HISTORY 7B Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: White Southerners, Reconstruction Acts, Chicago Tribune
Document Summary
Despite fact that northerners were also thoroughly racist, congress was source of radical reconstruction: conflicts over presidential reconstruction and fights between congress and johnson. Saw secession as conspiracy by aristocracy, hated planters and blacks: may 1865- issued 2nd proclamation of amnesty; offered pardon to southerners if they took an oath of loyalty to the union. Top confederate officials and those worth more than k were exempt from pardons unless they begged. Shabby spectacle of pardon seekers begging johnson, but by sept 1865 the white house issued 100 pardons per day. Johnson declared reconstruction over after issuing pardons, much to congress"s chagrin: congress, congress sees reconstruction as incomplete. Johnson had allowed 4 former top confederate generals and its vice-president to return to dc. Black codes in former confederate states denied rights to blacks like quitting their jobs, travelling without passes, criminalized making insulting gestures towards whites-> reestablished slavery.
