Moodle+Ch+13


 * Map:**
 * Terms:**


 * Lincoln's "10 percent plan"** - During the American Civil War in December 1863, Abraham Lincoln offered a model for reinstatement of Southern states called the 10 percent Reconstruction plan. It decreed that a state could be reintegrated into the Union when 10 percent of the 1860 vote count from that state had taken an oath of allegiance to the U.S. and pledged to abide by emancipation. The next step in the process would be for the states to formally elect a state government. Also, a state legislature could write a new constitution, but it also had to abolish slavery forever. At that time, Lincoln would recognize the reconstructed government. By 1864, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas had established fully functioning Unionist governments. This policy was meant to shorten the war by offering a moderate peace plan. It was also intended to further his emancipation policy by insisting that the new governments abolished slavery. Congress reacted sharply to this proclamation of Lincoln's. Republicans feared that the planter aristocracy would be restored and the blacks would be forced back into slavery. Lincoln's reconstructive policy toward the South was lenient because he wanted to popularize his Emancipation Proclamation.


 * Radical Republicans** - a loose faction of American politicians within the Republican Party from about 1854 (before the American Civil War) until the end of Reconstruction in 1877. They called themselves "radicals" and were opposed during the war by moderates and after the war by self described "conservatives" (in the South) and "Liberals" (in the North). During the war, Radical Republicans opposed President Abraham Lincoln's policies in terms of selection of generals and his efforts to bring states back into the Union; Lincoln vetoed the Radical plan in 1864 and was putting his own policies in effect when he was assassinated in 1865. Radicals pushed for the uncompensated abolition of slavery, and after the war supported Civil rights for freedmen (the newly freed slaves), such as measures ensuring the right to vote. They initiated the Reconstruction Acts, and reduced rights for ex-Confederate soldiers. The Radicals were vigorously opposed by the Democratic Party and usually by moderate and Liberal Republicans as well.


 * The Wade-Davis Bill** - emerged from a plan introduced in the Senate by Ira Harris of New York in February, 1863. It proposed to base the Reconstruction of the South on the government's power to guarantee a republican form of government. The Wade–Davis Bill was also important for national and congressional power. Although federally imposed conditions of reconstruction retrospectively seem logical, there was a widespread belief that southern Unionism would return the seceded states to the Union after the South's military power was broken. This belief was not fully abandoned until later in 1863. The provisions, critics complained, were virtually impossible to meet, thus making it likely there would be permanent national control over the southern states.


 * The Black Codes** - unofficial laws put in place in the United States to limit the basic human rights and civil liberties of blacks. Even though the U.S. constitution originally discriminated against blacks (as "other persons") and both Northern and Southern states had passed discriminatory legislation from the early 19th century, the term Black Codes is used most often to refer to legislation passed by Southern states at the end of the Civil War to control the labor, migration and other activities of newly-freed slaves. The black codes enacted immediately after the American Civil War, though varying from state to state, were all intended to secure a steady supply of cheap labor and all continued to assume the inferiority of the freed slaves. The black codes had their roots in the slave codes that had formerly been in effect. The premise behind chattel slavery in America was that slaves were property, and, as such, they had few or no legal rights. The slave codes, in their many loosely-defined forms, were seen as effective tools against slave unrest, particularly as a hedge against uprisings and runaways. Enforcement of slave codes also varied, but corporal punishment was widely and harshly employed to great effect.


 * The Fourteenth Amendment -** adopted on July 9, 1868 as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which held that blacks could not be citizens of the United States. Its Due Process Clause prohibits state and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken to ensure fairness. This clause has been used to make most of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, as well as to recognize substantive and procedural rights. Its Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction. This clause was the basis for Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court decision which precipitated the dismantling of racial segregation in the United States.


 * The Fifteenth Amendment** - the third of the Reconstruction Amendments. This amendment prohibits the states and the federal government from using a citizen's race (this applies to all races), color or previous status as a slave as a voting qualification. The North Carolina Supreme Court upheld this right of free men of color to vote; in response, amendments to the North Carolina Constitution removed the right in 1835. Granting free men of color the right to vote could be seen as giving them the rights of citizens, an argument explicitly made by Justice Curtis's dissent in Dred Scott v. Sandford. The original House and Senate draft of the amendment said the right to vote and hold office would not be denied or abridged by the states based on race, color or creed. A House-Senate conference committee dropped the office holding guarantee to make ratification by 3/4 of the states easier. The amendment did not establish true universal male suffrage partly because Southern Republicans were reluctant to undermine loyalty tests, which the Reconstruction state governments used to limit the influence of ex-Confederates, and partly because some Northern and Western politicians wanted to continue disenfranchising non-native Irish and Chinese.


 * The Military Reconstruction Act** - After the end of the Civil War, as part of the on-going process of Reconstruction, the United States Congresspassed four statutes known as Reconstruction Acts. The acts' main points included:

President Andrew Johnson's vetoes of these measures were overridden by Congress. Later, when the case Ex Parte McCardle came to the Supreme Court, Congress feared that the court may strike the Reconstruction Acts down as unconstitutional, at which point Congress repealed the Habeas Corpus act of 1867 to revoke the Supreme Court's appellate power to hear the case.
 * Creation of five military districts in the seceded states not including Tennessee, which had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and was readmitted to the Union
 * Requiring congressional approval for new state constitutions (which were required for Confederate states to rejoin the Union)
 * Confederate states give voting rights to all men.
 * All former Confederate states must ratify the 14th Amendment


 * Thaddeus Stevens** - a Republican leader and one of the most powerful members of the United States House of Representatives. As chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Stevens, a witty, sarcastic speaker and flamboyant party leader, dominated the House from 1861 until his death and wrote much of the financial legislation that paid for the American Civil War. Stevens and Senator Charles Sumner were the prime leaders of the Radical Republicans during the American Civil War and Reconstruction. A biographer characterizes him as, "The Great Commoner, savior of free public education in Pennsylvania, national Republican leader in the struggles against slavery in the United States and intrepid mainstay of the attempt to secure racial justice for the freedmen during Reconstruction, the only member of the House of Representatives ever to have been known, as the 'dictator' of Congress."


 * Charles Sumner** - an American politician and statesman from Massachusetts. An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction, working to punish the ex-Confederates and guarantee equal rights to the Freedmen. Sumner jumped from party to party, gaining fame as a Republican. One of the most learned statesmen of the era, he specialized in foreign affairs, working closely with Abraham Lincoln to keep the British and the French from intervening on the side of the Confederacy. He devoted his enormous energies to the destruction of what he considered the Slave Power, that is the scheme of slave owners to take control of the federal government and block the progress of liberty.


 * Civil Rights Act of 1875** - a United States federal law proposed by Senator Charles Sumner and Representative Benjamin F. Butler (both Republicans) in 1870. The act was passed by Congress in February, 1875 and signed by President Grant on March 1, 1875. It was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1883. Many of its provisions were enacted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act, using the federal power to regulate interstate commerce. The Act guaranteed that everyone, regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, was entitled to the same treatment in "public accommodations" (i.e. inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement). If found guilty, the lawbreaker could face a penalty anywhere from $500 to $1,000 and/or 30 days to 1 year in prison. However, the law was rarely enforced, especially after the 1876 presidential election and withdrawal of federal troops from the South. In the 1883 Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883), the Supreme Court deemed the act unconstitutional on the basis that Congress had no power to regulate the conduct of individuals. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits discrimination by the state, not by individuals.


 * Tenure of Office Act, 1867** - In the post-Civil War political environment, President Andrew Johnson endorsed the quick re-admission of the Southern secessionist states. The two-thirds Republican majorities of both houses of Congress, however, passed laws over Johnson's vetoes, establishing a series of five military districts overseeing newly created state governments. This "Congressional Reconstruction" was designed to create local civil rights laws to protect newly freed slaves; to police the area; to ensure the secessionist states would show some good faith before being readmitted; to ensure Republican control of the states; and, arguably, to inflict some punishment on the secessionists. States would be readmitted gradually. In 1878, the act initially prevented President Rutherford B. Hayes, as part of his effort at civil service reform, from removing Chester A. Arthur and Alonzo B. Cornell from their political patronage jobs at the New York Customs House. Eventually, with Democratic help in Senate, he circumvented the act and secured confirmation of his own appointments. In 1887, the Tenure of Office Act was repealed.


 * Edwin M. Stanton** - an American lawyer and politician who served as Secretary of War under the Lincoln Administration during the American Civil War from 1862–1865. Stanton's effective management helped organize the massive military resources of the North and guide the Union to victory. After Lincoln's assassination, Stanton remained as the Secretary of War under the new President Andrew Johnson during the first years of Reconstruction. He opposed the lenient policies of Johnson towards the former Confederate States. Johnson's attempt to dismiss Stanton led the House of Representatives to impeach him. After Lincoln was elected president, Stanton agreed to work as a legal adviser to the inefficient Secretary of War, Simon Cameron who was dismissed by Lincoln for including in his yearly report the call of freed slaves to be armed and used against the Confederate Army. Cameron was replaced by Stanton on January 15, 1862. Lincoln, who was unaware of Stanton's role in the report, appointed him as his new Secretary of War. He accepted the position only to "help save the country." He was very effective in administering the huge War Department, but devoted considerable amounts of his energy to the persecution of Union officers whom he suspected of having traitorous sympathies for the South, the most famous of these being Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter. Stanton used his power as Secretary to ensure every general who sat on the court-martial would vote for conviction or else be unable to obtain career advancement.


 * Hiram Revels** - the first African American to serve in the United States Senate. Since he preceded any African American in the House, he was the first African American in the U.S. Congress as well. He represented Mississippi in 1870 and 1871 during Reconstruction. As of 2011, Revels is one of only six African Americans ever to have served in the United States Senate. In 1865, Revels returned to his ministry and was assigned briefly to AME churches in Leavenworth, Kansas, and New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1866, he was given a permanent pastorship in Natchez, Mississippi, where he settled with his wife and five daughters, continued his ministerial work, and founded schools for black children. During Reconstruction, Revels was elected alderman in Natchez in 1868, and he was elected to represent Adams County in the Mississippi State Senate in 1869. As John R. Lynch reports, "so far as known he [Revels] had never voted, had never attended a political meeting, and of course, had never made a political speech. But he was a colored man, and presumed to be a Republican, and believed to be a man of ability and considerably above the average in point of intelligence." [Lynch 1913] In January 1870, Revels presented a remarkable opening prayer in the state legislature.


 * Blanche K. Bruce** - a U.S. politician who represented Mississippi as a Republican in the U.S. Senate from 1875 to 1881 and was the first elected African American senator to serve a full term. Hiram R. Revels, also of Mississippi, was the first to ever serve in the U.S. Congress, but did not serve a full term. During Reconstruction, Bruce became a wealthy landowner in the Mississippi Delta. He was appointed to the positions of Tallahatchie County registrar of voters and tax assessor before winning an election for sheriff in Bolivar County. He later was elected to other county positions, including tax collector and supervisor of education, while he also edited a local newspaper. In February 1874, Bruce was elected by the state legislature to the Senate as a Republican. On February 14, 1879, Bruce presided over the U.S. Senate becoming the first African-American (and the only former slave) to do so. In 1880, James Z. George was elected to succeed Bruce.


 * "Carpetbaggers"** - a pejorative term Southerners gave to Northerners (also referred to as Yankees) who moved to the South during the Reconstruction era, between 1865 and 1877. The term referred to the observation that these newcomers tended to carry "carpet bags," a common form of luggage at the time (sturdy and made from recycled carpet). It was used as a derogatory term, suggesting opportunism and exploitation by the outsiders.


 * "Scalawags"** - a nickname for southern whites who supported Reconstruction following the Civil War. Some were former Unionists.


 * Enforcement Acts (1870-1871**) - four acts passed from 1870 to 1871 that were meant to protect rights of all blacks following ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as part of Reconstruction, which entitled freedmen and all others born in the United States to full citizenship. The first act protected black voting by prohibiting the use of violence to prevent blacks from voting. Another provided for federal supervision of southern elections. The Ku Klux Klan Act passed in 1871 strengthened sanctions against those who attacked freedmen or prevented them from voting. By making such activities a federal crime, if states failed to protect freedmen, the federal government could intervene with troops on their behalf. It allowed the government to suspend habeas corpus. Intended to suppress the Klan, the KKK act helped reduce violence against freedmen for a time.


 * Jay Gould** - a leading American railroad developer and speculator. He has long been vilified as an archetypal robber baron, whose successes made him the ninth richest American in history. Condé Nast Portfolio ranked Gould as the 8th worst American CEO of all time. Some modern historians working from primary sources have discounted various myths about him. After being forced out of the Erie Railroad, Gould started, in 1879, to build up a system of railroads in the Midwest by gaining control of four western railroads, including the Union Pacific and the Missouri Pacific Railroad. In 1880, he was in control of 10,000 miles (16,000 km) of railway, about one-ninth of the length of rail in the United States at that time, and, by 1882, he had controlling interest in 15% of the country's tracks. Gould withdrew from management of the Union Pacific in 1883 amidst political controversy over its debts to the federal government, realizing a large profit for himself.


 * Jim Fisk** - a politician from Vermont who was elected to the United States Senate and the House of Representatives. Born in Greenwich, Massachusetts, he was self-educated and served in the Revolutionary War from 1779 to 1782. He was a member of the Massachusetts General Court in 1785, entered the Universalist ministry, and preached occasionally; in 1798 he moved to Barre, Vermont, where he practiced law. Fisk was a member of the Vermont House of Representatives 1800-1805, 1809–1810, 1815; judge of the Orange County Court 1802-1809, 1816; he was selected as the member from Orange County to locate the capital in 1803. He was chairman of the committee that endeavored to get a settlement of the northern boundary with Canada in 1804. Fisk was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1804, defeated in 1808, and elected again in 1811. He served as chairman of the Committee on Elections. Fisk was appointed United States judge for the Territory of Indiana in 1812, but declined. He worked as judge of the Supreme Court of Vermont from 1815–1816, and elected as a Democratic-Republican to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Dudley Chase. He served in the Senate from November 4, 1817, to January 8, 1818, when he resigned. Fisk worked as collector of customs for the district of Vermont from 1818 to 1826.


 * The Resumption Act** - Late in 1861, the federal government suspended specie payments, seeking to raise revenue for the American Civil War effort without exhausting its reserves of gold and silver. Early in 1862, the United States issued legal-tender notes, called greenbacks. By war's end, a total of $431 million in greenbacks had been issued, and authorization had been given for another $50 million in small denominations, known as fractional currency or "shin plasters." During Reconstruction, a new coalition of agrarian and labor interests found common cause in the promotion of inflationary monetary policies. At the end of 1874, a total of $382 million of these notes still circulated. The Resumption Act of January 14, 1875 provided for the replacement of the Civil War fractional currency by silver coins. It also reduced the greenback total to $300 million. The Secretary of the Treasury was directed to "redeem, in coin" legal-tender notes presented for redemption on and after 1 January 1879.


 * Samuel J. Tilden -** the Democratic candidate for the U.S.presidency in the disputed election of 1876, one of the most controversial American elections of the 19th century. A political reformer, he was a Bourbon Democrat who worked closely with the New York Citybusiness community, led the fight against the corruption of Tammany Hall, and fought to keep taxes low. During the 1876 presidential election, Tilden won the popular vote over his Republican opponent, Rutherford B. Hayes, proving that the Democrats were back in the political picture following the Civil War. But the result in the Electoral College was in question because the states of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina each sent two sets of Electoral Votes to Congress. (There was separately a conflict over one elector from Oregon, who was disqualified on a technicality.)


 * Compromise of 1877** - refers to a purported informal, unwritten deal that settled the disputed 1876 U.S. Presidential election and ended Congressional ("Radical") Reconstruction. Through it, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was awarded the White House over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden on the understanding that Hayes would remove the federal troops that were propping up Republican state governments in South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. Consequently, the incumbent President, Republican Ulysses S. Grant, removed the soldiers from Florida before Hayes as his successor removed the remaining troops in South Carolina and Louisiana. As soon as the troops left, many Republicans also left (or became Democrats) and the "Redeemer" Democrats took control. The purposed compromise essentially stated that Southern Democrats would acknowledge Hayes as President, but only on the understanding that Republicans would meet certain demands. The following elements are generally said to be the points of the compromise:


 * The removal of all Federal troops from the former Confederate States. (Troops remained in only Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida, but the Compromise finalized the process.)
 * The appointment of at least one Southern Democrat to Hayes's cabinet. (David M. Key of Tennessee became Postmaster General.) Hayes had already promised this.
 * The construction of another transcontinental railroad using the Texas and Pacific in the South (this had been part of the "Scott Plan," proposed by Thomas A. Scott, which initiated the process that led to the final compromise).
 * Legislation to help industrialize the South.