1. Reconstruction Era in GA
(Officially ended in 1877)

2. Key Questions 1. How do we bring the South back into the Union?
4. What branch of government should control the process of Reconstruction?
2. How do we rebuild the South after its destruction during the war?
3. How do we integrate and protect newly- emancipated black freedmen?

3. Lincoln’s Plan Reconstruction Era
Lincoln had a plan to rebuild the south and restore it to the Union
It was to be quick and easy
Everyone would be pardoned(except high ranking officials) and when 10% of the voters take a loyalty oath the state would be permitted back into the Union
Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (December 8, 1863)
Replace majority rule with “loyal rule” in the South.
He didn’t consult Congress regarding Reconstruction.

4. President Johnson’s Plan
Johnson takes over when Lincoln is assassinated
His plan was much like Lincoln’s but expanded the group that would not be granted the general pardon
In this group he included large property owners and they had to apply to the president for their pardon
Declared that Reconstruction was complete because the war goals were met, national unity and an end to slavery

5. Radical Republican Plan
Congress and the Radical Republicans take over in 1866, (felt it was their job to be in control Reconstruction)
They returned the South to military control, and overruled Johnson’s veto
Passed the 14th and 15th Amendments
By 1877 Army intervention in the South ceases and Republican control collapses

6. Freedman’s Bureau
Key agency during Reconstruction; Bureau of Refugees, Freedman, and Abandoned Lands
Initiated by President Lincoln in March of 1865 and intended to last for one year
Was part of the War Dept.
Designed to help former slaves and poor whites cope with their everyday problems
Main job was to help set up work opportunities and supervise labor contracts, as well as help with education and other daily necessities like food and clothing

7. Making a living doing what they know
Sharecropping
Tenant Farming
Landowners provide the land for farming, the tools, the shelter, the seed, the animals and the fertilizers
Worker agrees to share the harvest for the use of the land and the credit of supplies
Landowners provide the land for farming and the shelter, the tenant usually owns his own tools and animals
Worker agrees to share the harvest for the use of the land and usually makes a little more than a sharecropper because less use of credit is needed

8. Opposition to the Reconstruction Plans
This opposition sometimes took violent measures
Ku Klux Klan was a secret organization that tried to prevent the newly freed slaves from exercising their new rights
They did this through intimidation, beatings, and murder
This appeared in Harper's Weekly
January 27, 1872
Three Ku Klux Klan members
arrested in Mississippi, September
1871, for the attempted murder
of an entire family.

9. New Amendments 13th Amendment: makes slavery illegal: 1865
14th Amendment: granted citizenship to the freedmen (remember the Dred Scott decision) and forbade any state from discrimination, states could not deny anyone “equal protection of the law”:1868
15th Amendment: gave all male citizens the right to vote (The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the U.S or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude):1870

10. Military Occupations of Georgia
Occupied after Civil War. Georgia ratifies 13th Amendment and begins self-rule and reenters Union
Civil Rights Act of 1866 passed by congress over veto and passes 14th Amendment to ensure its enforcement. Requires southern states to approve. Only Tennessee does and military rule stablished over 10 southern states (including GA)
Constitutional Convention of 1867 convened and new constitution drafted. Voters approve in April 1868 and GA once more admitted to Union
Rise of violence against blacks. Georgia Act passed in 1869 and military rule once again in GA
GA permanently readmitted in July 1870 – the last southern state to do so

11. Henry McNeal Turner
Elected to the Georgia Legislature in 1868, part of the new legislators elected during Reconstruction
He and the other black legislators
were removed from the legislature
on the grounds that the Constitution
gave them the right to vote but did
not specifically give them the right to
hold office. They were reseated in
September of 1870.

12. Review The War began in April of 1861 and ends in April of 1865
Each side creates strategies and the CSA has to create their own government and army
Most battles are fought on Confederate soil, many in VA
Following the war there is a turbulent period known as Reconstruction
The newly freed slaves begin adjusting to freedom with the help of the Freedmen’s Bureau
New amendments are passed to enable the freed slaves the ability to enjoy Constitutional Rights