RECONSTRUCTING THE SOUTH
...ecause of high interest rates. Also, they did not rotate the crops enough to make the soil fertile. The slaves felt bad because they did not feel that they were really free. To help the people go from slavery to freedom, the government created the Freedman’s Bureau. This helped in several ways. Since the newly freed people needed food and clothes, the bureau provided all families in the South with both. They did what they could to teach African Americans how to adjust to freedom. They started 45 hospitals in 14 states to provide them with medical help. They went up to the North to find school teachers to come and teach their children. They even worked to help them find jobs. Most important to the newly freed slaves was the opportunity that the bureau provided for them to buy land. Reconstructing was what they called this effort to revive the South. They had to rebuild everything, including a system to give rights to people who used to be slaves. They also had to let Southern states back into the Union. When the Radicals got involved they came up with a plan that was called the Wade-Davis Bill of 1864. They wanted the South to be under military rule. They also wanted to force a state to have most of its electorate to take a loyalty oath. If they did not take the oath, they could not rejoin the Union. President Lincoln vetoed the bill to keep this from happening. While he was trying to work out something else, he was assassinated. Johnson later worked to finish what Lincoln had started. The Radicals kept black men out of the government positions. Their legislatures passed laws that were called “black codes”. These laws were used to keep blacks from having rights. They also kept blacks at a lower level than the whites. They did not even help the black schools. Blacks could not vote, use weapons or be jurors. They could not even go to court and testify against someone who was white. These laws also made it against the law for an African American to be without steady work. There were three amendments to the Constitution that were brought about by the Civil War. Amendment Thirteen was the last step in ending slavery and the Civil War. Amendment Fourteen was to make sure that all states that were a part of the Union gave rights to all citizens, including blacks. The fifteenth amendment was about rights of African Americans to vote. The Tenure of Office Act came with the Army Appropriation Act in 1867. Both of these were to limit the power of the president. The Tenure of Office Act limited the president’s power to remove anyone from government position without State approval. Johnson pushed the limits of these acts and that led to his impeachment trial. To impeach the president meant to charge him with a crime. The House of Representatives charged him with “high crimes and misdemeanors” while he was in office. According to the constitution, the President then had to be tried by the Senate. This lasted for more than two months. Finally, on May 16, 1868, after a 35 to 19 vote against the President, they...