Common Question about Dates and This History Class: Does having these dates in here mean students are expected to memorize them? The answer is “no.” To understand how things happened, you want to notice the order of events. Think of it this way: if you were watching two people fight, how you interpreted things would probably depend on who did what first. |
The Republican
Party’s predecessor parties led it to have many of the issues previously
associated with the Whigs, such as favoring internal improvements. They also
countered the Whigs; for example, the Whigs were becoming nativist and the
countermove was being pro-immigration. The X’s in the table are based on
specific lists of platform issues in the Encyclopedia of American History.
Other issues may also have been in the parties’ platforms. |
Issues in the Campaigns of the Varied Anti-Slavery Parties |
|
Free Soil |
Republican |
||
1840, 1844 |
1848 |
1852 |
1856 |
1860 |
|
Free soil
(including specifics such as supporting the Wilmot Proviso) |
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
Pro-internal improvements
in general and/or a transcontinental railroad |
|
X |
|
X |
X |
Homestead provision
so people could get land |
|
X |
X |
|
X |
Pro-immigration |
|
|
X |
|
X |
Pro (somewhat)
protective tariff |
|
|
|
|
X |
Republican – Democrat Votes
in House and Senate
Once the
11 Confederate states left the The change in party balance shows
the results of secession: the Northern Senators and Congressmen can get the
laws they want—and you’ll see below. The South will not have
representatives and Senators until they are readmitted to the Union. |
|
1857 |
1861 |
Senators,
Democratic |
36 |
10 |
Senators,
Republican |
20 |
31 |
Representatives,
Democratic |
118 |
43 |
Representatives,
Republican |
92 |
105 |
What Republican Legislation from 1861 to 1864 Set the
Direction of the Post-Civil War Era?
The issues passed
by these Senators and Representatives included: §
1861—Increased protective tariff
with subsequent additions through 1869 raising tariffs to the rate of just
under 50% (Protective tariffs helped industrialists and became a Republican
principle.) §
1862 +—Transcontinental railroad established—land
grants for a Northern
route §
1862—Homestead Act—160 acres of public land to
heads of families for residence for five years, a small fee (In 1866
there was an equivalent act for Southern blacks, but its implementation was
blocked by landowners short of labor in the South.) §
1862—Land grant colleges (Morrill
Act)—30,000
acres to states in the §
1864—National banking system—uniform
currency, with a tax on state bank notes driving them out of circulation
(greenbacks again backed by gold in mid-1870s) |
Date |
Details |
1864-0 |
Reminder:
Lee surrendered at Appomattox
Courthouse (VA)
|
1865-01 |
Reminder: 13th
amendment ended slavery¾passed (not yet ratified
by the states.
What do former slaves do? Seek family separated from them. In the future, they form churches and schools. |
1865-05 |
Andrew
Johnson, former Vice-President, a “War Democrat” – His plan for restoration
of the Union
§
Premise—Like Lincoln’s plan, the
states never left the Union §
Presidential
control like Lincoln’s plan but he is lenient to white supremacists, such as
those writing “black codes.” |
1865-11 |
Black Codes¾New state legislatures started passing. Vagrancy laws
forced employment with private individuals to pay fines; forbidden to rent or
own land, could not change jobs, could not do work other than as farm or
domestic labor.
Tip on
the History: § Where have you heard the name black codes or a similar name? § Ask yourself how you would feel when you heard this if you’d had a son
or brother die for the Northern cause or if you were a Congressman? |
1865-12 |
13th amendment¾ratified
Johnson - Per his
plan, 10 states
ready for restoration. |
1866 |
Ku Klux Klan
started Intent white
supremacy; used violence, continued past 1869, when officially disbanded. |
1866 + |
Congressional Reconstruction had been:
§
Congressional
control §
50 %
legal voters took oath of allegiance accepting end of slavery Tip on
the History: Notice the percentage (It’s not
the 10% as with Lincoln’s offer or Johnson’s offer.) |
1866-03 |
Actions
by the national government in the South using the Freedman’s Bureau—freedmen and
abandoned lands—included education program
Actions by individual and groups of African Americans in the South: formation of churches and schools. |
1866-04 |
Civil
Rights Act¾Congress overrode Johnson veto. – Congress moves from a
law to an amendment. Why?
|
1866-06 |
14th
amendment
started with ratification required for readmission—Tennessee ratified and was
readmitted to Union.
Key provisions that remain significant today:
- Those born in the United States are citizens. (Deals with Dred Scott case.) - States cannot violate “due process of law” – laws like the “black codes” (The 5th amendment had said Congress could not.) Provisions that mattered then and the 14th amendment stopped: - The South had been trying to pay the Confederate war debt - The South had been electing Confederates who had previously made an oath to support the Constitution. Question:
What’s the Southern expectation? Why not join in? Because other Southern states thought Radical Republicans
would be defeated with the Congressional elections; they were wrong.
|
1866-07 |
Race riots against blacks, Tip on the History:
What is a riot? |
1866-fall |
Congressional
Elections
– Northern public furious and elect a large
enough majority of Republicans that Johnson could not veto the laws they
pass.
Tip on the History: What had the
voters been reading in the newspapers in the North about the events in the
South? So what kind of Congressman do you think the voters in the North vote
for? |
1867 + |
Congressional Reconstruction becomes:
§ First Reconstruction Act
§ Military
Reconstruction (5 districts) – military rule
§ Expansion of Freedman’s Bureau
Requires new state constitutions (without “black codes”) and that the states ratify the 14th
Amendment, not just the 13th.
|
1868 |
Fifteenth
Amendment proposed - Consequences
on women’s suffrage and women’s organizations |
1868-02 to 05 |
Impeachment of
Johnson —Viewed as
impediment to Radical Republicanism. Method used: Tenure of Office
Act—In brief, those Senate approved must be Senate removed. 1 vote saved
Johnson. |
1868 |
|
1869 |
Promontory, Utah -
Union Pacific & Central Pacific. – This is the Northern route for the
transcontinental railroad. |
1870 |
Election violence
and Grant sends troops—and federal troops are
still stationed in the South. Grant
urges Congress to act to stop a revival of the KKK. Ku Klux Klan Acts work and federal marshals are sent in.
13 volumes of Congressional testimony taken on the KKK. |
1871 |
Department of
Justice established; head=Attorney General |
1872 |
U. S. Grant v.
Horace Greeley (Democrat & Liberal Republican) With election
violence, Grant sends troops in again in
1874 and 1875 |
|
|
1872 - corruption |
Issues of the Liberal
Republicans – end Reconstruction, end protective tariff (thus liberal, meaning supporting free trade), begin merit system (not
the spoils system started in Jackson’s administration) Tip on the History: If you do
not understand the difference between a protective and revenue tariff, the
meaning of the word tariff, and the meaning of the word merit system, ask.
These are key concepts General traits of
the era: §
Corruption
and abuse of power (many
scandals)—not by Grant but by his cabinet and appointees. §
But not
just at the national level -Boss-ism (New York city government and Boss
Tweed) |
1873 |
Panic of 1873
(Panic = a depression) – This and the scandals and the violence in the South reduced Northern interest and
their votes for the Radical Republicans. |
1874 |
Women’s Christian Temperance Union – Frances
Willard Tip on the History: What’s the
organization for and what is the gender of Frances Willard? |
1876 |
Rutherford B.
Hayes (Ohio Gov.) v. Sam Tilden (NY Gov.) – Honest Sam Tilden 4,0360000 4,301,000 - Tilden won on the popular vote Republican loss Democratic win |
1877 |
Electoral
Commission, a device to deal with the argument over counting disputed ballots
initially in 4 states. The decision is to
give Hayes every disputed electoral vote, but the Republicans had give
the Democrats something else. It is the Compromise of 1877 – Why do the Democrats accept
this victory for Hayes? The federal troops will be out of
the South—and what does that mean? Who is the
compromise between? |
Closing |
What’s a plantation after emancipation? Nothing. Beginning right after the end of the war planters and freedmen developed sharecropping and tenant contracts. They will increasingly be used to control the freedmen—and poor whites. On the other hand, slavery was no longer the law of the land. Further, the freedom and legal rights of freedmen varied with the region in the South. For example, a black city government in place in Wilmington, North Carolina, until 1898 when a white mob destroyed it. The 13th, 14th,
and 15th amendments lay the foundation for more rights not
just for African Americans, but also for women and other groups. |
Copyright C. J. Bibus,
Ed.D. 2003-2018 |
WCJC
Department: |
History
– Dr. Bibus |
Contact
Information: |
281.239.1577
or bibusc@wcjc.edu
|
Last
Updated: |
2018 |
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