USHC Standard 3: The student will demonstrate an understanding of how regional and ideological differences led to the Civil War and an understanding of the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on democracy in America. USHC 3.3: Analyze the effects of Reconstruction on the southern states and on the role of the federal government, including the impact of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments on opportunities for African Americans.

The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments By amending the Constitution, Congress and the states expanded democracy to protect the rights of the freedmen.

13th Amendment: Freed slaves throughout the United States, and recognition of this amendment was required of southern states before they could form new governments

14th Amendment: Overturned the Dred Scott decision by recognizing the citizenship of African Americans; it upheld the right of all citizens to “equal protection” before the laws and “due process” of law

15th Amendment: passed to ensure that the right of all male citizens to vote, in the North as well as in the South, would not be denied based on “race, creed (religion) or previous condition of servitude.” It was motivated by the desire to ensure the right to vote, which belongs to all citizens, for African Americans, and also by the desire of the Republican Party to establish its political power in the South.

The national government enforced these amendments by stationing federal troops in the South to protect these rights despite terrorist tactics of the Ku Klux Klan and other vigilante groups.

What did these amendments mean for African Americans in the U. S What did these amendments mean for African Americans in the U.S. socially? As a result of the 13th and 14th amendments, African Americans were able to carve out resemblance (likeness) of social freedom for themselves. Many freedmen left the plantation seeking a taste of freedom or looking for relatives sold “down the river”. Some black families were reunited Most African Americans soon returned to the area they knew best; their former plantations After the Civil War, some African Americans moved West, such as Exodusters who went to Kansas Most freedmen stayed in the South

African Americans also formed their own churches where they were free to worship as they wished, out from under the watchful eye of the master The Freedman’s Bureau established schools for the freedman who had been denied the right to an education under slavery Black colleges were established by northern philanthropists and religious organizations Booker T. Washington established the Tuskegee Institute Many freedmen were hungry for education and this opportunity significantly impacted their lives

Tuskegee Institute Booker T. Washington

What did these amendments mean for African Americans in the U. S What did these amendments mean for African Americans in the U.S. politically? Freedom, citizenship and the vote granted by the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments and protected by the army had a temporary but significant impact on political opportunity for African Americans As a result of the 15th amendment, freedmen were able to exercise the right to vote and were elected to state legislatures and to Congress Most southern governments were NOT dominated by freedmen, but they were dominated by sympathetic Republicans

Southerners applied the terms carpetbaggers and scalawags to white Republicans in the South Carpetbaggers: white Republicans who came to the South from the North as missionaries and entrepreneurs Scalawags: southern-born Republicans who wanted to promote the rebuilding of the South in cooperation with the Republican Reconstruction government

Carpetbaggers Scalawags

Newly enfranchised African Americans (African Americans who could vote) made up the majority of some southern state legislatures, as they made up the majority of the population in some southern states State governments established social service programs and public schools which improved conditions for all people African Americans were also elected to the United States House of Representatives and the Senate as Republicans, representing southern states

What did these amendments mean for African Americans in the U. S What did these amendments mean for African Americans in the U.S. economically? African Americans made significant social and political progress during Reconstruction, but they made little economic progress The Freedman’s Bureau helped to negotiate labor contracts between former slaves and landowners and provided a system of courts to protect the rights of the freedmen For a very short while the Freedmen’s Bureau distributed parts of confiscated land to former slaves This land, however, was returned to its previous white owners once southerners were pardoned by President Andrew Johnson Therefore, promises of “forty acres and a mule” made by the federal government for former slaves went unfulfilled

Without land, freedmen, most of whom only knew farming, had little opportunity to support their families With the help of the Freedman’s Bureau, white landowners and former slaves entered into sharecropping agreements Sharecropper: a tenant farmer who pays as rent a share of the crop Crop Lien System: a credit system that became widely used by farmers in the United States in the South from the 1860s to the 1920s

MAIN IDEA: Although freedmen gained some measure of social independence when they moved out of the quarters to plots of land far from the “big house”, sharecropping and the crop lien system left former slaves in a position of economic dependence and destitution, especially as the price of cotton fell

MAIN IDEA: During Reconstruction, African Americans, protected by the federal government, were able to exercise their political, social and economic rights as United States citizens despite the opposition of Southerners.