Covers the beginning of the Reconstruction Era, focusing on the effects of the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 and 1868, the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, the election of Ulysses S. Grant, and the establishment of the Ku Klux Klan.

1. A SURVEY OF
AMERICAN HISTORY
Unit 3: Reconstruction and Urbanization
Part 2: Reconstruction Begins

2. THADDEUS STEVENS
• House Representative from
Pennsylvania and leader of the
Radical Republicans.
• Instrumental in securing the
passage of the Thirteenth
Amendment in 1865.
• Radical abolitionist who
believed in nothing less than
absolute equality before the law
between African Americans and
white Americans.
• Drafted the Reconstruction
Acts of 1867 and 1868 and
guided them through Congress.

3. WHAT WAS
RECONSTRUCTION?
‘Reconstruction’ refers to both the
physical rebuilding of Southern
infrastructure after the destruction
of the Civil War and the moral
reform of Southern society to
advance a culture of racial equality.

4. WHAT WAS
RECONSTRUCTION?
Technically, the Reconstruction Era
is the period between the end of
the Civil War in 1865 and the
Compromise of 1877. However, the
Reconstruction Era did not come
into full force until the passage of
the Reconstruction Acts of 1867.

5. THE RECONSTRUCTION
ACTS OF 1867 AND 1868
• Drafted and passed during the
time in which the Congress
refused to seat representatives
from states that had not ratified
the Fourteenth Amendment.
• These states included all of the
former Confederate States
except for Tennessee, which
had ratified the amendment.
• Divided these states into five
military districts, each of which
would be commanded by a
general who would establish a
provisional district government.

6. THE RECONSTRUCTION
ACTS OF 1867 AND 1868
• Required each state to draft a
new state constitution and have
this constitution approved by
the Congress before allowing
Congressional representation.
• Allowed African American men
to vote for and be elected as
Congressional representatives,
and made former Confederate
officials ineligible for election.
• Vetoed by Andrew Johnson,
but passed again by the
Congress in several overrides
of the Presidential veto.

7. THE RECONSTRUCTION
ACTS OF 1867 AND 1868
• Essentially resulted in the
military occupation of the South
by federal troops, as if the
South was a foreign nation that
had recently been conquered.
• Southerners who supported
Reconstruction in their states
were known as ‘scalawags.’
• Northerners who moved to the
South to exploit the new
political and economic
opportunities that arose there
were known as ‘carpetbaggers.’

8. JOHNSON’S IMPEACHMENT
Andrew Johnson’s
Secretary of War,
Edwin Stanton, and the
Commanding General
of the United States
Army, Ulysses S. Grant,
worked to enforce the
Reconstruction Acts in
the South. This put the
two of them at odds
with Johnson.
After Johnson publicly
suggested that he
would dismiss Stanton,
the Congress quickly
passed the Tenure of
Office Act to prohibit
him from doing this.
Johnson nevertheless
replaced Stanton with
Grant and came into
conflict with Congress.

9. GRANT BECOMES
THE PRESIDENT
• In March 1868, the House of
Representatives subjected
Johnson to an impeachment
trial, attempting to remove him
for his intentional violation of
the Tenure of Office Act.
• The trial lasted almost three
months. Ultimately, the House
voted to impeach Johnson but
the Senate fell one vote short of
impeaching him.
• The impeachment process
secured Johnson’s defeat in the
Presidential election of 1868.

10. GRANT BECOMES
THE PRESIDENT
• Ulysses S. Grant won the
election as the Republican
candidate for the Presidency.
• Grant’s victory was narrow, with
a margin of only 300,000 votes.
• Since his winning total included
500,000 African American
votes, his victory proved that
the Republicans could maintain
power by extending rights to
African Americans.
• Grant won election by using a
strategy now known as ‘waving
the bloody shirt.’

11. THE KU KLUX KLAN
In 1865, in response
to the outcome of the
Civil War, the Ku Klux
Klan was founded. It
appeared first in
Pennsylvania, then
spread into the South.
Between 1865 and
1869, its members
violently opposed
Reconstruction.
The Klan used lynching
to kill and intimidate
innocent African
Americans with recently
expanded rights. But it
also targeted white
supporters of
Reconstruction,
particularly those in the
South: carpetbaggers
and scalawags.

12. WAVING THE BLOODY SHIRT
• The phrase ‘waving the bloody shirt’ dates to 1871, when Benjamin Franklin
Butler gave a speech denouncing the KKK to the House of Representatives.
• Butler spoke of an incident in which carpetbaggers had been attacked by the
Ku Klux Klan, and subsequent urban legends suggested that he held up the
bloody shirt of one of the victims and waved it around.
• The phrase now refers to an effort to win sympathy for a cause by exploiting
memories of those who were injured or killed by fighting for the same cause.

13. WAVING THE BLOODY SHIRT
• In the election of 1869, Grant ‘waved the bloody shirt’ by repeatedly
reminding voters of all the sacrifices that the North had made in the Civil War,
and by pointing out all the ways in which the South refused to accept defeat.
• When he came to office, Southern recidivism was one of the main issues he
had to handle, particularly in the form of the KKK and its aggressive nativism.
• In other words, although the literal battles of the Civil War were over, the
battles over attitudes and beliefs were only just beginning...

14. A SURVEY OF
AMERICAN HISTORY
Unit 3: Reconstruction and Urbanization
Part 2: Reconstruction Begins