US CIVIL WAR

CIVI US Civil War-XXth century

Suite

In the South : after war, reconstruction=reintragtion of Sthern states in the Union.

Only poss when Southern Consitutions will be adapted to the situation : Take into account the state transformations → vacuum in Sout in politics

C) Politics in the South

Northern politics go to South to try to be elected ( cf Sthern frobidden from being elected).

The Carpetraggers : rep politicians from the North ; Democrat governors also join the new rep party of North ( they are seen as traitors : Scalawags, help restructure governments).

Most ex slaves are not educated : 10 to 50% are literate : will join the Sthern rep party, become politicians : ( 5 to 15% of the governements).

→ Great impce in rewriting the States Constitutions.

III Grant's reconstruction

A) Acts

Ulysses S. Grant : pdt for two terms after second term of L ; Maj of Rep but slow mvmt towards moderation :

Transformation of politics and gvmts : grow of tensions in the South, especially the racism. Murders + Scalawags aslo murdered (they help North). Grant passes a number of majors trying to help the Afr Am in Sth and bring violence down

→ 1870-1971 : Force Acts : in South Afr Am are stopped from voting + number of Afr Am and Scalawags in Gvts And party is going down ( murders)

Because the army is still pst in Sth, Grant uses it to apply the Laws :

→ Bans of terror, force and bribery to prevent voting right + allows army to oversee elections+ enforce Civil Rights Act( Force Acts)

→ Civil Rights Act of 1871 : it is a crime to keep anybody from voting or infringing somebody's sivil rights.

B) Rebuilding the South

Impce of the place of Gvt : cf Sherman's March : great need of reconstruction, but it is hugely problematic.

Financing schools : by States Gvt ; huge difference North/South : with Sthern rep gvts : Grant builds new schools. A huge portion of the Sthern white pop is also

illiterate : it touches a vast part of the pop, not only the minorites.

Problem of financing structures : The North destroed the railroads during War : the federal gives huge amount of money to Sthern Gvts to build schools and railroads (+ others of course).

→ this is so huge that is goes bringing interest from unscrupulus ppl : huge wave of bribery, leading to corruption : scholls half-built, railroads too, huge waste of money.

→ one of the failures of reconstruction.

The Southern Economic:l hugely depending on slavery before : destruction of the eco fabric of the Sth. Sgerman's March did destroy farms, machinery, droves, etc( 3,3 billion dollars in destruction)

Most of the planters don't have any capital left : they need to replace evrything destroyed during the war + replace their ancient slaves 

→ « sharecropping » + « Tenant farming » : slaves were anticipated for ex in Louisiana ( cf I). But majority of famers in the states had no alternatives + slaves start being free without any money : start of a new kind of interdependance bwt freemen and planters : freemen don't have the money to leave and the planters don't have the money to pay them

 → planters begin the Tenant farming, as they divide their lands into small parcels, and they rent to their ex-slaves one parcel for one family → slaves continue working on the farm and the farm doesn't need to pay them. BUT the slaves don't have the money for this eco process : they need to buy machines, tools, seeds, materials, for a whole year food, fuel for winter, etc. It creates a big problem : they will be paying on credits and loans (very high and completely illegal).

Once the slaves grow crops, they can buy it and with money they pay back the loans, but bc these loans are so high the money is not enough : they are back at 0 at end of the year/master gained money.

+ For tenant farmers, bc of all this money needed, they will not be planting anything than hight capital products : cash crops, products only for the money : they don't use their lands for their own family, every signel inch will be needed to pay back the loans: → it's actually recreating a kind of slavery, a new form.

This practice will continue for decades : in 1930s, in addiition to the 29 crash, their is a huge problem with dust bowls in Sth : soil lost its fertility and becomes dust.

A lot of white ppl work too on the plantations, also illiterate : drivers and oversees ( watch productivity of Black workers) lost their jobs after end of slavery : they end being tenant farmers also.

C) rebirth of Southern Democrats

Grant is facing a problem : the country needs to heal. Slow rise of the moderates ; one way to heal countires=amnesty

Amnesty Act of 1872 : Southern Democrates pardonned by Grant (500)

Once the Sthern states modified their Constitutions, there is a slow mvmt of departure of the army in the South

The Amnesty, the slow reintegration of Sth=cspces on Sthern politics : time has changed, we can't always resist integration and the emancipation of slaves for ex.

→ birth of new parties, all Dem politicians who don't call themselves Dem.

The Redeemers and the Con parties : old Dem starting anew ; their goal is to have weight on other issues after reintegration in Congress : the New Departure (from old kind of politics).

D) Election of 1876

End of Grant's second term : Rep psts Rutherford Hayes ; no more milit left in Sth : it leaves the door open to paramilit groups, they rig the pdtial elections by keeping Afr Am from voting (there is a maj of Am Afr) : it wrongs the elections.

Heyford is elected.

Compromise of 1877 : Dem accept Heyford psdt, but you end reconstruction and traces of milit weight

→ end to reconstrution, the North leaves completely the South.

Amendments have been passed, former slaves are citizens. BUT the eco Sth, the corruption, no succes from an eco point of view. It says on its knees for a big part of civilisation : Blacks and poor Whites are left in a impt poverty in the Sth, until the 1930S (blocked in 19th c!). No electricity for 60 yrs after the North.

« Tobacco road » : book depicted the situation in South : 60/70 yrs gap in eco progress btw N/S + social crisis. This is also an explanation for segregation : slaves freed, poor white ppl lost jobs on plantations, they only had a social sup on Afr Am : this is one of the reasons why pll in Sth fought the Civil War bc a maj of Sthern army was composed of poor white ppl. They retrun as poor and « equal » as the Afr Am : → the paramilit continue to exist, become almost cultural in the Sth (today called white cupremacy).

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