Chapter 16
A. The Agony of Reconstruction
1. 1863-1877
a. African Americans still had equality problems but many black leaders popped up like Robert Smalls.
b. Smalls had a white father and was a sailor who took command of a Confederate ship (The Planter) while the white commanders were onshore + surrendered it to the Union army, becoming an anti-slavery hero.
c. Smalls went on to serve in the S.C. Constitutional Convention, state legislature, and the U.S. Congress, and was also a businessman who ended up buying his first masters home.
d. In his late career he helped blacks buy property in S.C.
B. The President Versus Congress
1. Wartime Construction (Presidential Reconstruction)
a. Lincoln took initiatives that indicated he preferred the lenient + conciliatory policy towards Southerners who would give up + stop slavery.
b. Proclamation of Amnesty + Reconstruction (Dec. 1863) – gave most Southerners the choice to take an oath of allegiance to the union + acknowledge anti-slavery.
i. Often called the 10% Plan because once 10% of the pop. of any state had taken the oath they could create a local Union Gov’t.
c. Lincoln hope this would speed up the war by weakening the South by giving lukewarm Confederates the chance to switch sides.
ii. States with a lot of Union troops in them switched quickly.
d. Many people didn’t like this plan either because they didn’t like black rights, they didn’t trust the Confederates in the gov’t, or they thought Lincoln was overstepping his boundaries.
e. Congress ignored the 10% Plan because they believed the readmission process was up to them so they made their own Plan.
f. The Wade-Davis Bill – Required 50% of voters to take the oath in order for them to be accepted in the Union + it did not require black suffrage but gave Congress the right to enforce emancipation.
g. Lincoln refused to sign the bill and be committed to a...