rights for blacks

Countryside in ruins

Freed slaves

Lacked resources to be self-sufficient

Travelled far to find families

Republicans

How do deal with the South

Lincoln wanted reconciliation quickly

Johnson wanted southern elite humiliated, but not full freedom for former slaves

Radical Republicans argued with moderate Republicans

Key Terms:

Reconstruction era: The twelve years after the Civil War when the U.S. government took steps to integrate the eleven states of the Confederacy back into the Union.

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15.1.1 Wartime Preludes to Postwar Policies

Wartime experiments with free labor

Freed slaves work on plantations for wages

Or be self-sufficient through barter system

Lincoln proposed Ten Percent Plan

Allow former Confederate states to form new governments

Vetoed the Wade-Davis Bill

Freedmen’s Bureau

Relief efforts for blacks and poor whites

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Lecture Outline:

Wartime experiments with free labor

Freed slaves work on plantations for wages

Northern merchants wanted a return to staple-crop system with cotton funneled to northern textile mills

Some in military thought blacks belonged on plantations and should be forced to work if they resisted

Or be self-sufficient through barter system

Wanted to break free of white landlords, suppliers, and cotton merchants

Lincoln proposed Ten Percent Plan

Allow former Confederate states to form new governments

Must have 10 percent of men who voted in 1860 pledge allegiance to the Union and renounce slavery

Vetoed the Wade-Davis Bill

Alternative plan by Congress

Required a majority of southern voters to take a loyalty oath

Lincoln used a pocket veto to kill the bill

Freedmen’s Bureau

Relief efforts for blacks and poor whites

Sponsoring schools

Implementing a labor contract system on southern plantations

Key Terms:

Pocket veto: An indirect veto of a legislative bill made when an executive (such as a president or governor) simply leaves the bill unsigned, so that it dies after the adjournment of the legislature.

Freedmen’s Bureau: Federal agency created by Congress in March 1865 and disbanded in 1869. Its purposes were to provide relief for Southerners who had remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War, to support black elementary schools, and to oversee annual labor contracts between landowners and field hands.

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15.1.2 Presidential Reconstruction, 1865–1867 (1 of 2)

President Johnson’s agenda for South

Modify Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan

South quickly passed the Black Codes

An attempt to institute a system of near-slavery

Republicans divided

Radicals

Moderates

Both outraged

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Lecture Outline:

President Johnson’s agenda for South

Modify Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan

Deny vote to wealthy Confederates

Individuals could beg for pardons

Lenient plan for readmittance to Union

States renounce secession and accept Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery

Repudiate all Confederate debts

Opposed vote for freedmen

South quickly passed the Black Codes

An attempt to institute a system of near-slavery

Penalties for “vagrant” blacks

Denied blacks the right to vote

Blacks could not serve on juries

In some cases, could not own land

Mississippi: cannot quit jobs until expiration of contract

Blacks must be working under supervision of whites at any given moment

Arrested people faced imprisonment or forced labor

Republicans divided

Radicals

Federal participation in blacks’ civil rights and economic independence

Moderates

Hands-off approach to blacks’ rights and economic situation

More concerned with free market and private property rights

Both outraged

Black Codes

Former Confederate generals and leaders in Congress in December 1865

Included vice president of Confederacy Alexander Stephens, under indictment for treason

Key Terms:

Black Codes: Southern state laws passed after the Civil War to limit the rights and actions of newly liberated African Americans.

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15.1.2 Presidential Reconstruction, 1865–1867 (2 of 2)

Congress moves to expand rights

Thirteenth Amendment

Civil Rights Bill of 1866

Fourteenth Amendment

Northerners move south

Teachers

Carpetbaggers

Scalawags

White vigilantes: Ku Klux Klan

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Lecture Outline:

Congress moves to expand rights

Thirteenth Amendment

Abolished slavery

Ratified by states by the end of the year

Civil Rights Bill of 1866

Federal protection of individual rights

Passed, vetoed; Congress overrode veto

Johnson was becoming defiant of aggressive federal protection of black civil rights

Also vetoed expansion of Freedmen’s Bureau, but Congress also overrode that veto

Fourteenth Amendment

Freed peoples given citizenship rights

States punished for denying these rights

Former rebels could not hold offices (except local)

Voided Confederate debts

Vetoed by Johnson, finally adopted in 1868

Johnson believed states should decide issues of black suffrage

Northerners move south

Teachers

Black and white teachers volunteer to teach former slaves to read and write

Carpetbaggers

Investors wanted to become planters in the staple-crop economy

Southerners saw them as taking advantage of the South’s devastation

Scalawags

Reluctant secessionists ally with Republicans

Former white southern Whigs

Some humbled planter class and less wealthy men

White vigilantes: Ku Klux Klan

Began as a group of Tennessee war veterans

White supremacist terrorist group

Led to violence and murder of both blacks and their white allies

Showed how far ex-Confederates would go to reassert their authority and defy the federal government

Key Terms:

carpetbaggers: A negative term applied by Southerners to Northerners who moved to the South after the Civil War to pursue political or economic opportunities.

scalawags: A negative term applied by southern Democrats after the Civil War to any white Southerner who allied with the Republican party.

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Freedmen’s Bureau, Beaufort, South Carolina

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Freedmen's Bureau agents distributed rations to former slaves and southern whites who had remained loyal to the Union. Agents also sponsored schools, legalized marriages formed under slavery, arbitrated domestic disputes, and oversaw labor contracts between workers and landowners. The bureau faced many challenges; it was chronically understaffed, and many freedpeople lived on isolated plantations, far from the scrutiny of bureau agents. But by 1869 the bureau had ceased to exist.

Historical/Corbis

Journal Prompt 15.2

Can you speculate about the way that the building in the photograph above was used before and during the war? How do you think southern whites reacted to the various roles and responsibilities of Freedmen’s Bureau’s agents?

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Answer: It is difficult to say with certainty how this building was used before the war, but its size and sophisticated construction suggest that it might have been the home of a relatively well-to-do person. If so, the occupation of such a building by the Freedmen’s Bureau would have been particularly galling. From the point of view of many white Southerners, the Freedmen’s Bureau epitomized northern interference in southern social, political, and economic affairs. Thus, the Bureau’s use of the home of a member of the white social elite as a base of operations may have been seen as adding insult to injury.