DO NOT EDIT--Changes must be made through “File info” CorrectionKey=TX-A SECTION 1 Rebuilding TEKS 1A, 8B, 9C, 16B, 21A, 22A, the South 23C 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 DO NOT EDIT--Changes must be made through “File info” CorrectionKey=TX-A 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.’” the nation as quickly and painlessly as pos- –Senator Jacob Howard, quoted in Reconstruction: 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 C ADEMIC Called the Ten Percent Plan , it offered south- Wade and Representative Henry Davis—had A erners amnesty, or official pardon, for all ille- an alternative to Lincoln’s plan. Following VOCY ABULAR 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 DO NOT EDIT--Changes must be made through “File info” CorrectionKey=TX-A Testing New Freedoms Under the Wade-Davis bill, only south- Freedom for African erners who swore that they had never sup- Americans ported the Confederacy could vote or hold 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 DO NOT EDIT--Changes must be made through “File info” CorrectionKey=TX-A 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 DO NOT EDIT--Changes must be made through “File info” CorrectionKey=TX-A 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.