All rebel leaders were finally pardoned by President Johnson on Christmas, 1868
Following emancipation in 1865 (13th Amendment), southern blacks often began traveling to test their freedom, search for family members, and seek economic opportunity
Freemen's Bureau was created as a primitive welfare agency to help the Freedmen to adjust to freedom
Conflicting Reconstruction Plans:
1. Lincoln's 10% plan for reconstruction was designed to encourage rapid readmission of southern states into the Union
2. But Congressional Republicans argued that the southern states could be readmitted only as "Conquered Provinces" on such conditions as Congress should decree
3. President Johnson supported Lincoln's policy but also took away from Confederate leaders and wealthy planters the right to vote
Newly Reconstructed Southern States passed black codes (P. 464) to ensure a stable labor supply and restore the pre-emancipation system of race relations > sharecroppers
1866 - Congress passed a Civil Rights Bill which conferred on the blacks the privilege of American citizenship and struck at the black codes > 14th Amendment
14th Amendment: Guaranteed citizenship to freed slaves and prohibited ex-confederate leaders from holding public office republicans agreed that no states should be welcome back into the union without first ratifying the 14th Amendment
- Tennessee was the first state to ratify and be readmitted as a state (1866)
1866 Congressional Elections resulted 2/3 Republican majority and an endorsement of their reconstruction policies
Radical Republicans were led by Charles Sumner in the Senate and Thaddeus Stevens in the House
Both radical and moderate republicans agreed the freed slaves must be granted the right to vote
1867 - Military Reconstruction Act divided the south into five military districts occupied by Union troops until 1877
1870 - 15th Amendment adopted giving blacks the right to vote
As a result, blacks made up a majority of the electorate in five Southern States: Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina > "Black Reconstruction"
Both "scalawags" and "carpetbaggers" exploited blacks for their own political and economic interests
Some deeply embittered Southern whites founded the Klu Klux Klan in Tennessee in 1866. It used fear, intimidation, and violence to "keep the blacks in their place"
1867 - Tenure of Office Act passed but Johnson dismissed Secretary of War Stanton
1868 - Johnson Impeached by the House of Representatives > Not guilty by one vote!
Biggest success of the Johnson Presidency: The purchase of Alaska by Secretary of State Seward in 1867 for $7.2 Million
Legacy of Reconstruction - p. 477