America in the 1860s and 1870s 8 Citizens of Washington D C celebrate the abolition of slavery The needs of the huge Union army led to the growth of existing industries and the creation of new ones ranging from the manufacture of clothing to the production of heavy weapons All across the North from the coast of New England to the banks of the Mississippi River factories and farms prospered in the wake of the war But the greatest change was the end of slavery More than 4 million slaves gained their freedom However their fate after 1865 and the fate of the South as a whole became the subject of a very intense conflict between the president and the Congress Andrew Johnson succeeded or followed Lincoln as president after the assassination of Lincoln in April of 1865
Johnson was a stubborn southern As president however he turned out America in the 1860s and 1870s 9 born man who had supported the Union He believed that only the president had the authority to decide Reconstruction policy Those are the terms under which the South would return to the Union Many Republicans in Congress disagreed however especially with the president’s lenient and forgiving policies toward former Confederate leaders In addition Johnson saw no need for the government to protect the former slaves from their masters Johnson in fact hated former slaves Members of Congress on the other hand were determined to be tough on the South and they passed laws to protect the newly freed slaves Johnson refused to compromise and tried to block Congress at every turn The conflict between Congress and the president finally led to Johnson’s impeachment and to his trial in the Senate Impeachment is a formal accusation of a crime by the House of Representatives The House found him not guilty by just one vote in the spring of 1868 Johnson left office on March 4 1869 much to the relief of most people in the country The 1870s Forgetting the War In 1868 the country turned to its greatest war hero General Ulysses S Grant and elected him the nation’s eighteenth president As a Union general Grant had been daring and courageous a man willing to fight on despite the odds or the casualties to be a bewildered political leader Unscrupulous political allies often betrayed him Scandal marred his two presidential administrations although personally he was honest and always devoted to public service During the Grant administration the nation began to put the war behind it and concentrated on economic growth More and more railroads were built industries expanded and settlers move farther west into the Great Plains and beyond The government during the Grant years was financially generous to business Economic growth contributed to the building of new railways Words to Know Reconstruction ree-kuhn-STRUHK-shuhn Federal government policies toward the defeated South the conditions for the former Confederate states to return to the Union impeachment im-PEECH-muhnt The formal accusation of a crime against a federal official under procedures outlined in the Constitution
10 America in the 1860s and 1870s The railroads for example received millions of acres of land in the West on which to build their tracks In addition the population of the North began to change as immigrants from Europe flocked into the country becoming part of a larger and larger labor force much needed by the growing industries Unfortunately as many positive changes took place the plight of newly freed slaves was not helped The Reconstruction policies established by the Republican Congress in the late 1860s protected freed slaves and tried to improve their economic situation Under the protection of the Freedman’s Bureau for example freed slaves in the South enjoyed such civil rights as the right to vote and to hold office A man representing the Freedman’s Bureau attempts to calm conflict between opposing groups in this art by Alfred R Waud
America in the 1860s and 1870s 11 Alfred R Waud’s Pilgrims of the Plains depicts the daily life of the westward pioneer But by the 1870s many white subjected to violence Americans had grown tired of hearing about the war and the needs of the freed slaves Most Americans just did not care anymore They wanted to forget the war and go on with their lives By the mid-1870s the federal government was ready to withdraw its last troops from the South and turn government over to native-born white southerners many of them ex Confederates When the troops finally left in 1877 freed slaves in the South entered a new Dark Age Although technically free they were once again denied their economic and political rights and were Freed slaves would have to wait another century before the federal government passed laws guaranteeing the rights they had won during four years of civil war This book looks at the presidencies of three men who served in the 1860s and 1870s Abraham Lincoln who led his country through its greatest crisis Andrew Johnson who succeeded Lincoln and was impeached by the House of Representatives and almost convicted and Ulysses S Grant who led his nation first as a general and then as a president
