President Johnson's reconstruction plan was named Presidential Reconstruction. He pursued this plan while congress was in recess. It pardoned southerners who swore allegiance to the Union, permitted each state to hold a constitutional convention, and required states to void secession, abolish slavery, and repudiate the Confederate debt. After all this was done, the states were then allowed to hold elections and rejoin the Union. His plan was adapted from Lincoln's reconstruction plan with more generosity towards the south.
Black Codes:
These were laws that severely restricted the freedmen's newfound freedoms and rights. They denied the freed slaves' earned rights. These codes consisted of curfews that restricted people from gathering after sunset, vagrancy laws that said the freedmen needed to work or they would be punished, labor contracts that had to be signed by the freedmen that said they had to work for the whole year and if they quit they would lose their wages, and land restrictions that permitted the freedmen to rent land or homes in rural areas forcing them to live on plantations. These laws were unjust and defeated the whole purpose of freeing the slaves.
14th Amendment:
This amendment was made when President Johnson wanted to veto the Civil Rights Act. Congress decided to build equal rights into the constitution. It defined citizenship and stated that anyone born in the United States is a citizen of it and that the state couldn't make a law that curtailed a citizen's rights or deny the citizen of equal protection from the laws. This stopped the black codes.
Radical Reconstruction:
The Radical Republicans' main goal was to grant African Americans their civil rights. The moderates didn't want this because their were still racial inequalities in the north and they didn't want to impose stricter laws in the South.
White people were being violent towards the freedmen and they killed many of them. Johnson opposed equal rights to African Americans and angry Northerners put Radical Republicans into Congress so they could put their own reconstruction plans into action.
The Radicals in Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867. This act put the south under military rule dividing it into five districts that were governed by Northern generals, ordered southern states to told new election for delegates to create new state constitutions, required states to allow all male voters including African Americans to vote, temporarily bared those who had supported the Confederacy from voting, required southern states to guarantee equal rights to all citizens, and required the states to ratify the 14th Amendment. They later impeached President Johnson because of his lack of will to grant the freedmen their rights and the fact that Johnson's firing of the Secretary of War was unconstitutional. African Americans would later take part in politics.
15th Amendment:
Freedmen started demanding the rights of citizenship such as voting, serving on juries, and testifying in court. This led the Congress, through Radical power, to pass the 15th Amendment to the Constitution. It stated that no citizen may me denied the right to vote by the United States because of their race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Carpetbagger:
This was the insulting nickname given to northern Republicans who moved to the South. The Southerners felt that these carpetbaggers were profiting from southern misery. They were described as greedy men that wanted to make money but it has been proven that they were well educated men including former union soldiers, black northerners, Freedmen's Bureau officials, businessmen, clergy, and political leaders.
Scalawag:
This is also a nickname that was given to white southern Republicans. They were seen as traitors. Some scalawags were former Whigs who had opposed secession and others were small farmers and former planters. Many were poor.
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