Reconstruction

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.