Week 10 Day 1

The Civil War has ended and now a pressing question has arisen: how do we bring the South back into the Union? The opinions of many major politicians of this time can be roughly categorized into on of two options: reconstruction and restoration.
Lincoln, who had called himself a "Unionist" rather than a Republican,  had developed a rather lenient plan in 1864. Lincoln felt that, because secession from the Union was illegal, the Southern states had actually never separated from the Union, and that the Civil War was more about squashing the rebellion of a few particularly influential Southerners. So, Lincoln believed that the Southerners were still citizens of the United States and maintained all of their rights. His plan was to allow each Confederate state to reorganize themselves into Union states as soon as 10% of the population had sworn its loyalty to the Union, a number that may seem generous but in reality was a large portion of voters. Lincoln clearly wanted to restore the Union into a better version of what it had been prior to the war.
Lincoln was up mainly against the Radical Republicans. These men believed that, although secession is illegal, the Southern states did leave. They felt that now the Confederate states were nothing more than conquered territory. The Radical Republicans wanted to reconstruct the the South and how it fit into the Union. They proposed the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864 which called for a lengthy military occupation of the South, punishment of Confederate leaders, and the taking of Southern land. Many of these actions had already been done by generals of the Civil War, and Lincoln tried tirelessly to stop them in order to prevent a precedence from being set. The Wade-Davis Bill was passed in Congress, which was filled with a majority of Radical Republicans, however Lincoln vetoed the bill.
When Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, Vice President Andrew Johnson replaced him. Johnson was a Southern Democrat in a government filled with Radical Republicans. The dynamic of the restoration had been changed entirely, and it was now up to Johnson to create and carry out a plan to gracefully repair the Union. Johnson decided to continue Lincoln's 10% plan, however he made it significantly more difficult for individuals to receive a pardon. Many of the most powerful ex-slave-owners were regarded as non-citizens without enfranchisement until they were personally pardoned by Johnson.
The Radical Republicans did not feel that this was a sufficient punishment for the South. They were able to overpower Johnson in Congress and enacted their military reconstruction program in 1868. This program sent military troops into the South, which was divided into five military districts, to proved Freedmen with citizenship and the right to vote. They were also to disband white terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. This program did not end completely until 1870, when all Southern states were readmitted into the Union.
The 14th Amendment of 1868 defined citizenship in order to guarantee citizenship to all of the former slaves. It also said that states cannot take away rights without due process of law and that everyone is entitled to equal protection from law. This amendment made sure that these rights cannot be withheld from any particular group, especially Freedmen.
Between the 13th and 14th Amendments, there was no legal way to continue slavery and the denying of rights and citizenship to black people as it had been before the war, but Southerners were able to find ways around these predicaments. The practice of sharecropping and tenant farming became increasingly popular. In these systems, farmers would rent land from landowners and work on their farms. They would pay the landowners with crops, but could never seem to be prosperous enough to meet the rent. The farmers would have to continue working on the land, always trying to pay off their debts to the landowners, and could really never stop working on the farms. Tenant farming was essentially slavery with a different name. Southerners would also come up with creative ways to prevent Freedmen and poor and uneducated whites from voting. They would make them take rigged literacy tests, pay polling taxes, or use the Grandfather Clause (if your grandfather was unable to vote, you were also unable to vote), and terror to keep these groups from participating in voting. The 15th Amendment was passed preventing federal and state governments from taking away the right to vote, but this could not solve the other problems. When this Amendment was added, South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana were the only states not readmitted to the Union, and it was decided that if the states chose to ratify the 15th Amendment, they would be readmitted to the Union. Huge parts of the Southern population were being underrepresented, and power was still in the hands of rich white men.
The Radical Republicans did not agree with the state of the country and blamed many of its problems on Johnson. They passed acts such as the Tenure of Office Act, which took away Johnson's power to remove any officials that Lincoln had appointed, and the Command of the Army Act, which made Johnson go through the Commander of Army (U. S. Grant) for all military orders. Both of these Acts were unconstitutional, but when Johnson violated them, the Radical Republicans used them as a means for impeachment. Johnson was immediately impeached, but was not permanently removed from his position.
In the 1870s, the people were becoming exhausted. Reconstruction had been expensive, requiring incredible amounts of time, money and energy. The Panic of 1873 occurred as prices declined due to the federal government stopping redemption of greenbacks, the currency used during the Civil War, for gold. This financial panic was a great distraction for the North who needed to be actively participating in the reconstruction efforts. The North neglected to continue their efforts and expected the South to fix what they had perceived to be the South's problems.
When the Compromise of 1877 took place, South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana were still under military occupation. In the Election of 1876, so much fraud occurred that each of these states had submitted two election results, one for the Democratic party and one for the Republican party. It was decided that if the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, won the election, the military would be removed from the states. This became a reality when Hayes was announced President at the last minute.
The questions the country now faced: Have our goals actually been achieved? Are we really able to protect and enforce the rights of slaves?