Bilcheck Putnam AP Project

President Abraham Lincoln believed that a new amendment was necessary to finally end the institution of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was passed eight months after the Civil War and it officially ended slavery. It was the beginning of a group of acts and Amendments which supported the rights of African Americans.

The first pieces of legislation passed by the New South were the Black Codes which attempted to take away many of the rights of emancipated slaves and strengthen white supremacy. Mississippi was the first state to pass Black Codes and other states quickly followed, but the severity varied from state to state. The Black Codes primary purpose was to ensure a stable and subservient labor force. Some states even made it legal to have an arrangement that closely resembled slavery.

Even though slaves were now free to pursue their own economic ventures, many were tricked into entering a system similar to slavery itself. Former masters became the creditors to African Americans who spun themselves into an endless web of debt. Blacks would rent out land or supplies which they would use to pay back merchants or landowners. As they continued to rent more land and supplies they were continuously in debt until they became reliant on the merchant or landowner entering a system identical to the "peculiar institution."

After the North passed the civil rights bill, the North began to fear that the South would repeal it when they began to gain power in Congress. The Amendment was passed partially to suppress the South's ability to take away or inhibit the rights of slaves. It gave most major civil rights except enfranchisement to blacks, reduced representation of a state in Congress depending on whether it allows blacks to vote, disqualified Confederate leaders from holding office, and promised to repudiate federal debt. It was vehemently opposed in the South.

The Ku Klux Klan or KKK was founded in Tennessee in 1866 to oppose black involvement in government. The Klan used flogging, mutilation, and even murder as methods of intimidating African Americans and white abolitionists. In 1870 and 1871, Congress passed harsh Force Acts to put a stop to the night-riding lawlessness. These were responses to the "radical" rule that the South was experiencing.

This act passed by Congress on March 2nd split the South into five military districts. Each district was commanded by a Union General and was policed by Union soldiers. This act disfranchised tens of thousands of former Confederates. Readmission was now under more stringent conditions and required the Southern states to pass the 14th Amendment.

It was the final Amendment passed by the radical Republican majority Congress. It ensured that blacks would receive suffrage and because it was an amendment, reversing it would be incredibly difficult.

Reconstruction finally ended with the Compromise of 1877 which was a deal between the Democrats and Republicans to get President Rutherford B. Hayes in office. White Southerners considered Reconstruction a more grievous wound than the war itself. Given the harsh realities surrounding the war and the brutality of the fighting, many radical Republicans sought a harsher Reconstruction while many southerners vehemently opposed the weakening of white supremacy.

When Reconstruction began, industrialization slowly increased in the South and sparked the creation of more railroads. Even though the South became more industrialized, it came with corruption, was lead by "carpetbaggers," and the economy started to get better. With the help of Henry Grady's speeches, the South became more industrialized, especially in agriculture, and gained regional pride.

This was a speech made by Henry Grady who was a leading exponent in the "New South" based on industrial development. Henry Grady made speeches throughout the country and wrote articles and editorials in his newspapers. A major speech was was given in New York and conveyed a message of a hope for industrialization in the South.

In this case, the Supreme Court validated the South's segregationist social order. It ruled that "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional under the "equal protection" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In realty the life of an African-American was unequal to that of whites.

This act, which was enacted in 1862 during the Civil War, influenced the post Civil War West because it provided that any adult citizen, who had never borne arms against the U.S. government, could claim 160 acres of surveyed government land. Those who received the land had to improve upon it by building housing and other specific needs. After 5 years the tenant could own the land for a small fee.

The leader of the National Grange was Oliver H. Kelly, a farmer from Minnesota. Kelly wanted to enhance the lives of farmers who were isolated. Farmers who were cursed with loneliness found the Grange's concerts, picnics, and lectures a godsend. In 1875, the National Grange consisted of 800,000 members chiefly in the Midwest.

The Crime of '73 occurred when Congress stopped coining silver dollars against the will of farmers and other westerners who wanted unlimited coinage of silver. With no silver coming into the federal government, no silver money could be produced. Westerners from silver-mining states joined with debtors in demanding a return to the "Dollar of Our Daddies." This demand was essentially a call for inflation, which was solved by contraction and the Treasury's accumulation of gold.

The Farmers Alliance was founded in 1877 in Texas and growth was slow and membership was nonexistent. The two major economic strategies of the Farmer Alliance were soon implemented after increased membership in the alliance. First, farmers sought cheaper farming machinery which at the time was very expensive. Second, they focused on the marketing system, especially the decreasing price of cotton and excessive income made by the middlemen in the sale of cotton.

The West now had an industrial boom in the form of agricultural machinery. As farms in the West increased in size, smaller farmers were driven to industrial work. Soon, almost every major farm was tied to banking, the production of railroads, and manufacturing. Major farms had to buy expensive machinery in order to plant and harvest their crops, which made the business of agriculture similar to that of a factory. Widespread use of these expensive machines allowed for increased wealth in large farms and made western America a major factor in food production.

In the 1870's to 1880's, there was an increase in Asian immigration to western America. This led to opposition from the native Irish especially against the Chinese. Irish gangs in California terrorized Asian immigrants who already worked tougher jobs and made less money than the Irish. Congress ended Chinese immigration with this act in an attempt to suppress the issue.

This act abolished many Native tribes and sold land not given to Native Americans to railroad companies and other white settlers. It wiped out ownership of land by tribes while giving land instead to the leaders of families within the tribes. Native Americans would get the full title to these lands as well as citizenship if they behaved like "good white settlers."

This act, which was passed by Congress, ended the practice of creating rebates and "pools" while requiring railroad companies, many who were accused of fraudulent activities, to publish their rates openly. It also forbade discrimination against shippers and outlawed charging more for short distance shipping compared to long distance along the same railroad track.