Reconstruction Era

Assassination
The surrender of the Confederacy commenced with the surrender of the Army of
Northern Virginia on April 9, at Appomattox Court House, by General Robert E.
Lee and concluded with the surrender of the Shenandoah on November 6, 1865,
bringing the hostilities of the American Civil War to a close.

Six days after General Robert E. Lee

surrendered at Appomattox Court House,
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the
United States, was assassinated by well-
known stage actor John Wilkes Booth on
April 14, 1865, while attending the play,
Our American Cousin, at Ford's Theatre in
Washington, D.C. Shot in the head as he
watched the play, Lincoln died the
following
day at 7:22
am, in the Petersen House opposite the theater.
He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated,
with his funeral and burial marking an extended
period of national mourning.

Occurring near the end of the American Civil War,

the assassination was part of a larger conspiracy
intended by Booth to revive the Confederate
cause by eliminating the three most important
officials of the United States government.
Conspirators Lewis Powell and David Herold were
assigned to kill Secretary of State William H.
Seward, and George Atzerodt was tasked with
killing Vice President Andrew Johnson. Beyond
Lincoln's death, the plot failed: Seward was only wounded and Johnson's would-
be attacker lost his nerve. After a dramatic initial escape, Booth was killed at the
climax of a 12-day manhunt. Powell, Herold, Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt were
later hanged for their roles in the conspiracy.
 1. Where was Lincoln Assassinated?
Ford’s Theatre/Peterson House
2. Who assassinated Lincoln?
John Wikes Booth
3. What happened to the conspirators?
They were hanged.

Reconstruction
The plan for Reconstruction (rebuild) had three major goals:
1. Fix the Union.
2. Change southern society.
3. Pass legislation that favored the rights of freed slaves.
President Abraham Lincoln’s “Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction”—
issued in 1863, two years before the war even ended—outlined the first of these
goals. It was known as his Ten-Percent Plan. Under the plan, each southern state
would be readmitted (allowed back in) to the Union after 10 percent of its voting

population had pledged future loyalty to the United States. According to the plan,
all Confederates except high-ranking government and military officials would be
pardoned (accused of wrongdoing).

After Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, President Andrew Johnson adopted the
Ten-Percent Plan and pardoned thousands of Confederate officials. Radical
(extreme) Republicans in Congress, however, called for harsher measures,
demanding a loyalty oath from 50 percent of each state’s voting population rather
than just 10 percent. The president and Congress agreed on one major point—
that the southern states needed to abolish slavery in their new state constitutions
before being readmitted to the Union.
 4. What were the 3 major goals of Reconstruction?
Fix the Union, change southern society, pass legislation that favored the rights of freed
slaves

5. What did the south have to do to be readmitted to the Union under Abraham Lincoln’s
Reconstruction plan?
Each southern state would be readmitted to the union if ten percent of the population
pledged loyalty to the United States

6. Who became president after Lincoln’s assassination and continued following Lincoln’s
10% plan?
Andrew Johnson

The Radical Republicans also believed that southern society would

have to be completely changed to ensure that the South would not try
to secede again. The
Radicals tried to reshape
the South by allowing
African Americans to vote, putting
pro-Union and pro-Republican
governments in southern legislatures
and punishing the southern planters,
whom many politicians held
responsible for the Civil War. As
carpetbaggers (northerners who
moved to the South after the war to
make money) and scalawags (white
Unionists and Republicans in the
South) streamed into the South, southerners called them traitors and falsely
accused many of corruption. However, through organizations like the
congressionally approved Freedmen’s Bureau, the U.S. government was able to
give land to former slaves and poor whites as well as help improve education and
sanitation and build industrial growth in newly rebuilt southern cities.

The most important part of Reconstruction was the push to give rights to former
slaves. Radical Republicans knew that newly freed slaves would face horrible
racism. They passed a series of laws and amendments in Congress that protected
blacks’ rights under federal and constitutional law. The Thirteenth Amendment
abolished slavery. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was created to protect the rights of
the Freedmen. Unfortunately, southerners ignored the Act and created “black
codes” which were laws meant to deny African-Americans their rights. In order to
ensure that the freedmen were protected the Fourteenth Amendment was
passed which granted citizenship to African Americans and promised them the
same protections of all Americans. The Fifteenth Amendment gave black men the
right to vote, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 attempted to ban racial
discrimination in public places.

7. What was the name for the group that wanted harsher measures to punish the south?
Radical republicans
8. What were carpetbaggers?
Northerners who moved to the south after the Civil War
9. What were scalawags?
White unionists and republicans in the south

By the end of the Reconstruction, the

North and South were once again
reunited, and all southern state
legislatures had abolished slavery in
their constitutions. Reconstruction also
ended the debate of states’ rights vs.
federalism, which had been an ongoing
issue since the late 1790s. But
Reconstruction failed in most other
ways. When President Rutherford B.
Hayes ordered federal troops to leave
the South in 1877, former Confederate
officials and slave owners gradually
returned to power. Southern state
legislatures quickly passed more black
codes, made voter qualification laws, and allowed the sharecropping system to
thrive, making sure that freed slaves did not earn a good living. The Ku Klux Klan
emerged and went on to terrorize African Americans and those that supported
Civil Rights. By 1877, northerners were tired of Reconstruction, and violations of
black civil rights were ignored. In the end, the rights promised to African
Americans during Reconstruction would not be granted fully for almost another
century (that’s 100 years if your counting 😨)
10. What did the Freedmen’s Bureau do?

11. What did the 13th Amendment do?

12. What was the purpose of the Civil Rights Act of 1866?

13. What were “black codes?”

14. What was the 14th Amendment?

15. What was the 15th Amendment?

16. Who was the President that pulled federal troops out of the south?

17. What happened when troops were pulled out of the South?

18. What group emerged in the aftermath of Reconstruction terrorized African-Americans?