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In 1865, only a small group of politicians supported black suffrage. All were radical Republicans, led by Charles Sumner and Thatched Stevens. They helped pass the Reconstruction Act. Lincoln plan In December 1 863, Lincoln issued the Proclamation of Amnesty/ Reconstruction, enabled southern states to rejoin Union if at least 10 % would take an oath of allegiance and accept emancipation. Lincoln hoped to undermine the Confederacy by establishing pro-union governments within it and build a southern Republican party.Passed by Radical Republicans, The Wade-Davis Bill (1864) provided that a military governor would rule each roomer Confederate state; after at least half the eligible voters took an oath of allegiance to the Union, delegates could be elected to a state convention that would repeal secession and abolish slavery. Lincoln Pocket-vetoed this bill, making many congressmen angry. Nowhere in the U. S. Was African-American suffrage a thing yet. Presidential Reconstruction under Johnson He was the only southern senator to remain in Congress when his state seceded, served as military governor of Tennessee from 1862 to 1864. He was a lifelong Democrat who had been added to the Republican ticket in 1 864 o broaden its appeal and who had become president by accident. Against Republican desires in 1 865, Johnson made a proclamation that brought back southern states still without reconstruction governments- Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. All southerners who took oath would be provided personal amnesty by Johnson. By the end of 1 865, Presidential Reconstruction had caused all 7 states to create new civil governments that restored the status quo from before.Confederate officers and large planters assumed state offices. All 7 states kook steps to ensure a landless, dependent black labor force: they passed black codes to replace the slave codes, which established things like racial segregation in public places; prohibited racial intermarriage, jury service by blacks, and court testimony by blacks against whites. The black codes left freedmen no longer slaves b ut not really liberated either. Congress vs.. Johnson Moderate Republicans, the largest congressional bloc, agreed with radicals that Johnnys plan was too feeble, but they did not want to publicly oppose the President.Nothing was really done for a while. 2 proposals to invalidate lacked, drafted by moderate Republican, Lyman Truthful, wonder support 1 Continuation of the Freedmans Bureau which provided relief, rations, and medical care; built schools for freed blacks; put them to work on abandoned or confiscated lands; and tried to protect their rights as laborers. Congress extended the the bureaus life for 3 years and gave it power to run special military courts, to settle labor disputes, and to invalidate labor contracts forced on freedmen by the black codes. 2. A bill that made blacks U.S. Citizens with the same civil rights as other citizens and authorized federal intervention in the states to ensure black rights in court. 3. Neither one of these bills passed because they were both vetoed by Andrew Johnson. Congress overrode his vetoes; the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the first major law ever passed over a veto. The president had alienated moderate Republicans, who now joined Radicals to oppose him. The 14th Amendment (1866) First Clause- all persons born or naturalized in the United States were citizens of the nation and of their states.This section nullified the Dried Scott case from 1857. Second- guaranteed that if a state denied suffrage to any of its ale citizens, its representation in Congress would be proportionally reduced. This did not guarantee black suffrage but was half way there and they specifically said male citizens, angered womens suffrage advocates, major setback for them. Third- it disqualified from state and national office all prewar officeholders who had supported the Confederacy, unless Congress removed this ban with a 2/3 vote.Finally- it repudiated the Confederate debt and maintained the validity of the federal debt. This amendment created a firestorm; no one liked every single part of it, including the President. Congressional Reconstruction (1866-1867) Congress passed the Reconstruction Act Of 1867. Johnson vetoed it Congress then passed it over veto The Impeachment Crisis (1867-1868) In March 1867, The Tenure Of Office Act was passed which prohibited the president from removing civil officers without Senate consent The goal was to stop Johnson from firing Secretary of War Edwin B. Stanton, a Radical Republican.Also the president could not issue military orders except through commanding general Ulysses S. Grant, who could not be removed by the Perez, only Senate. Johnson did replace Stanton and Congress had a reason to impeach. The House approved 11 charges of impeachment, 9 based on violation of Tenure of Office Act. Other charges accused him of being unmindful of the high duties of office, seeking to disgrace Congress, not enforcing the Reconstruction. In court Johnnys lawyers maintained that he was only seeking a court test by violating the Tenure of Office Act, which was claimed unconstitutional.They also said the law did not protect Stanton because he was an appointee of Lincoln and not Johnson. He was guilty of nothing that was tried in normal courts. Late in May 1 868, the senate voted against Johnson 35 to 19, one vote short of the 2/3 needed to convict. They set a precedent: their vote discouraged impeachment on political grounds for decades to come. The 15th Amendment and the Question of Womens Suffrage (1869-1870) The 15th amendment sought to protect black suffrage in the south, who would now presumably vote Republican. It prohibited the denial of suffrage by the states to any citizen on account of race, or servitude Democrats argued that it violated states rights by denying each state leverage over who would vote. They did not control enough states to deny his amendment, it was passed in 1870. The amendment neither guaranteed black office holding nor prohibited voting restrictions such as property requirements and literacy tests. (loop holes to deny black voting) In Elizabeth Caddy Stanton and Susan B. Anthony view the 14th Amendment had disabled women by including the word male, and the 1 5th Amendment failed to remedy this injustice.The battle over black suffrage and the 1 5th Amendment split womens rights advocates into rival suffrage associations, the Boston based American Women Suffrage Association was endorsed by Julia Ward Howe and Lucy Stone and believed in universal male suffrage. Opposing was the New York based National Women Suffrage Association led by Stanton and Anthony who condemned f ormer male allies. Susan B. Anthony embroiled about seventy women to vote on womens suffrage nationwide in 1 872, but she was indicted, convicted, and fined.Missouri suffragist Virginia Minor brought suit with her husband against voter registrars who had excluded her. In Minor v. Happiest (1875), the Supreme Court declared that a state could constitutionally deny women the vote. Reconstruction Governments Beginning in 1 865, freedmen organized conventions where they protested ill treatment/demanded rights Race Riots erupted in major southern cities, such as Memphis in May 1866 and New Orleans later. Congressional Reconstruction, took effect in 1867. The Johnson regimes were dismantled, state constitutional conventions met, and voters elected new state governments, Republicans dominated. Republican rule was brief, lasting less than a decade in all southern states, far less in most, bag. 5 years The governments formed under congressional Reconstruction were unique in the oral because black men including slaves participated in them. A New Electorate Laws through 1867-1868 transformed the southern electorate by temporarily disfranchising 1 0 to 15 % of potential white voters and by enfranchising more than 700,000 freedmen.To Democrats, Southern Republicans comprised three types of scoundrels: northern carpetbaggers who had allegedly come south seeking wealth power; southern scalawags, predominantly poor and ignorant whites; and hordes of uneducated freedmen, who were ready to prey for Republican manipulators 20,000 northern migrants (carpetbaggers)- including veterans, missionaries, teachers, and Freedmans Bureau agents- headed sou th immediately after the war, many soon returned north. Those who stayed held almost one out of three state offices and wielded disproportionate political power.Scalawags, white southerners who supported the Republicans, included entrepreneurs who applauded party policies such as the national banking system and high protective tariffs. Unlike carpetbaggers, they lacked commitment to black rights Or black suffrage. Freedmen provided eight out of ten Republican votes. Republican rule lasted longer in states with more blacks. Blacks served in all southern legislatures but constituted the majority only in South Carolina. Black officeholders formed a political elite, they often differed from black voters in background and education.Republican Rule Freedmen delegates helped abolish property qualifications for office holding, made appointive offices elective, and redistributed state legislatures more equally. All states now had universal male suffrage. Hoping to attract northern investment to the reconstructed South, southern Republicans hesitates to threaten property rights or to adopt land reform measures that rather Republicans had rejected. Once civil power shifted from the federal army to the new state governments, Republican regimes began ambitious programs of public works. Building bridges, roads, and public buildings) They also expanded state bureaucracies, raised pay for government jobs, formed state militia (predominantly black), and they created a public school system which had been non-existent before. These changes cost millions and taxes skyrocketed, people began to complain about Republican rule in the south and heavy corruption did not help. Northern tax rates still exceeded southern rates. Counterattacks In 1868-1869, Georgia Democrats challenged the eligibility of black legislatures and expelled them from offices.In response, the federal government reestablished military rule in Georgia. Democrats backed dissident Republican factions, elected some Democratic legislators, reduced blacks votes and lured scalawags away from the Republican party. In 1865, Freedmans Bureau agents itemized outrages against blacks, including shooting, murder, rape, arson, and inhuman beating. Vigilante groups sprung up everywhere in the south. Confederate war veterans in Tennessee formed the UK Klux Klan, distinguished by elaborate rituals, hooded costumes, and secret passwords.