Reconstruction

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Johnson's Reconstruction Plan:

Andrew Johnson took office in Aril 1865 and congress was in recess until December. During the eight months Johnson made a plan of reconstruction that was much similar to the on of Abraham Lincoln. His plan was known as the Presidential reconstruction, it included certain laws:

It pardoned southerners who swore allegiance to the Union.

It permitted each state to hold a constitutional convention (without Lincoln's 10 percent allegiance requirement.)

States were required to void secession, abolish slavery, and repudiate the Confederate debt.

States could then hold elections and rejoin Union

The presidential Reconstruction reflected the spirit of Lincoln's Ten Precent Plan was more generous to the south.

Amendment 14 &15

Southern defiance of reconstruction enraged northern Republican in Congress who blamed President Johnson for southern Democrat's return to power. They were determined to bypass Johnson and put and end to his reconstruction plan, congress used one of it's greatest tools: the power to amend the Constitution. Congress overrode the president's veto. Then it took further action. Concerned that courts might strike down the Civil Right's act congress decided to build equal rights into the Constitution. In June 1866, Congress passed out the fourteenth amendment. It Stated that:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Afterwards across the south, meanwhile, freedmen were beginning to demand the rights of citizenship: to vote, to hold public office, to serve on juries, and to testify in court. In a letter to the Tennessee constitutional in convention, Nashville freedmen eloquently presented the case for black voting rights. They had the fifteenth amendment, which states:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

Radical Reconstruction

The congressional republican who had drafted the fourteenth amendment consisted of two groups. One group was radical Republicans.


Radical weren’t much in number but they were increasing in influence, but most republicans though thought of themselves as moderates. A moderate is someone who supports the mainstream views of the party, not the more extreme position of it.

The moderates and Radicals opposed Johnson’s Reconstruction policies, opposed the spread of the black code, and favored the expansion of the Republican Party in the south. Moderate were less excited over the Radicals’ goals and giving the African American their civil rights. The Radical inequality was still common in the North, and moderates did not to impose stricter laws on the south that those in the North.

Carpetbagger & Scalawags

During radical reconstruction, the Republican Party was a mixture of people who had little in common but a desire to prosper in the postwar south. This bloc of voters included freedmen and two other groups.

Northern Republicans who moved to postwar became known as carpetbaggers. The southerners gave them this insulting nickname; it referred to a cheap suitcase made from carpet scraps. The Name implied that these southerners stuffed their clothes into a carpetbag and rushed into a profit from southern misery.

In the postwar south, to be white and southerner and a Republican was to be seen as traitors. Southerners had another name form the unflattering name for white southern Republicans as well; Scalawag, originally a word in Scottish which meant scrawny cattle. Some of the scalawags were Whigs who had opposed succession.


Reconstruction in Action

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The war has just ended and it is time for the civilians to reconstruct their nation, but the war has left much misery behind it. It had destroyed much of the transportation and accumulated a total of 9,000 miles of railroad. It had devoured farm lands and farm building and machinery. Animals that were used in the farm and much of the livestock, bridges and canals all were gone. the value of the southern farm properties had declined of 70 precent.

The civil war has just destroyed many lives. Men, husbands and brothers all died leaving behind their family; their wives and their children. The north has suffered a loss of over 364,000 people and more than 38,000 African American while the south lost 260,000 soldiers and only one fifth of them were white men. The people who have participated to the war are scarred for eternity but we are trying to reconstruct our nation.

After the civil war the African Americans in the south were now free. Over 4 million freed slaves are starting their new life in a poor region with slow economic activities. As slaves they have received inadequate food and shelter but now after a lifetime of forced labor and unreasoned suffering many are homeless, famished and jobless. Some of them though have chosen to continue on working on the plantation of their previous masters, others sought jobs on the West and the cities and on the North as well.

With out our president, Abraham Lincoln who was savagely assassinated we the nation of the United states are having a little of difficulty reconstructing our country and though with our previous Vice President and now President of the Untied States, Andrew Johnson who now all the hopes and future of reconstruction are in his hand.

Andrew Johnson was born in North Carolina. After Lincoln's death it was for the Vice president to take in charge of the nation and of the politics of it.

Before the start of his presidential state Johnson had already pursuit a plan for our nation's construction. It was much similar to the one done by our respected president Lincoln's plan in 1863.

This plan proposed a whole new start of the nation. It offered pardon to southerners who swore allegiance to the Union and the state could then hold elections and rejoin the Union.

The plan for the reconstruction of our nation now is to gather the southerners and the northerners in to one same political unit. The plan to reconstruct our nation is to join the Union.