American History: A Survey (Brinkley), 13th Edition

Chapter 15: RECONSTRUCTION AND THE NEW SOUTH

Main themes of Chapter Fifteen:

• Radical Reconstruction changed the South in many significant ways, but ultimately fell short of the full transformation needed to secure equality for the freedmen.



• White society and the federal government lacked the will to effectively enforce most of the constitutional and legal guarantees acquired by blacks during Reconstruction.



• The policies of the Grant administration moved beyond Reconstruction matters to foreshadow issues of the late nineteenth century, such as political corruption and currency reform.



• White leaders reestablished economic and political control of the South and sought to modernize the region through industrialization while redrawing the color line of racial discrimination in public life.



• The race question continued to dominate Southern life well past Reconstruction into modern times.

• The competing notions of freedom that arose in the years immediately after the Civil War, and the attempt by the Freedmen's Bureau to negotiate them



• The Reconstruction strategy begun by Abraham Lincoln before his death, and Andrew Johnson's response to it



• The differences between Presidential and Congressional Reconstruction, and the reasons for the transition to the latter set of policies



• The meanings of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments for civil rights in the South



• The Reconstruction governments in practice, and Southern (black and white) reaction to them



• The growth and impact of sharecropping and the crop-lien system on the economic development of the South and the economic independence of former slaves



• The debate among historians concerning the nature of Reconstruction, its accomplishments, and its ultimate effects on the South



• The national problems faced by President Ulysses S. Grant, and the reasons for his lack of success as chief executive in the domestic arena



• The diplomatic successes of Grant's administrations, including the purchase of Alaska and the settling of the Alabama claims



• The critical greenback question, and how it reflected the postwar financial problems of the nation



• The alternatives available to address the crisis spawned by the election of 1876, and the effects of the so-called Compromise of 1877 on Reconstruction



• The methods used by "Redeemers" in the South to achieve "home rule," and the social, economic, and racial decisions made by Southern whites in fashioning the New South



• The reasons for the failure of the South to develop a strong industrial economy after Reconstruction



• The ways in which Southerners decided to handle the race question, and the origin of the system of racial discrimination identified with "Jim Crow"



• The response of blacks to conditions in the South following Reconstruction