Neal Patel

Margin Questions Chapter 15

Big Idea:

1. Lincoln and Johnson both supported the Ten Percent Plan, which allowed each rebellious
state to return to the Union as soon as 10 percent of its voters had taken a loyalty oath and the
state had approved the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery. However, Johnson lacked
Lincoln's moral sense and political judgement. He was a War Democrat who disagreed with the
Republicans. Lincoln wanted to help the South rejoin the Union but his primary concern was the
Union. The South would rejoin the Union on his terms. On the other hand, Johnson, who had
long talked tough against southern planters, allied himself with ex-Confederate leaders, forgiving
them when they appealed for pardons.
2. The Fourteenth Amendment declared that all persons born or naturalized in the United
States were citizens. The problems that would address from this is when people would try to
take this away. No matter what law was in place it still would hinder rights from African
Americans and it would still cause discrimination.
3. Reconstruction policies between 1865 and 1870 slowly became more radical as Radical
Republicans, holding a 2/3 majority in both Houses of Congress, passed bills and amendments.
The 10-percent plan advocated by Lincoln and Johnson initially was denied by Congress, who
then proposed the Wade-Davis Bill, a much stricter requirement for re-entrance to the Union.
Although vetoed by Lincoln, this foreshadowed the Reconstruction policies to come. Although
Johnson favored the South, there was nothing he could do to stop the legislation pouring in, as
both Houses of Congress were 2/3 majority Republican. As a result, between 1865 and 1870 the
freedman's bureau was strengthened, the civil rights act of 1866 gave african-americans full
protection of the law, and then the 14th amendment declared that all persons born or naturalized
in the US were citizens.
4. Although some abolitionist were for women's rights; at this moment in time they were
not. They saw women's rights as a lesser priority. They saw enfranchising black men as a benefit
because it punished ex-Confederates and ensured Republican support in the South, women's
rights to vote didn't really do as much. Frederick Douglas, an advocate for Women's rights was
even focusing on suffrage for blacks over suffrage for women. As a result programs like
American and National Woman Suffrage Associations were made.
5. Sharecropping emerged after Reconstruction when newly freed African-Americans
became wage-workers. Cotton planters lacked money to pay wages, so sometimes they offered a
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Margin Questions Chapter 15

share of the crop. Freedmen, in turn, paid their rent in shares of the harvest. Sharecroppers
typically turned over half of their crops to the landlord. In a credit-starved agricultural region that
grew crops for a world economy, sharecropping was an effective strategy, enabling laborers and
landowners to share risks and returns. But it was a very unequal relationship. Starting out
penniless, sharecroppers had no way to make it through the first growing season without
borrowing for food and supplies. Sharecroppers were furnished with provisions by country
storekeepers, but in exchange effectively lost ownership of their shares. As cotton prices
declined in the 1870s, more and more sharecroppers fell into permanent debt. By 1890, 3 out of
every 4 black farmers in the South were tenants or sharecroppers. Sharecropping had terrible
effects. With farms leased on a year-to-year basis, neither tenant nor owner had much incentive
to improve the property. Sharecropping committed the South inflexibly to cotton, a crop that
generated the cash required by landlords and furnishing merchants. The result was a stagnant
farm economy that blighted the South's future.
6. A Republican coalition came to power in nearly all the southern states and set out to
transform the society by setting up a free labor economy, using the U.S. Army and
the Freedmen's Bureau. The Bureau protected the legal rights of freedmen, negotiated labor
contracts, and set up schools and churches for them. Thousands of Northerners came South as
missionaries, teachers, businessmen, and politicians; hostile elements called them
"Carpetbaggers". Rebuilding the rundown railroad system was a major strategy, but it collapsed
when a nationwide depression struck the economy. The Radicals in the House of
Representatives, frustrated by Johnson's opposition to Congressional Reconstruction, filed
impeachment charges but the action failed by one vote in the Senate.
7. African American's community building was a great success. Independent churches
quickly became central community institutions, becoming national denominations such as the
National Baptist Convention and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. They also served as
schools, social centers, and meeting halls. The flowering of black churches, schools, newspapers,
and civic groups was one of the most enduring initiatives of the Reconstruction era. The African
American's struggles to obtain better working conditions was less successful, as many became
mired in the vicious cycle of sharecropping. Although they could now earn wages and formed
unions to try to obtain better working conditions, their efforts were not always too successful.
The link between these two efforts, however, is that freed-men were taking advantage of their
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Margin Questions Chapter 15

freedom and using it. They would not sit back. After 400 years of oppression, they seized the
opportunity and fought for their own rights, both as workers and members of their community.
8. In the wake of the Civil War, white southerners reacted in diverse ways to
Reconstruction. Supporters of emancipation and of union organized the Republican party in
areas where it had not previously operated. Opponents of union and of civil rights for freed
slaves faced Reconstruction with varying degrees of resistance, from passive support for the
Democratic party to violent terrorism and public lynchings.