Presidential Reconstruction

Reconstruction: Juneteenth Day, presidency, Freedmen's Bureau, and review

Objective: I can describe the early responses to the end of the Civil War by  describing the policies of the Freedmen’s Bureau.

Multiple Choice

How long after the Emancipation Proclamation did the enslave Texans find out that they were free?

• 1 year

• 2 years

• 2 months

• 1 month

Multiple Choice

Juneteenth is also known as-

• Labor Day

• MLK Day

• Presidents Day

• Emancipation Day

Multiple Choice

What is Reconstruction?

• To get rid of

• A change to the constitution

  or law.

• Laws limiting the rights of African Americans passed by Southern governments after the Civil War.

• The effort, after the Civil War, to reorganize the seceded states and bring them back into the Union.

​Presidential Reconstruction

• President Andrew Johnson, a Southerner from Tennessee, had two major aims. First, Southern states had to create new governments that were loyal to the Union and that respected federal authority. Second, slavery had to be abolished once and for all.

​President Johnson's Reconstruction Plan

1 .A former Confederate state could rejoin the Union once it had written a new state constitution, elected a new state government, repealed its act of secession, and canceled its war debts.

2. Every Southern state had to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery throughout the United States.

Open Ended

Under Johnson’s plan, each former Confederate state could be readmitted to the Union after it met which 3 conditions?

​Black Codes

​The Black Codes were laws passed in 1865 and 1866 in the former Confederate states to limit the rights and freedoms of African Americans.

• ​The black codes served three purposes. The first was to limit the rights of freedmen.

• ​The second purpose of the black codes was to help planters find workers to replace their slaves.

• ​The third purpose of the black codes was to keep freedmen at the bottom of the social order in the South.

​Freedmen's Bureau

• ​Ultimately, “40 acres and a mule” died when Congress refused to take land away from Southern whites.

  The most lasting benefit of the Freedmen's Bureau was in education. Thousands of former slaves, both young and old, flocked to free schools built by the bureau.

​Congressional Reconstruction

​Congressional Reconstruction Congressional Reconstruction began in 1866, when Republican leaders in Congress worked to give freedmen the full rights of citizenship.Congress passed, and the states ratified, the Fourteenth Amendment, which gave citizenship to all people born in the United States and equal protection of the law to all.

Southern Reconstruction

Under the Military Reconstruction Act, federal troops returned to the South in 1867 and began registering voters. New Southern voters helped former Union general Ulysses S. Grant become president. In 1869, Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment, which protected the right of African American men to vote. Many blacks were elected to state government offices during this third phase of Reconstruction.

​​The End of Reconstruction

Southern whites used legal means as well as violence to keep blacks from voting or taking office. Reconstruction officially ended in 1877, when President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew all remaining federal troops from the South once he took office after the disputed election of 1876.

​​Reconstruction Reversed

After Reconstruction, African Americans lost educational and political gains. Many Southern states closed schools that had been opened to freedmen. They also passed laws designed to keep blacks from voting. Jim Crow laws and the Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson legalized many forms of discrimination against blacks.

​Responding to Segregation

Many African Americans responded to segregation by leaving the South. Many migrated to other parts of the United States. Those who remained in the South worked hard to improve their lives.

Let's review...

Multiple Choice

What did the 13th amendment accomplish?

• It mad slavery illegal

• Grants citizenship & equal protection

• Guarantees voting rights

Multiple Choice

The 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution...

• Gave African Americans citizenship

• Gave African Americans the right to vote

• Freed the slaves

• Gave landowners the right to sharecrop

Multiple Choice

What did the 15th amendment accomplish?

• Grants citizenship & equal protection

• Right to bear arms

• Bans slavery

• Guarantees voting rights

Multiple Select

Choose 2 examples of how the Freedmen’s Bureau helped poor whites and African Americans:

• Built schools

• Controlled free blacks' lives

• Supervised labor contracts

• Built casinos