Chapter 15 ultimate guideline - 1 The Making of Radical...

1
The Making of Radical Reconstruction
A. Andrew Johnson
 Johnson identified himself as the champion of the “honest yeomen”
and a foe of large planters.
 Johnson lacked Lincoln’s political skills and keen sense of public
opinion.
 Johnson believed that African-Americans had no role to play in
Reconstruction.
B. The Failure of Presidential Reconstruction
 Johnson’s plan for Reconstruction offered pardons to the white
southern elite.
C. The Black Codes
 Southern governments began passing new laws that restricted the
freedom of blacks.
 These new laws violated free labor principles and called forth a
vigorous response from the Republican North.
D. The Radical Republicans
 Radical Republicans called for the dissolution of Johnson’s state
governments, the establishment of new governments that did not have
“rebels” in power, and the guarantee of the right to vote for black men.
 The Radicals fully embraced the expanded powers of the federal
government born of the Civil War.
o Charles Summer
o Thaddeus Stevens
 Thaddeus Stevens’s most cherished aim was to confiscate the land of
disloyal planters and divide it among former slaves and northern
migrants to the South.
o His plan was too radical for most others in Congress.
E. The Origins of Civil Rights
 Most Republicans were moderates, not radicals.
 Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois proposed two bills to modify
Johnson’s policy:
o Extend the life of the Freedmen’s Bureau
o Civil Rights Bill (equality before the law was central; it sought to
overturn the Black Codes)
 Johnson vetoed both bills.