Lesson 12.01: Reconstruction (1865-1867)

• Introduction
• Presidential Reconstruction
• President Andrew Johnson
• Summary & Tasks

Following successful completion of this lesson, students will be able to: Discuss the various plans for Reconstruction (Lincoln's Plan, Wade-Davis Bill, and Johnson's Plan). Discuss the Freedmen's Bureau (reasons for establishment, successes, and why it was largely abandoned). Explain why Black Codes were established throughout the South and the effect that these codes had on the African-American population. Discuss the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the 13th Amendment, and the 14th Amendment. The above objectives correspond with the following Alabama Course of Study Objectives: XIContrast congressional and presidential reconstruction plans, including African-American political participation., XIB1Tracing economic changes in the post-Civil War period for whites and African Americans in the North and the South, including the effectiveness of the Freedmen's Bureau, XIB2Describing the social restructuring of the South, XIB4Identifying post-Civil War Constitutional amendments, and XIB5Discussing causes for the impeachment of Andrew Johnson

A Thomas Nast cartoon regarding Reconstruction. Here, Columbia is replacing the seceded states in the Union. She has laid down her sword and shield and now proclaims "Let us have peace." She advances under the banner "Equal Rights, With Malice Towards None And Charity To All." This was the symbolic picture of the U.S. now that the war was over and Reconstruction begun.

Introduction

President Lincoln prepared his version of Reconstruction plans for the South before the Civil War was over.  Lincoln argued that the Confederate states had never left the Union and was eager to reintegrate the Southern states as quickly as possible.  He never got the chance to see the country completely unified because John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865.  Vice-President Andrew Johnson, a former Senator from Tennessee who had remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War, was thrust into the job. 

The Radical Republicans in Congress, who had disagreed with Lincoln's lenient reconstruction ideas, believed that President Johnson would agree that the South needed to be punished for their "evil deeds."  However, President Johnson issued his own Reconstruction plan, that resembled Lincoln's plan, but was even more generous too the South.  He to wanted a speedy Reconstruction period with little interference from Congress.  President Johnson believed in strong state governments and laissez-faire policies, which supported the idea that a central government should stay out of the economic and social affairs of its people. 

While Congress was in recess, President Johnson issued thousands of pardons to former Confederates, confiscated land that had been given to former slaves, and opposed much of the work of the Freedmen's Bureau, because he felt that it again was an example of the federal government assuming too much power.  Johnson also appointed governors to the former Confederate states and called special state conventions to retract the secession decrees, draft new state constitutions, and ratify the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.  By December 1865, President Johnson declared that Union had been restored.