SECTION
1 Rebuilding
TEKS 1A, 8B, 9C, 16B, 21A, 22A,
23C
the South
What You Will Learn…
If YOU were there...
Main Ideas You are a young soldier who has been fighting in the Civil War for
1. President Lincoln and
many months. Now that the war is over, you are on your way home.
Congress differed in their
views as Reconstruction During your journey, you pass plantation manor homes, houses,
began.
and barns that have been burned down. No one is doing spring
2. The end of the Civil War
meant freedom for African planting in the fields. As you near your family’s farm, you see that
Americans in the South.
fences and sheds have been destroyed. You wonder what is left of
3. President Johnson’s plan
began the process of your home and family.
Reconstruction.
What would you think your future on
The Big Idea the farm would be like?
The nation faced many problems
in rebuilding the Union.
Key Terms and People BUILDING BACKGROUND When the Civil War ended, much of
Reconstruction, p. 552
the South lay in ruins. Like the young soldier above, many people
Ten Percent Plan, p. 553
Thirteenth Amendment, p. 554 returned to destroyed homes and farms. Harvests of corn, cotton, rice,
Freedmen’s Bureau, p. 556 and other crops fell far below normal. Many farm animals had been
Andrew Johnson, p. 557 killed or were roaming free. These were some of the challenges in
restoring the nation.
Use the graphic organizer online Reconstruction Begins
to take notes on the different ways
After the Civil War ended in 1865, the U.S. government faced
the U.S. government attempted
to reconstruct the South after the the problem of dealing with the defeated southern states. The chal-
Civil War. lenges of Reconstruction , the process of readmitting the former
Confederate states to the Union, lasted from 1865 to 1877.
552 Chapter 17
Damaged South a state made these pledges, they could form
Tired southern soldiers returned home to find a new government. The state then could be
that the world they had known before the war readmitted to the Union.
was gone. Cities, towns, and farms had been Louisiana quickly elected a new state leg-
ruined. Because of high food prices and wide- islature under the Ten Percent Plan. Other
spread crop failures, many southerners faced southern states that had been occupied by
starvation. The Confederate money held by Union troops soon followed Louisiana back
most southerners was now worthless. Banks into the United States.
failed, and merchants had gone bankrupt
because people could not pay their debts.
Wade-Davis Bill
Former Confederate general Braxton Some politicians argued that Congress, not
Bragg was one of many southerners who the president, should control the southern
faced economic hardship. He found that states’ return to the Union. They believed
“all, all was lost, except my debts.” In South that Congress had the power to admit new
Carolina, Mary Boykin Chesnut wrote in her states. Also, many Republican members of
diary about the isolation she experienced Congress thought the Ten Percent Plan did
after the war. “We are shut in here . . . All not go far enough. A senator from Michigan
RR’s [railroads] destroyed—bridges gone. We expressed their views.
are cut off from the world.”
“The people of the North are not such fools as to . . .
turn around and say to the traitors, ‘all you have
Lincoln’s Plan to do [to return] is . . . take an oath that henceforth
President Abraham Lincoln wanted to reunite you will be true to the Government.’ ”
–Senator Jacob Howard, quoted in Reconstruction:
the nation as quickly and painlessly as pos- America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877, by Eric Foner
sible. He had proposed a plan for readmitting
the southern states even before the war ended. Two Republicans—Senator Benjamin
Called the Ten Percent Plan, it offered south- Wade and Representative Henry Davis—had A cademic
erners amnesty, or official pardon, for all ille- an alternative to Lincoln’s plan. Following V ocabulary
procedure
gal acts supporting the rebellion. To receive procedures of the Wade-Davis bill, a state a series of steps
amnesty, southerners had to do two things. had to meet two conditions before it could taken to accom-
They had to swear an oath of loyalty to the rejoin the Union. First, it had to ban slavery. plish a task
United States. They also had to agree that slav- Second, a majority of adult males in the state
ery was illegal. Once 10 percent of voters in had to take the loyalty oath.
War destroyed Richmond, Virginia, once
the capital of the Confederacy.
553
Testing New Freedoms
Under the Wade-Davis bill, only south- Freedom for African
erners who swore that they had never sup-
ported the Confederacy could vote or hold
Americans
office. In general, the bill was much stricter One thing Republicans agreed on was abol-
than the Ten Percent Plan. Its provisions ishing slavery. The Emancipation Proclama-
would make it harder for southern states to tion had freed slaves only in areas that had
rejoin the Union quickly. not been occupied by Union forces, not in
President Lincoln therefore refused the border states. Many people feared that
to sign the bill into law. He thought that the federal courts might someday declare the
few southern states would agree to meet proclamation unconstitutional.
its requirements. He believed that his plan
would help restore order more quickly. Slavery Ends
On January 31, 1865, at President Lincoln’s
Reading Check Contrasting How was urging, Congress proposed the Thirteenth
the Ten Percent Plan different from the Wade- Amendment. This amendment made slav-
Davis bill? ery illegal throughout the United States.
554 Chapter 17
earlier. Others placed newspaper ads seeking
information about their children. Many women
began to work at home instead of in the fields.
Still others adopted children of dead relatives
to keep families together. Church members
established voluntary associations and mutual-
aid societies to help those in need.
Now that they could travel without a
pass, many freedpeople moved from mostly
white counties to places with more African
Americans. Other freedpeople traveled sim-
ply to test their new freedom of movement.
A South Carolina woman explained this
need. “I must go, if I stay here I’ll never know
I’m free.”
For most former slaves, freedom to
travel was just the first step on a long road
The freedpeople at left have packed their toward equal rights and new ways of life.
household belongings and are leav-
ing Richmond. Many people traveled in Adults took new last names and began to
search of relatives. Others placed newspa- insist on being called Mr. or Mrs. as a sign
per advertisements looking for long-lost of respect, rather than by their first names
relatives. For other freedpeople, like the
couple above, freedom brought the right or by nicknames. Freedpeople began to
to marry. demand the same economic and political
In what ways did former slaves react to rights as white citizens. Henry Adams, a for-
freedom? mer slave, argued that “if I cannot do like a
white man I am not free.”
Forty Acres to Farm?
Many former slaves wanted their own land
to farm. Near the end of the Civil War,
Union general William Tecumseh Sherman
The amendment was ratified and took effect had issued an order to break up plantations
on December 18, 1865. When abolitionist in coastal South Carolina and Georgia. He
William Lloyd Garrison heard the news, he wanted to divide the land into 40-acre plots
declared that his work was now finished. and give them to former slaves as compensa-
He called for the American Anti-Slavery tion for their forced labor before the war.
Society to break up. Not all abolitionists Many white planters refused to surren-
agreed that their work was done, however. der their land. Some freedpeople pointed out
Frederick Douglass insisted that “slavery is that it was only fair that they receive some
not abolished until the black man has the of this land because their labor had made
ballot [vote].” the plantations prosper. In the end, the U.S.
Freedom brought important changes government returned the land to its original
to newly freed slaves. Many couples held owners. At this time, many freedpeople were
ceremonies to legalize marriages that had unsure about where they would live, what
not been recognized under slavery. Many kind of work they would do, and what rights
freedpeople searched for relatives who had they had. Freedoms that were theirs by law
been sold away from their families years were difficult to enforce.
reconstruction 555
Freedmen’s Bureau knowledge, and such a capacity for attaining
In 1865 Congress established the Freedmen’s [reaching] it.”
Bureau , an agency providing relief for freed- After the war, some freedpeople organized
people and certain poor people in the South. their own education efforts. For example, Freed-
The Bureau had a difficult job. At its high point, men’s Bureau agents found that some African
about 900 agents served the entire South. Americans had opened schools in abandoned
Bureau commissioner Oliver O. Howard buildings. Many white southerners continued
eventually decided to use the Bureau’s limited to believe that African Americans should not
budget to distribute food to the poor and to be educated. Despite opposition, by 1869 more
provide education and legal help for freed- than 150,000 African American students were
people. The Bureau also helped African Ameri- attending more than 3,000 schools. The Freed-
can war veterans. men’s Bureau also helped establish a number
The Freedmen’s Bureau played an impor- of universities for African Americans, including
tant role in establishing more schools in the Howard and Fisk universities.
South. Laws against educating slaves meant Students quickly filled the new class-
that most freedpeople had never learned to rooms. Working adults attended classes in the
read or write. Before the war ended, however, evening. African Americans hoped that edu-
northern groups, such as the American Mis- cation would help them to understand and
sionary Association, began providing books protect their rights and to enable them to find
and teachers to African Americans. The better jobs. Both black and white southerners
teachers were mostly women who were com- benefited from the effort to provide greater
mitted to helping freedpeople. One teacher access to education in the South.
said of her students, “I never before saw
children so eager to learn . . . It is wonderful Reading Check Analyzing How did the Freed-
how [they] . . . can have so great a desire for men’s Bureau help reform education in the South?
Helping the Freedpeople
Congress created the Freedmen’s Bureau
to help freedpeople and poor southerners
recover from the Civil War. The Bureau
assisted people by:
• providing supplies and medical
services
• establishing schools
• supervising contracts between
freedpeople and employers
• taking care of lands abandoned or
captured during the war
What role did the Freedmen’s Bureau
play during Reconstruction?
556
President Johnson’s By the end of 1865, all the southern states
except Texas had created new governments.
Reconstruction Plan Johnson approved them all and declared that
While the Freedmen’s Bureau was helping the United States was restored. Newly elected
African Americans, the issue of how the South representatives came to Washington from
would rejoin the Union was unresolved. each reconstructed southern state. However,
Soon, however, Lincoln’s dream of peacefully Republicans complained that many new rep-
reuniting the country ended tragically. resentatives had been leaders of the Confed-
eracy. Congress therefore refused to readmit
A New President the southern states into the Union. Clearly,
On the evening of April 14, 1865, President the nation was still divided.
Lincoln and his wife attended a play at Ford’s
Theater in Washington, D.C. During the play, Reading Check Summarizing What was
John Wilkes Booth, a southerner who opposed President Johnson’s plan for Reconstruction?
Lincoln’s policies, sneaked into the president’s
theater box and shot him. Lincoln was rushed SUMMARY AND PREVIEW In this section
to a boardinghouse across the street, where he you learned about early plans for Recon-
died early the next morning. Lincoln, his lead- struction. In the next section, you will
ership remembered for its honesty, deep intel- learn that disagreements about Recon-
ligence, and high morals, became a symbol for struction became so serious that the presi-
the nation of the struggle of the Civil War. dent was almost removed from office.
Vice President Andrew Johnson was
sworn into office quickly. Reconstruction Section 1 Assessment ONLINE QUIZ
had now become his responsibility. He
Reviewing Ideas, Terms, and People
would have to win the trust of a nation
1. a. Identify What does Reconstruction mean?
shocked at its leader’s death. Johnson’s plan
b. Summarize What was President Lincoln’s plan for
was similar to Lincoln’s. However, he decided
Reconstruction?
that wealthy southerners and former Con- 2. a. Recall What effect did the Thirteenth Amendment
federate officials would need a presidential have on life in the United States?
pardon to receive amnesty. Johnson shocked b. Elaborate In your opinion, what was the most important
Radical Republicans by eventually pardoning accomplishment of the Freedmen’s Bureau? Explain.
more than 7,000 people by 1866. 3. a. Recall Why was President Lincoln killed? What kind of
leader is he remembered as?
New State Governments b. Analyze Why did some Americans oppose President
Johnson’s Reconstruction plan?
Johnson was a Democrat whom Republicans
had put on the ticket to appeal to the border Critical Thinking
states. A former slaveholder, he was a stub- 4. Summarizing Review your notes on Reconstruction. Then
born man who would face a hostile Congress. copy the graphic organizer below and use it to show how
Johnson offered a mild program for setting African Americans were affected by the end of the war.
African Ameri-
up new southern state governments. First, he cans and Recon- Marriages are legalized.
appointed a temporary governor for each state. struction
Then he required that the states revise their
constitutions. Next, voters elected state and Focus on Writing
federal representatives. The new state govern-
ment had to declare that secession was illegal. 5. Considering Historical Context Many people planned
to continue life as before the war. Others planned to start a
It also had to ratify the Thirteenth Amend-
new life. How do you think events and conditions you just
ment and refuse to pay Confederate debts. read about might have affected their plans?
reconstruction 557
