AMH 2010
Chapter 14
Study Guide #14
Chapter 14 – Now That We Are Free: Reconstruction and the New South, 1863-1890 (only pages 404-427)
Abraham Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan
! anxious to reconstruct the South, Lincoln offered
generous terms for Southern reintegration on December 8, 1863
! his Ten Percent Plan pardoned
almost all Southerners, as long as took an oath pledging loyalty to the
Union and support for emancipation
Radical Republicans
Wade-Davis Bill and the “Ironclad” Oath
! Radical Republicans were reluctant to allow the
South go unpunished, and have Confederate leaders assume positions of
influence
! high-ranking Confederate army officers and
government officials would lose their citizenship, franchise rights, and be
barred from political office
! the Wade-Davis bill required 50 percent of 1860
voters to take an ironclad oath of allegiance swearing they had never
voluntarily aided the rebellion
! also required a state constitutional
convention before the election of state officials
! included specific safeguards of
freedmen s liberties
The Thirteenth Amendment
! Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment in
January 1865 (ratified in December 1865),abolishing slavery throughout the
U.S.
! no financial
compensation for slaveholders
General Howard and Freedmen’s Bureau
! Congress established the Bureau of Refugees,
Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands in March 1865to provide relief agency for
the war-ravaged South
! led by General Oliver O. Howard
offered emergency services, built schools, managed
confiscated lands, negotiated labor contracts, and operated courts involving
African-American litigants
! intended to assist freedmen in acclimating to their
circumstances, the Freedmen s Bureau was meant to exist for only a year
—operational 1865–1872
Vagrancy Laws
! counties throughout the South created vagrancy
laws designed to empower local law officials to harass African Americans,
who could be charged with vagrancy at
the discretion poof the police officer
““Forty Acres and a Mule”
! high expectations fueled by Special Field Order
No. 15 were not realized
! during Reconstruction,
white landowners were able to reclaim their lands
! lack of landownership
undermined real freedom
Black Education
! thousands of white teachers from the North
sponsored by Freedman s Bureau to teach in the South
! freed slaves and their
