This document summarizes key events and policies during the Reconstruction Era in the United States after the Civil War, including Lincoln's 10% Plan for readmitting Confederate states to the Union, the Wade-Davis Bill, the establishment of the Freedmen's Bureau to assist formerly enslaved people, Lincoln's assassination, and the Radical Republican's military occupation and reconstruction plans for the South. It also discusses African American participation in southern governments during Reconstruction, resistance from white southerners through groups like the Ku Klux Klan, the end of Reconstruction and imposition of Jim Crow laws enforcing racial segregation.

1. US HISTORY
Chapter 18
The Reconstruction
Era

2. Lesson 1 – Planning Reconstruction
 Ten Percent Plan
 Name given to Lincoln’s plan
 When 10% of the voters of a state took an oath of
loyalty to the Union, the state could form a new govt.
and adopt a new constitution that banned slavery
 Lincoln wanted states to easily and quickly be able to
rejoin the Union
 LA, TN, & AR fell under Union control in 1864 & tried
to rejoin the Union under this plan…Congress refused
to recognize their representatives

3. Lesson 1 – Planning Reconstruction
 Wade-Davis Bill
 Passed by Congress in July 1864 BUT never became
law…Lincoln refused to sign it
 Requirements for Reconstruction
 1) a majority of state’s white males had to swear loyalty to
the Union
 2) only white males who swore they had not fought against
the Union could vote for delegates to a state constitutional
convention
 3) any new state constitution had to ban slavery
 4) no former Confederates could hold public office

4. Lesson 1 – Planning Reconstruction
 Freedmen’s Bureau
 Formed in March 1865
 Set up to assist African
Americans adjust to
freedom
 Helped freed people
get land & find jobs
 Set up schools and
helped with new black
colleges

5. Lesson 1 – Planning Reconstruction
 Lincoln’s Assassination
 Lincoln attended Ford’s
Theater on April 14, 1865
(five days after Civil War
ends)
 Went to see “Our
American Cousin”
 Was shot by John Wilkes
Booth (part of a wider
conspiracy to kill Lincoln,
VP Andrew Johnson, and
Secretary of State William
Seward)

8. Lesson 2 – The Radicals Take
Control
 First Reconstruction Act
 Passed in 1867
 Only affected the 10 states that
hadn’t passed the 14th
Amendment (citizenship rights)
 Set up 5 military districts…each
ran by a military commander
until new state govts. were
formed
 Also guaranteed African-
American men the right to vote
and banned former
Confederate leaders from
holding political office

9. Lesson 2 – The Radicals Take
Control Impeaching the President
 President Johnson didn’t get
along with Radical Republicans in
Congress
 Congress passed the Tenure of
Office Act – said the President
couldn’t remove people from
office w/o Senate’s approval
 Johnson disagreed, removed Sec.
of War Stanton…House of Reps
voted to impeach
 Johnson’s trial lasted three
months…was NOT removed from
office

10. Lesson 3 – The South During
Reconstruction African Americans in Government
 African Americans voted for many
Republican candidates
 Several AA’s became elected
officials
 For a short time, AA’s held the
majority in the Lower House of the
South Carolina legislature
 1869-1880 – 16 AA’s served in the
US House, 2 served in the US Senate
Hiram Revels – first African
American elected to the US
Senate

11. Lesson 3 – The South During
Reconstruction
 Carpetbaggers & Scalawags
 Scalawags – name given by
former Confederates to
Southern whites who
supported Republican
Reconstruction of the South
 Carpetbaggers – northern
whites who moved to the
South after the
war…Southerners felt they
were being taken advantage of

12. Lesson 3 – The South During
Reconstruction
 Resistance to Reconstruction
 Many Southern whites did not
want African Americans to have
more rights… refused to rent
them land, give them store
credit, & hire them
 Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
 secret society that used fear
and violence to intimidate AA’s
 Burned homes, businesses,
churches, schools, etc.
 Threatened, beat, and killed
thousands of AA’s

13. Lesson 4 – The Post-
Reconstruction Era Amnesty Act
 Passed in 1872
 Pardoned most former
Confederates
 Changed politics in the
South…Democrats
gained control

14. Lesson 4 – The Post-
Reconstruction Era
 Election of 1876
 Hayes (R) ran vs.
Tilden (D)…needed
185 electoral votes
 Results – Tilden 184
Hayes 165
(20 disputed votes) Tilden Hayes

15. Lesson 4 – The Post-
Reconstruction Era Compromise of 1877
 Hayes received the 20
votes to become
President
 South received:
 Financial aid
 Removal of federal
troops from the South
 Let the South handle
race relations

16. Lesson 4 – The Post-
Reconstruction Era Voting Restrictions
 Poll tax – a tax of a fixed amount per person that
had to be paid before the person could vote
 Literacy test – a method used to prevent African
Americans from voting by requiring prospective
voters to read and write at a specific level
 Grandfather clause* – a clause that allowed
individuals who did not pass the literacy test to
vote if their fathers or grandfathers had voted
before Reconstruction began
 *use this definition for test

17. The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted
between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public
facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with a supposedly
"separate but equal" status for black Americans. The separation led to treatment,
financial support and accommodations that were usually inferior to those provided
for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social
disadvantages. De jure segregation mainly applied to theSouthern United States.
Northern segregation was generally de facto, with patterns of segregation in
housing enforced by covenants, bank lending practices, and job discrimination,
including discriminatory union practices for decades.
Some examples of Jim Crow laws are the segregation of public schools, public
places, and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants,
and drinking fountains for whites and blacks. The U.S. military was also
segregated. These Jim Crow Laws were separate from the 1800–1866 Black
Codes, which had previously restricted the civil rightsand civil liberties of African
Americans. State-sponsored school segregation was declared unconstitutional by
the Supreme Court of the United States in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education.
Generally, the remaining Jim Crow laws were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of
1964[1] and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Lesson 4 – The Post-
Reconstruction Era

18. Lesson 4 – The Post-
Reconstruction Era Jim Crow Laws
 Laws that set up segregation
 kept blacks and whites
separate
 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) –
Supreme Court case said
segregation was legal as long
as it was “separate but equal”
 Brown v. Board of Education
(1954) - finally overturned
Plessy v. Ferguson