The American civil war was one of the biggest hardships for a young country to endure, and yet it did not prepare them for the tension after. Slavery was the biggest conflict between the Northern states and the Southern states, this is what lead us to civil war. In the midst of all the national crisis was a breaking point for the young country. Reconstruction was needed, and the period following the civil war, the reconstruction period, fostered many significant results and achievements especially for Constitutional amendments. While mending a broken country, the reconstruction period still left many fresh wounds. Creating and passing laws wasn’t enough to make a change, it would take a leader strong enough to change the hearts and minds of …show more content…
Many had lost loved ones from both sides; the death toll over six hundred thousand and the initial issues still remaining. Even with Lincoln passing the Emancipation proclamation and Congress following suit with bills freeing slaves, many southern states didn’t take action. Instead they continued to discriminate against the freed slaves. Many in the north only wanted slaves free simply to harm their owners businesses, but they were very clear they didn’t want the free slaves in the north either. This left many free slaves stuck in the southern states. “Republican politicians who defended emancipation did so with racist arguments. Far from encouraging southern blacks to move north, they claimed, the ending of slavery would lead to a mass migration of northern blacks to the south”. This highlights the continuing issues of racism and discrimination not just in the south but in the north as well. These are some key issues that started at America 's birth as a country, and grew into a bloody conflict, and continued throughout the reconstruction period. These are the ideas the reconstruction period sought to change, but the unwillingness of the people and ineptitude of the nation’s leaders unfortunately lead to the continuance of these ideas for many more years. A strong leader may have softened the blow and could have even smoothed things out for a nation in crisis, but that strong leader was assassinated …show more content…
Reconstruction was needed and the period following the civil war, the reconstruction period, fostered many significant results and achievements especially for Constitutional amendments. While mending a broken country, the reconstruction period still left many fresh wounds. There was great successes and championships for former slaves and the blacks rights, but their was still lingering thoughts and acts of discrimination towards these groups. Reconstruction produced three amendments defending the people 's rights, yet discrimination towards blacks was peeking to new heights. Laws were not enough to change the hearts and minds of the people, which was at the core of the issue. With the unfortunate loss of the nation’s leader, it would be almost a hundred years later until America had leaders strong enough, in the nineteen sixties, that could change the ideas of racism and
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Show MoreReconstruction has been brutally murdered! For a little over a decade after the Civil War, the victorious North launched a campaign of social, economic, and political recovery in South. Martial law was also implemented in the South. Eventually, the North hoped to admit the territory in the former Confederacy back into the United States as states. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments freed the African Americans, made them citizens, and gave them the right to vote. Despite this, Reconstruction was unfortunately cut short in 1877. The North killed Recosntruction because of racism, negligence, and distractions.
From the inauguration of Lincoln and the secession of eleven states to the Union to the first exchange of fires at Fort Sumter, the inevitable Civil War began. Ever since America began to expand as an independent country, sectionalism (where the North wanted the abolition of slavery while the South wanted slavery) and growing conflicts between the north and south has always closely revolved around the issue of slavery. This long due problem finally blows up in the “United” States of America’s face as the Civil War. Conflicts relating to African Americans caused the war, changed the course and complications of the war, and shaped the war results in both informal and formal ways.
America has gone through many hardships and struggles since coming together as a nation involving war and changes in the political system. Many highly regarded leaders in America have come bestowing their own ideas and foundation to provide a better life for “Americans”, but no other war or political change is more infamous than the civil war and reconstruction. Reconstruction started in 1865 and ended in 1877 and still to date one of the most debated issues in American history on whether reconstruction was a failure or success as well as a contest over the memory, meaning, and ending of the war. According to, “Major Problems in American History” David W. Blight of Yale University and Steven Hahn of the University of Pennsylvania take different stances on the meaning of reconstruction, and what caused its demise. David W. Blight argues that reconstruction was a conflict between two solely significant, but incompatible objectives that “vied” for attention both reconciliation and emancipation. On the other hand Steven Hahn argues that former slaves and confederates were willing and prepared to fight for what they believed in “reflecting a long tradition of southern violence that had previously undergirded slavery” Hahn also believes that reconstruction ended when the North grew tired of the 16 year freedom conflict. Although many people are unsure, Hahn’s arguments presents a more favorable appeal from support from his argument oppose to Blight. The inevitable end of reconstruction was the North pulling federal troops from the south allowing white rule to reign again and proving time travel exist as freed Africans in the south again had their civil, political, and economical position oppressed.
The Reconstruction has been killed! Who’s to blame, the North or South? The Northern neglect stopped Reconstruction because of neglect and racism. At the time the Reconstruction ended, the Declaration of Independence became one hundred years old in 1876 (Background Essay, Paragraph 1). Another important event that occurred was the election of 1876 for the new president. It was Rutherford B. Hayes against Samuel J. Tilden. The election caused talk of a new Civil War but then the Compromise of 1877 gave Hayes presidency. Rutherford B. Hayes became the new president at the time the Reconstruction was coming to an end (Background Essay, Paragraph 4). The presidential election did not help the Reconstruction at all. It destroyed American dream for the black people who were in the South (Background Essay, Paragraph 1).
When Reconstruction began in 1865, a broken America had just finished fighting the Civil War. In all respects, Reconstruction was mainly just that. It was a time period of “putting back the pieces”, as people say. It was the point where America attempted to become a full running country once more. This, though, was not an easy task. The memory of massive death was still in the front of everyone’s mind, hardening into resentment and sometimes even hatred. The south was virtually non-existent politically or economically, and searching desperately for a way back in. Along with these things, now living amongst the population were almost
Finally the dreams of millions of African Americans were being turned into reality, slaves were becoming free. Although, as soon as the progress was being made, it was instantly crushed and would be arduous to return. Lincoln’s assassination was a dreadful day in American History. When the tide of the new election came around the corner, it was such a strenuous decision that there was talk of a new Civil War. The answer is clear, the North is at fault for the end of Reconstruction because of Grant’s focus only on the Government, racism, and the distractions the North had.
Although many laws were passed that recognized African Americans as equals, the liberties they had been promised were not being upheld. Hoffman, Blum, and Gjerde state that “Union League members in a North Carolina county, upon learning of three or four black men who ‘didn’t mean to vote,’ threatened to ‘whip them’ and ‘made them go.’ In another country, ‘some few colored men who declined voting’ were, in the words of a white conservative, ‘bitterly persecute[ed]” (22). Black codes were also made to control African Americans. Norton et al. states that “the new black codes compelled former slaves to carry passes, observe a curfew, live in housing provided by a landowner, and give up hope of entering many desirable occupations” (476). The discrimination and violence towards African Americans during this era and the laws passed that were not being enforced were very disgraceful. However, Reconstruction was a huge stepping stone for the way our nation is shaped today. It wasn’t pretty but it was the step our nation needed to take. We now live in a country where no matter the race, everyone is considered equal. Reconstruction was a success. Without it, who knows where our nation would be today. African American may have never gained the freedoms they have today without the
The American history has had many memorable moments over the time period from 1870 to 1920 which has helped develop the way America is today. Each time period holds many life changing events and discoveries in them. We, as Americans, learn from past events and work together to make this country a better and safer home. Starting in the 1865 to 1877 the Reconstruction began in the South following after the American Civil War. This alteration in the south was not welcomed by the Southerners, which resulted in many problems throughout this process. Even though Republicans were trying to help by restoring the region; the Southerners felt attacked and controlled during the Reconstruction because many characteristics of society and politics were
... and slavery left millions of newly freed African Americans in the South without an education, a home, or a job. Before reconstruction was put in place, African Americans in the South were left roaming helplessly and hopelessly. During the reconstruction period, the African Americans’ situation did not get much better. Although helped by the government, African Americans were faced with a new problem. African Americans in the South were now being terrorized and violently discriminated by nativist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Such groups formed in backlash to Reconstruction and canceled out all the positive factors of Reconstruction. At last, after the Compromise of 1877, the military was taken out of the South and all of the Reconstruction’s efforts were basically for nothing. African Americans in the South were back to the conditions they started with.
After the devastating Civil War, the nation had millions of freed slaves. Most former slaves were African Americans and the South were suffering a time of discrimination and living in horrible working and living conditions. The Union had a challenge in protecting the African American's rights of citizenship. This began the era of Reconstruction. Reconstruction’s goal was to protect and help African Americans get back on their feet and adapt them to this new society. Also, an attempt for the United States to become a unified country. Reconstruction wasn’t a success but it wasn’t a failure. It was a success by the thirteenth, fourteenth, and the fifteenth amendments being passed which abolished slavery for African Americans, becoming full citizens,
Reconstruction failed to bring justice, social and economic equality to freed Blacks. Reconstruction may have bought freedom to slave but it only caused more horror in their life. Many of the trauma caused by reconstruction is shown in documents D, E, and F. Reconstruction was not all a failure to the African-American community it cause them to gain some type of equality in the American society. Example’s of the positive effect of the reconstruction is shown in documents A, B, and C. Reconstruction had both a negative and positive effect on the social class of African-American in the United States.
Following the events of the Civil War in 1865, the United States and its Americans began a period of reconstruction. After the Union and Confederacy fought a bloody and violent war, the question was what was next for Americans? Thousands of ex-slaves were free and without aim after the Emancipation Proclamation earlier in 1863, the north and south were still divided, and on top of it all, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, it was truly one of the most difficult and challenging times in American History. These events influenced various groups of Americans to model their mindset and values, which will eventually shape the history of the United States up to the modern day. From White Americans holding dear their judeo christian values and believing
... The cause was forfeited not by Republicans, who welcomed the African-American votes, but to the elite North who had concluded that the formal end of slavery was all the freed man needed and their unpreparedness for the ex-slaves to participate in the Southern commonwealth was evident. Racism, severe economic depression, an exhausted North and troubled South, and a campaign of organized violence toward the freed man, overturned Reconstruction. The North withdrew the last of the federal troops with the passing of The Compromise of 1877. The freed slaves continued to practice few voting rights until 1890, but they were soon stripped of all political, social and economic powers. Not until the civil rights movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s were the freedoms that were fought for by our Republican forefathers nearly 100 years before, finally seen through to fruition.
The radical reconstruction era in the south saw the emergence of African americans in political offices, however there was no real black supremacy and the whites ultimately had the overwhelming power. The 13th, 14th and 15th ammendments to the constitution were ratified or passed during the era which saw the abolishing of slavery, civil rights granted to all people born in the United States and the right to vote to citisens of any race, colour and religion. The latter summed up by Kenneth Stamp ‘ if it was worth four years of civil war to save the union, it was worth a few years of radical reconstruction to give the American negro the ultimate promise of equal civil and political rights’.
With the end of the Civil war in 1865, the new nation of the United States now faced challenges on restoring peace within the Union. The North, having won the civil war, now faced the task to implement reconstruction of the South. They came in contact with the questions of: What should happen to the freed slaves, should the freed slaves have rights, what should be done to the Confederate leaders, and how should the South be reconstructed? There were many different ideas and views on how Reconstruction should be handled, but only one succeeded more successfully than the other. Although they bear some superficial similarities, the difference between presidential and congressional reconstruction are clear. The president believed that Confederate