...President Andrew Johnson did not exile, imprison, or execute any Confederate leaders with the end of the Civil War. Instead, there was political conflict between parties with different factions of individuals wanting very different things (Boyer, page 470). In fact, there was only a small group lead by Senator Charles Sumner and Congressman Thaddeus Stevens who supported black suffrage. Even before the Civil War, there was conflict about Lincoln’s Plan for reconstruction. Lincoln wanted to incorporate ex-Confederate members while other Republicans “envisioned a slower readmission process that would bar even more ex-Confederates from political life” (Boyer, page 471). The Presidential reconstruction plan consisted of granting pardons to disqualified...
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...After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson took over and began his lenient Reconstruction plan for the defeated South. A program of rapid restores the U.S status. He was able to legislate “Black Codes” the preserved system of slavery. The Republican opposed Johnson’s reconstruction plan, and passed the Tenure of Office Act in March of 1867. The Act was put out to prohibit the President remove important government officials. President Johnson long wanted to dismiss Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War. Johnson suspended Stanton on August 12, and appointed General Grant in Stanton place. Johnson hop challenge the Tenure of Office Act by doing so. The Congress later overruled Stanton’s suspension, and take back his...
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...After the civil war, most of the lands were destroyed on both sides, those who suffered most were the Southerners. The whole country was moaning and burying their dead. Lots of people were homeless especially the African Americans but it was the born of freedom. People had to return to their normal daily lives. Everything has been destroyed and they have to try and forgive each other and see the way forward. Andrew Johnson who became the president after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated had to find ways and reconstruction the nation. There were three plans for Reconstruction, Lincoln’s plan, Johnson’s plan and the Radical Republican plan. Lincoln’s plan was to unify the nation after the war, therefore issued the Proclamation of Amnesty and...
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...President Andrew Johnson Although Andrew Johnson was from the Democratic Party, in 1864, Lincoln chose Johnson as his running mate under the National Union Party banner. When Lincoln died April 15, 1865, Johnson became president. He did not have a Vice President. Johnson now had the job of trying to heal the country after the Civil War left the country in ruins. President Andrew Johnson lifted himself out of extreme poverty to become President of the United States. He was a man with little education who climbed the political ladder and held many different high offices. As a strict constitutionalist, Johnson believed in limiting the powers of the federal government. President Johnson was one of the most bellicose Presidents who “fought” Congress, critics, and many others. President Andrew Johnson faced numerous problems post-Civil War Era including reconstructing the Southern states to combine peacefully with the Union, his battles with Congress, and his career ending impeachment. Following Lincoln’s tragic assassination, President Andrew Johnson took on the accountability of making Reconstruction a reality. Andrew Johnson wanted to use Lincoln’s ideas of reconstruction but in a modified form. Since Congress would be in recess for eight more months Johnson decided to go ahead with his plan. Johnson was initially left to devise a Reconstruction policy without legislative intervention, as Congress was not due to meet again until December 1865. Radical Republicans told the...
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...Assuming the role of a Radical Republican Senator including arguing the Radical Republicans position of Reconstruction requires examining the highlights of Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction views for the Union, which include developing an oath under which Caucasian southerners would have to accept upon regaining personal civil including political rights furthermore all property excluding slaves would be given back to the owners. Confederate hierarchies including individuals whose property was worth a specific amount of money were discounted from taking the oath in which these individuals had to apply for an independent pardon. Under Johnson’s plan states had draft new congress including the election of state officials including congress for recognition of new state government and martial law retracted from the state. Ex-confederates influenced Andrew Johnson by methods of threatening his life, which made Johnson conform to ex-confederate influences by writing pardon after pardon while in the public spotlight Andrew Johnson’s proclaim to Reconstruction was complete. Deriving from Johnson’s absurd claim were few followers representing Moderate Republicans who conformed to Johnson while possessing some views similar to Radical Republicans who openly opposed Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction methods. Radical Republicans idea of Reconstruction centralized on making a mirror copy of the North out of the South while Moderate Republicans hold no regard for social revolution or equality...
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...necessity that we remain in control with complete power over both the north and the south. In order to achieve this we must implement a reconstruction of the United States. Restoring the south to the way it was prior to the war is an important issue that we must address and it should take president over the other issues that will arise on the path to reconstruction. In order to rebuild the South to its pre war stature we will need to establish new states, establish new governments, and rejuvenate the economy of the south. The affect of the civil war on the south has been total devastation that includes economic devastation, land devastation and personal devastation. There has been a complete shutdown of all transportation of goods which means that the goods and materials can not be moved from one place to another. For example, the steel that was created in Alabama can not get to Georgia where it is needed to build factories. The main points of my reconstruction plan are that we need to punish the South for their acts of treason in not supporting the Union and we need to ensure that we protect the rights of the freed slaves. If we do not impose stricter polices the South will revert back to the same social and political way of thinking that started this war in the first place (Allard, 2006). What are the consequences of the reconstruction plan that I am proposing? One consequence is stricter federal intervention the South. Confederate officials will no longer be allowed to...
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...with a tragedy to the nation, which was Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. He was an outstanding president, a great man, and could not be replaced. However, now he needed to be replaced because the country needed to be ran and the next in line was Lincoln’s vice president, Andrew Johnson. He was forced into a leading position during one of the nation’s most difficult times, the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, and received a lot of attention, mostly negative. Many suspected him of being very biased towards the South and this ultimately lead to a lot of conflict between Johnson and Congress. The Republicans of Congress at the time, mostly the Radicals, wanted to remove Johnson from office as soon as possible for a number of reasons. First, his plan for reconstruction after the Civil War was much too lenient towards the South. Johnson’s “laid back” plan gave many opportunities for Southern states to move around the rules because none of his terms were even requirements. States chose not to follow his...
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...Andrew Johnson gives truth to the saying that in America, anything is possible. Born in a log cabin in North Carolina to nearly illiterate parents, Andrew Johnson struggled with the basics of reading, grammar, or math until he met his wife at the early age of seventeen. Abraham Lincoln in the eyes of many people was America's greatest President, Andrew Johnson, his successor ranked as one of the worst. In the eyes of many people Andrew Johnson was one of the worst to have ever served as President at the end of the American Civil War. Johnsons gross incompetence in federal office and his incredible miscalculation of the extent of public support for his policies, Johnson is judged as a great failure in making a satisfying and just peace to the United States. Andrew Johnson was known to have been a rigid, dictatorial racist who was unable to compromise or even attempt to accept a political reality at odds with his own ideas. Instead of forging a compromise between Radical Republicans and moderates, his actions united the opposition against him. His bullheaded opposition to the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Fourteenth Amendment eliminated all hope of using presidential...
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...After the Civil War, the United States was in ruins. The Southern society and economy were destroyed, and the freed slaves were without money, homes, and jobs. The government was split in two and did not know how to move forward. The changes made, or lack thereof, from the end of the Civil War until around 1877 are accumulated into what is known as the Reconstruction Era. President Lincoln’s Reconstruction plan thought that the federal government should be fairly lenient towards the southern states, and thought that only 10% of the state’s population should be loyal to the union. When Lincoln was assassinated on April 11, 1865, his vice president Andrew Johnson took over. Johnson’s plan was similar to Lincoln’s, but he wanted to be harsh on...
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...Abstract In this essay you will learn about the civil war, reconstruction, the progressive era, the great depression, and the civil rights era. Also the American Anti-Slavery and Civil rights Timeline, 1854-1896 during the civil war era. Identify and describe two examples of the U.S. Authority Expansion between the beginning of the U.S. Civil War and the end of the Civil War Era? (1) The twelve years following the Civil War carried consequences for the nation’s future. Reconstruction helped set the pattern for future race relations and defined the federal government’s role in promoting equality. This section describes President Lincoln’s and Johnson’s plan to readmit the confederate states to the Union as well as the more stringent Congressional plan; it also describes the power struggle between President Andrew Johnson and congress, including the vote over the president’s impeachment. This section also identifies the groups that ruled the southern state governments from 1866-1877 and explains why Reconstruction ended in 1877. (2) Immediately following the war, all-white Southern legislatures passed black code which denied blacks the right purchase or rent land. These efforts to force former slaves to work on plantations led Congressional Republicans to seize control of Reconstruction from President Andrew Johnson, deny representatives from the former Confederate states their Congressional seats, and pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and draft...
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...CHAPTER 22: THE ORDEAL OF RECONSTRUCTION The Problems of Peace Know: Reconstruction 1. "Dismal indeed was the picture presented by the war-wracked South when the rattle of musketry faded." Explain. Not only had an age perished, but a civilization had collapsed, economically and socially. Cities were reduced to rubble, there was no economic life; banks and businesses collapsed. The transportation system had broken down completely. Agriculture was hopelessly crippled. The planter aristocrats were humbled. Southerners were resentful and in denial. Freedmen Define Freedom Know: Exodusters, American Methodist Episcopal Church, American Missionary Association 2. How did African-Americans respond to emancipation in the decade following the war? Many southerners resisted this so they killed many slaves, etc. Some slaves were loyal to their master and resisted the liberating Union armies, other slaves' pent up bitterness burst forth violently on the day of liberation. Many newly emancipated slaves joined union troops in pillaging and some slaves got revenge. When the masters were forced to tell their slaves that they were free, some slaves were suspicious but later they celebrated. Emancipated slaves took on journeys to test their freedom, find lost family, look for jobs, etc. The Freedmen's Bureau Know: Freedmen's Bureau, General Oliver O. Howard 3. Assess the effectiveness of the Freedmen's Bureau. It taught ~ 200,000 blacks how to read and many former slaves...
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...southern forces and the government of the Confederacy crumbled, there were southern sympathizers who still refused to back down. They would not accept the war won victory of the North. Among these was a Maryland native and famed actor, John Wilkes Booth, who developed plans during the war to kidnap Lincoln and his advisors and hold them as bargaining chips. The end of the war did not quash Booth’s plans, in fact, it only strengthened and modified them. He blamed Lincoln for all that had befallen the south and conspired with a group of friends to kill Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State William Seward and General Ulysses S. Grant on April 14, 1865. His cohorts did not complete their end of the plan, but on that night, Booth entered Lincoln’s box at Ford’s Theater and shot the 16th President in the head and changed the course of history. The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth was not successful in protecting the South after the Civil War as Booth predicted; but instead, enraged Northern representatives in Congress, installed a new president who was unable to negotiate Lincoln’s envisioned moderate “restoration” of the South, and evoked a punitive “reconstruction” that would produce ill will between both sides for decades to come. Lincoln offered moderate terms for the seceded states to re-enter the union prior to Lee’s surrender. Confederates would only have to vow an oath of loyalty to the Union to receive their pardon. ...
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...Reconstruction • Lincoln dies - Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat, becomes president Johnson the Politician • Johnson owned a few slaves and defended slavery and "states' rights" • But he was a small time farmer who did not own slaves early in his life. • He got elected by protecting the rights of non-slaveholding yeoman farmers • He proposed the Homestead Act • But he cared more about the Union than he did about slavery, so when the South seceded, he was the only Southern senator to remain loyal to the Union • That is why the republicans chose him to be Lincoln’s vice-presidential candidate in the 1864 election, so that border states with large slave-holding populations would vote for the Republican candidate • But when Lincoln died, Johnson implemented his own Reconstruction Plan during the first 8 months of his term as president. (It was based on Lincoln’s “Ten Percent Plan”) Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan • Handed out thousands of pardons to Confederate soldiers and politicians • Enforced Lincoln’s plan to admit states if they ratified the 13th Amendment • Took back the land promised to the slaves of Edisto Island, South Carolina (“40 Acres and a Mule”) • But, Johnson's plan left rebuilding the South in the hands of the same people who controlled the Southern governments during slavery • “States Rights” , to Johnson, meant not just letting the South rebuild what the Union army destroyed...
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...Following the end of the Civil War, the United States entered a period known as Reconstruction. Reconstruction was essentially a time that was aimed at rebuilding and unifying the United States. This, however, was not at all an easy task. The United States was still trying to recover from the devastating, painful repercussions that had been embedded in the hearts and minds of countless people. Nevertheless, the nation needed to be restored and/or rebuilt immediately. The Reconstruction Era set out to do just that. It was a time that posed many debates and questions. For instance, what role would the federal government have in securing civil rights? In addition, what would the stipulations be in permitting the Confederate states to rejoin the Union and what should be done with the emancipated slaves? There were ultimately three main plans laid out in order to crack the many unanswered questions. The plans were as follows: President Lincoln’s Plan, President Johnson’s Plan, and Congress’s Plan. Ultimately,...
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...Americans' rights. What were some of the long-range effects of that government posture? The Union Victory in the Civil War in 1865 granted freedom to approximately 4 million slaves, however, the process of rebuilding the South during the Reconstruction period 1865-1877 brought a lot of challenges. In 1865 and 1866 under the supervision of President Andrew Johnson, new Southern state legislatives passed the “black codes” to control the labor and behavior of former slaves and other African Americans. During the Radical Reconstruction in 1869, new enfranchised blacks had a voice in the government for the first time in American history, winning election southern state legislatives, including U.S. Congress. However, forces like Ku Klux Klan reversed changes brought by Radical Reconstruction in a violent reaction that restored white supremacy in the South. In 1865, President Andrew Johnson announced his plans for Reconstruction. According to him, the southern states had never given up their right to govern themselves, and the federal government had no right to determine voting requirements. Under Johnson’s Presidential Reconstruction, all lands that had been confiscated by Union Army would be reverted to their prewar owners. Due to Johnson’s leniency, many southern states in 1865 and 1866 successfully passed laws known as the “black codes,” which were designed to restrict freed blacks’ activity and ensure their availability as a labor force. These codes brought a lot of tension...
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