CHAPTER 22-41
CHAPTER 22
The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865–1877
FOCUS QUESTIONS
1. How did blacks respond to freedom, and what black organizations flourished?
2. How had Lincoln hoped to accomplish Reconstruction, and what modifications did Johnson make to
Lincoln’s original plan?
3. In what ways was Congressional Reconstruction different than Presidential Reconstruction?
4. After gaining suffrage, how successful were blacks politically?
5. What circumstances led to the impeachment and trial of President Johnson and what was the
outcome?
CHAPTER THEMES
Theme: Johnson’s political blunders and Southern white recalcitrance led to the imposition of
congressional military Reconstruction on the South. Reconstruction did address difficult issues of reform
and racial justice in the South and achieved some successes, but was ultimately abandoned, leaving a
deep legacy of racial and sectional bitterness.
Theme: During Reconstruction, the Constitution was strengthened with the Fourteenth (citizenship and
equal protection of the laws) and Fifteenth (black voting rights) Amendments, but it was also tested with
the conflicts between the president and Congress that culminated in an impeachment process.
Theme: Southern resistance to Reconstruction began immediately with the sending of ex-rebels to be
seated in Congress and continued with the creation of violently oppressive groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
Although forced to make some concessions, Southern Redeemers successfully outlasted the congressional
Reconstruction efforts.
© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
,25-2 Chapter 22: The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865–1877
CHAPTER SUMMARY
With the Civil War over, the nation faced the difficult problems of rebuilding the South, assisting the
freed slaves, reintegrating the Southern states into the Union, and deciding who would direct the
Reconstruction process.
The South was economically devastated and socially revolutionized by emancipation. As slave-owners
reluctantly confronted the end of slave labor, blacks took their first steps in freedom. Black churches and
freedmen’s schools helped the former slaves begin to shape their own destiny.
The new president, Andrew Johnson, was politically inept and personally contentious. His attempt to
implement a moderate plan of Reconstruction, along the lines originally suggested by Lincoln, fell victim
to Southern whites’ severe treatment of blacks and his own political blunders.
Republicans imposed harsh military Reconstruction on the South after their gains in the 1866
congressional elections. The Southern states reentered the Union with new radical governments, which
rested partly on the newly enfranchised blacks, but also had support from some sectors of southern
society. These regimes were sometimes corrupt but also implemented important reforms. The divisions
between moderate and radical Republicans meant that Reconstruction’s aims were often limited and
confused, despite the important Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
Embittered whites hated the radical governments and mobilized reactionary terrorist organizations, such
as the Ku Klux Klan, to restore white supremacy. Congress impeached Johnson but failed narrowly to
convict him. In the end, the poorly conceived Reconstruction policy failed disastrously.
DEVELOPING THE CHAPTER: SUGGESTED LECTURE OR
DISCUSSION TOPICS
Analyze in more detail the condition of the South at the end of the Civil War, particularly, the
economic and social revolution caused by the end of slavery. The focus might be on the great
difficulty of working out a new system of racial relations, and on blacks’ efforts to make their own
way under harsh conditions.
REFERENCE: Leon Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long (1979).
Compare the mild presidential Reconstruction plans of Lincoln and Johnson with the harsher
congressional Reconstruction, perhaps emphasizing how Johnson’s blunders and severe treatment of
blacks in the South handed the radical Republicans their chance.
REFERENCE: James McPherson, Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction (1982).
Explain the actual impact of Reconstruction in the South. Particular consideration might be given to
the limitations of the Republican governments and the Freedmen’s Bureau, especially in altering
fundamental economic and social conditions.
REFERENCE: Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988).
© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
, Chapter 22: The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865–1877 25-3
Examine the impeachment and acquittal of Johnson in relation to the overreaching of the radical
Republicans and the declining support for military Reconstruction in the North.
REFERENCES: Michael Les Benedict, Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (1973); Hans
Trefousse, The Impeachment of a President (1975).
FOR FURTHER INTEREST: ADDITIONAL CLASS TOPICS
Discuss the new circumstances and experiences of the ordinary freed African Americans. Consider
such developments as the westward-migrating Exodusters and the newly powerful black churches.
What obligation, if any, did the federal government have to the African Americans that it recently
freed from slavery? (See boxed quotes on pages 467, 477, and 482 as well as section Examining the
Evidence on page 468.)
Look at the Ku Klux Klan in relation to its historical significance in the 1870s and its enduring
presence as a symbol of white racism and illegal violence. (See two boxed quotes on page 480.)
Focus on the character of Andrew Johnson, and particularly, his difficulty as a “poor Southern
white” in the White House during Republican Reconstruction. Perhaps contrast him with his great
enemy Thaddeus Stevens. (See boxed quote on page 471.)
Compare the enormous gap between the still widely held popular image of Reconstruction and the
more complicated historical reality described in the text. The D. W. Griffith film Birth of a Nation
would be a good starting point, since it helped to fix the general image of the period more than any
other work.
Why were women’s rights ignored during the period of Reconstruction? What does the failure to
include sex in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments suggest about the nation’s commitment to
equality? (See boxed quote on page 478.)
CHARACTER SKETCHES
Andrew Johnson (1808–1875)
Even after Johnson’s wife taught him to read as an adult, he frequently misspelled words. He once said,
“It is a man of small imagination that cannot spell his own name in more than one way.”
As a representative of poor mountain whites, he hated slaveholders, blacks, and abolitionists. Even
though he hated slavery, he opposed emancipation because, he said: “What will you do with two million
Negroes in our midst? Blood, rape, and rapine will be our portion.”
The attacks on Johnson during his “swing around the circle” were partly orchestrated by Republican
newspapers, which played up his vulgar language and behavior. Once they discovered that Johnson would
go out of control, radical hecklers baited him at every stop.
© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
, 25-4 Chapter 22: The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865–1877
Johnson remained a political hero to the plain whites of Tennessee following his departure from the
presidency. After several tries, he was reelected to the Senate in 1875 but attended only one session
before he died.
Quote: (In reply to hecklers’ shouts of “Judas!”): “There was a Judas, and he was one of the twelve
apostles.… If I have played Judas, who has been my Christ that I have played Judas with? Was it Thad
Stevens? Was it Wendell Phillips? Was it Charles Sumner?” (Swing around the circle, 1866)
REFERENCE: Hans Trefousse, Andrew Johnson: A Biography (1989).
Oliver O. Howard (1830–1909)
Howard was the Civil War general who became head of the Freedmen’s Bureau during Reconstruction.
In the Battle of Fair Oaks, Howard lost his right arm. His Civil War record was somewhat mixed: he
bungled several operations and once refused to obey an order from General Hooker. Considered a
“Christian officer,” he was shocked by the destruction inflicted on Georgia by Sherman’s army, even
though he justified it as militarily necessary.
After leaving the Freedmen’s Bureau, he founded Howard University in Washington, D.C., and served as
its president from 1869 to 1874. He caused a split in his church in Washington by demanding the
admission of black members.
Howard later returned to active military duty and commanded the 1877 expedition against the Nez Percé
Indians in the West. He wrote frequently for newspapers and magazines and was a popular lecturer.
Quote: “A brief experience showed us that the negro people were capable of education, with no limit that
men could set on their capacity. What white men could learn or had learned, they, or some of them, could
learn.” (Autobiography, 1907)
REFERENCE: William S. McFeely, Yankee Stepfather: General O. O. Howard and the Freedmen
(1968).
Hiram Revels (1822–1901)
Revels, a clergyman, became one of the two black senators from Mississippi during Reconstruction.
Born a free man in Kentucky, Revels was of black and Indian ancestry. He first worked as a barber but
then attended Knox College in Illinois and became a minister of the African Methodist Church.
He organized two black regiments in Maryland during the Civil War and then traveled widely in the
South promoting religion and education for blacks. He was first elected an alderman in Natchez,
Mississippi, despite his concern about mixing religion and politics. Many whites, as well as blacks, liked
him, and he was elected to take Jefferson Davis’s seat in the Senate. During his brief term, he supported
the moderate Republicans and not the radicals.
© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
CHAPTER 22
The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865–1877
FOCUS QUESTIONS
1. How did blacks respond to freedom, and what black organizations flourished?
2. How had Lincoln hoped to accomplish Reconstruction, and what modifications did Johnson make to
Lincoln’s original plan?
3. In what ways was Congressional Reconstruction different than Presidential Reconstruction?
4. After gaining suffrage, how successful were blacks politically?
5. What circumstances led to the impeachment and trial of President Johnson and what was the
outcome?
CHAPTER THEMES
Theme: Johnson’s political blunders and Southern white recalcitrance led to the imposition of
congressional military Reconstruction on the South. Reconstruction did address difficult issues of reform
and racial justice in the South and achieved some successes, but was ultimately abandoned, leaving a
deep legacy of racial and sectional bitterness.
Theme: During Reconstruction, the Constitution was strengthened with the Fourteenth (citizenship and
equal protection of the laws) and Fifteenth (black voting rights) Amendments, but it was also tested with
the conflicts between the president and Congress that culminated in an impeachment process.
Theme: Southern resistance to Reconstruction began immediately with the sending of ex-rebels to be
seated in Congress and continued with the creation of violently oppressive groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
Although forced to make some concessions, Southern Redeemers successfully outlasted the congressional
Reconstruction efforts.
© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
,25-2 Chapter 22: The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865–1877
CHAPTER SUMMARY
With the Civil War over, the nation faced the difficult problems of rebuilding the South, assisting the
freed slaves, reintegrating the Southern states into the Union, and deciding who would direct the
Reconstruction process.
The South was economically devastated and socially revolutionized by emancipation. As slave-owners
reluctantly confronted the end of slave labor, blacks took their first steps in freedom. Black churches and
freedmen’s schools helped the former slaves begin to shape their own destiny.
The new president, Andrew Johnson, was politically inept and personally contentious. His attempt to
implement a moderate plan of Reconstruction, along the lines originally suggested by Lincoln, fell victim
to Southern whites’ severe treatment of blacks and his own political blunders.
Republicans imposed harsh military Reconstruction on the South after their gains in the 1866
congressional elections. The Southern states reentered the Union with new radical governments, which
rested partly on the newly enfranchised blacks, but also had support from some sectors of southern
society. These regimes were sometimes corrupt but also implemented important reforms. The divisions
between moderate and radical Republicans meant that Reconstruction’s aims were often limited and
confused, despite the important Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
Embittered whites hated the radical governments and mobilized reactionary terrorist organizations, such
as the Ku Klux Klan, to restore white supremacy. Congress impeached Johnson but failed narrowly to
convict him. In the end, the poorly conceived Reconstruction policy failed disastrously.
DEVELOPING THE CHAPTER: SUGGESTED LECTURE OR
DISCUSSION TOPICS
Analyze in more detail the condition of the South at the end of the Civil War, particularly, the
economic and social revolution caused by the end of slavery. The focus might be on the great
difficulty of working out a new system of racial relations, and on blacks’ efforts to make their own
way under harsh conditions.
REFERENCE: Leon Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long (1979).
Compare the mild presidential Reconstruction plans of Lincoln and Johnson with the harsher
congressional Reconstruction, perhaps emphasizing how Johnson’s blunders and severe treatment of
blacks in the South handed the radical Republicans their chance.
REFERENCE: James McPherson, Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction (1982).
Explain the actual impact of Reconstruction in the South. Particular consideration might be given to
the limitations of the Republican governments and the Freedmen’s Bureau, especially in altering
fundamental economic and social conditions.
REFERENCE: Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988).
© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
, Chapter 22: The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865–1877 25-3
Examine the impeachment and acquittal of Johnson in relation to the overreaching of the radical
Republicans and the declining support for military Reconstruction in the North.
REFERENCES: Michael Les Benedict, Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (1973); Hans
Trefousse, The Impeachment of a President (1975).
FOR FURTHER INTEREST: ADDITIONAL CLASS TOPICS
Discuss the new circumstances and experiences of the ordinary freed African Americans. Consider
such developments as the westward-migrating Exodusters and the newly powerful black churches.
What obligation, if any, did the federal government have to the African Americans that it recently
freed from slavery? (See boxed quotes on pages 467, 477, and 482 as well as section Examining the
Evidence on page 468.)
Look at the Ku Klux Klan in relation to its historical significance in the 1870s and its enduring
presence as a symbol of white racism and illegal violence. (See two boxed quotes on page 480.)
Focus on the character of Andrew Johnson, and particularly, his difficulty as a “poor Southern
white” in the White House during Republican Reconstruction. Perhaps contrast him with his great
enemy Thaddeus Stevens. (See boxed quote on page 471.)
Compare the enormous gap between the still widely held popular image of Reconstruction and the
more complicated historical reality described in the text. The D. W. Griffith film Birth of a Nation
would be a good starting point, since it helped to fix the general image of the period more than any
other work.
Why were women’s rights ignored during the period of Reconstruction? What does the failure to
include sex in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments suggest about the nation’s commitment to
equality? (See boxed quote on page 478.)
CHARACTER SKETCHES
Andrew Johnson (1808–1875)
Even after Johnson’s wife taught him to read as an adult, he frequently misspelled words. He once said,
“It is a man of small imagination that cannot spell his own name in more than one way.”
As a representative of poor mountain whites, he hated slaveholders, blacks, and abolitionists. Even
though he hated slavery, he opposed emancipation because, he said: “What will you do with two million
Negroes in our midst? Blood, rape, and rapine will be our portion.”
The attacks on Johnson during his “swing around the circle” were partly orchestrated by Republican
newspapers, which played up his vulgar language and behavior. Once they discovered that Johnson would
go out of control, radical hecklers baited him at every stop.
© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
, 25-4 Chapter 22: The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865–1877
Johnson remained a political hero to the plain whites of Tennessee following his departure from the
presidency. After several tries, he was reelected to the Senate in 1875 but attended only one session
before he died.
Quote: (In reply to hecklers’ shouts of “Judas!”): “There was a Judas, and he was one of the twelve
apostles.… If I have played Judas, who has been my Christ that I have played Judas with? Was it Thad
Stevens? Was it Wendell Phillips? Was it Charles Sumner?” (Swing around the circle, 1866)
REFERENCE: Hans Trefousse, Andrew Johnson: A Biography (1989).
Oliver O. Howard (1830–1909)
Howard was the Civil War general who became head of the Freedmen’s Bureau during Reconstruction.
In the Battle of Fair Oaks, Howard lost his right arm. His Civil War record was somewhat mixed: he
bungled several operations and once refused to obey an order from General Hooker. Considered a
“Christian officer,” he was shocked by the destruction inflicted on Georgia by Sherman’s army, even
though he justified it as militarily necessary.
After leaving the Freedmen’s Bureau, he founded Howard University in Washington, D.C., and served as
its president from 1869 to 1874. He caused a split in his church in Washington by demanding the
admission of black members.
Howard later returned to active military duty and commanded the 1877 expedition against the Nez Percé
Indians in the West. He wrote frequently for newspapers and magazines and was a popular lecturer.
Quote: “A brief experience showed us that the negro people were capable of education, with no limit that
men could set on their capacity. What white men could learn or had learned, they, or some of them, could
learn.” (Autobiography, 1907)
REFERENCE: William S. McFeely, Yankee Stepfather: General O. O. Howard and the Freedmen
(1968).
Hiram Revels (1822–1901)
Revels, a clergyman, became one of the two black senators from Mississippi during Reconstruction.
Born a free man in Kentucky, Revels was of black and Indian ancestry. He first worked as a barber but
then attended Knox College in Illinois and became a minister of the African Methodist Church.
He organized two black regiments in Maryland during the Civil War and then traveled widely in the
South promoting religion and education for blacks. He was first elected an alderman in Natchez,
Mississippi, despite his concern about mixing religion and politics. Many whites, as well as blacks, liked
him, and he was elected to take Jefferson Davis’s seat in the Senate. During his brief term, he supported
the moderate Republicans and not the radicals.
© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
