This document contains 16 figures from a chapter about the Reconstruction era from 1865 to 1877 following the American Civil War. The figures show political cartoons, photographs, illustrations and maps related to key events and people during Reconstruction, including the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the establishment of the Freedmen's Bureau to aid freed slaves, impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson, passage of the 15th Amendment granting black men the right to vote, and violence by white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan against blacks and Republicans during this period.
Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War, a traveling exhibition for libraries, was organized by the National Constitution Center and the American Library Association Public Programs Office. The traveling exhibition has been made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War is based on an exhibition of the same name developed by the National Constitution Center.
Black History Is American History Bhm 2009ojohnson1
This is the Black History Month 2009 presentation shown during this years event. These slides were also compiled in the Education Booklet provided at the event as well.
Lincoln, War, and the Slaughter of the American Working Class.docxsmile790243
Lincoln, War, and the Slaughter of the American Working Class
The American Civil War 1861-1865
The American Civil War is still, without doubt, the most traumatic experience in American History. Far more so than the American Revolution, the World Wars, and 9/11.
New estimates put the number of soldier deaths at 750,000 or above. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/civil-war-toll-up-by-20-percent-in-new-estimate.html
This does not include the many civilian deaths through disease, starvation, heartbreak, etc.
About 22 million lived in the North and 9 million in the South at the time of the war. There was about a 3.5 to 2.5 ratio of deaths North to South, but this means that the South lost a greater percentage of its population.
About 36,000 African American soldiers were killed.
In the following slides, we’ll recount the seminal events leading up to the war.
2
We can go back to the very foundations of the United States when the Fugitive Slave Clause (Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3) and the 3/5th Clause (Article 1, Section 2. Par. 3) of the Constitution effectively legalized slavery without explicitly mentioning slavery.
Also, Amendment 10 “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” leaves the issue of slavery and other legal, commercial, and social matters up to the states.
Arguments and ill feelings regarding these issues began almost immediately, and tensions almost led to violence in 1820 when the Missouri Compromise staved off revolt and kept the balance between slave state and free state representation.
Texas independence from Mexico followed by its attempt to join the U.S. created tensions before and after the delayed admission in December of 1845, during the Polk Administration.
Polk’s (murderous?) manipulation of international politics led to massive gains in U.S. territory. He gave Mexico little chance to a avoid war that resulted in the loss of the that nations northern half, and he negotiated for the acquisition and consolidation of the Northwest, completing the U.S. march to the Pacific.
This created all kinds of problems for the slavery balance. The Wilmot Proviso, which might have solved the problem, though admittedly in the non-extentionist favor, was rejected. When California asked to join the Union as a free state, it engendered yet another crisis. Half of the state was below the Missouri Compromise line. There was a call in Congress to split California into one free and one slave state.
Then Clay (again) proposed a compromise that delayed secession, but may have ensured it at the same time.
Battle of San Jacinto
April 21, 1836
1845
O’Sullivan
Popularizes Term
Manifest Destiny
Clays Compromise 1850
California Enters Union as a Free State
Territories to Have No Restrictions on Slavery
Enforce Fugitive Slave Law
No Slaves in D.C.
Recall from the last presen ...
Arkansas History Through Music part _one__6-15-10__John Jarboe
Arkansas History Through Music is a musical journey through the past of Arkansas containing detailed information about the state, it's citizens, and it's many musicians.
*Cartoons, Engravings and Etchings from ReconstructionLisa M Lane
*NOTE: This was a slideshow with audio. See it now on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZkEvXKRPu0&list=UURtoTdtsenEIQ5Ll8BiuaeQ.
Brief slide show with audio about Reconstruction in the south following the American Civil War.
U.S. history slide lecture detailing a "landscape of destruction" at Civil War's end, and how the issue of freedom for the slaves evolved during the war as slavery itself was destroyed.
2. FIGURE 16.1
In this political cartoon by Thomas Nast,
which appeared in Harper’s Weekly in
October 1874, the “White League”
shakes hands with the Ku Klux Klan over
a shield that shows a couple weeping
over a baby. In the background, a
schoolhouse burns, and a lynched
freedman is shown hanging from a tree.
Above the shield, which is labeled
“Worse than Slavery,” the text reads,
“The Union as It Was: This Is a White
Man’s Government.”
4. FIGURE 16.3
Thomas Le Mere took this albumen silver print (a) of Abraham Lincoln in April 1863. Le
Mere thought a standing pose of Lincoln would be popular. In this political cartoon from
1865 (b), Lincoln and his vice president, Andrew Johnson, endeavor to sew together
the torn pieces of the Union.
5. FIGURE 16.4
In The Assassination of President Lincoln (1865), by Currier and Ives, John Wilkes
Booth shoots Lincoln in the back of the head as he sits in the theater box with his wife,
Mary Todd Lincoln, and their guests, Major Henry R. Rathbone and Clara Harris.
6. FIGURE 16.5
The Freedmen’s Bureau, as shown in this 1866 illustration from Frank Leslie’s
Illustrated Newspaper, created many schools for black elementary school students.
Many of the teachers who provided instruction in these southern schools, though by no
means all, came from northern states.
7. FIGURE 16.6
The caption of this image reads, “The Freedman’s Bureau! An agency to keep the
Negro in idleness at the expense of the white man. Twice vetoed by the President, and
made a law by Congress. Support Congress & you support the Negro. Sustain the
President & you protect the white man.”
8. FIGURE 16.7
The map above shows the five military districts established by the 1867 Military
Reconstruction Act and the date each state rejoined the Union. Tennessee was not
included in the Reconstruction Acts as it had already been readmitted to the Union at
the time of their passage.
9. FIGURE 16.8
This illustration by Theodore R. Davis, which was captioned “The Senate as a court of
impeachment for the trial of Andrew Johnson,” appeared in Harper’s Weekly in 1868.
Here, the House of Representatives brings its grievances against Johnson to the
Senate during impeachment hearings.
10. FIGURE 16.9
The Fifteenth Amendment. Celebrated May 19th, 1870, a commemorative print by Thomas Kelly,
celebrates the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment with a series of vignettes highlighting black
rights and those who championed them. Portraits include Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, and
John Brown, as well as black leaders Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and Hiram Revels.
Vignettes include the celebratory parade for the amendment’s passage, “The Ballot Box is open to
us,” and “Our representative Sits in the National Legislature.”
11. FIGURE 16.10
The First Vote, by Alfred R. Waud, appeared in Harper’s Weekly in 1867. The Fifteenth
Amendment gave black men the right to vote for the first time.
12. FIGURE 16.11
Hiram Revels served as a preacher throughout the Midwest before settling in
Mississippi in 1866. When he was elected by the Mississippi state legislature in 1870,
he became the country’s first African American senator.
13. FIGURE 16.12
After emancipation, many fathers who had been sold from their families as slaves—a
circumstance illustrated in the engraving above, which shows a male slave forced to
leave his wife and children—set out to find those lost families and rebuild their lives.
14. FIGURE 16.13
The Ku Klux Klan posted circulars such
as this 1867 West Virginia broadside to
warn blacks and white sympathizers of
the power and ubiquity of the Klan.
15. FIGURE 16.14
This illustration by Frank Bellew, captioned “Visit of the Ku-Klux,” appeared in Harper’s
Weekly in 1872. A hooded Klansman surreptitiously points a rifle at an unaware black
family in their home.
16. FIGURE 16.15
In this illustration by Charles Harvey Weigall, captioned “The Louisiana Murders—
Gathering the Dead and Wounded” and published in Harper’s Weekly in 1873,
survivors of the Colfax Massacre tend to those involved in the conflict. The dead and
wounded all appear to be black, and two white men on horses watch over them.
Another man stands with a gun pointed at the survivors.
17. FIGURE 16.16
This map illustrates the results of the presidential election of 1876. Tilden, the
Democratic candidate, swept the South, with the exception of the contested states of
Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina.