Reconstruction

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Recommended: The failure of reconstruction

Reconstruction was not a success because it resulted in the implementation of the Black Codes, the formation of the Klu Klux Klan, and the failure of the Freedmen's Bureau. The Civil War left the South destroyed and , as a reunited country, the government was tasked with developing a strategy for reconnecting the North and South and rebuilding the land destroyed by the battles. President Abraham Lincoln presented a method for reconstruction, but upon his death, the idea was abandoned. Lincoln's vice president, Andrew Johnson presented another theory that was also dismissed. To begin work on reconstruction in 1865, the Freedmen's Bureau was formed as a welfare agency that educated free blacks and promised to give all former slaves forty acres of ex-Confederate land. However, this promise was not kept, and Johnson let the Bureau expire in 1872. Congress eventually passed the Reconstitution Act on March 2, 1867. The Act divided the South into five military districts that were led by a Union general and policed by Union soldiers. It also required that all rejoining states allow free black men to vote and receive the rights guaranteed to him in the Fourteenth Amendment. However, not all states that rejoined the Union met these requirements.
Reconstruction was a failure because it resulted in the Black Codes. The Black Codes were a series of laws designed to regulate the affairs of the emancipated slaves. They were made to enforce a lower-class labor force that would help in rebuilding the economy which had been destroyed by the Civil War. The codes prohibited African Americans from owning firearms, and imposed harsh punishments for misdemeanor crimes. Any freedman, African American, or mulatto was liable to "be hired out by the sheri...

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...s as it did not provide African American's with their rights, resulted in whites terrorizing African Americans, and forced freed slaves to rely on white farmers for shelter and for occupations. While Reconstruction was aimed at creating a tolerant society, it actually resulted in a lopsided society that forced African Americans to rely heavily on whites. Also, they were experienced racism in the eyes of the law and experienced indentured servitude, like slavery, for misdemeanor crimes. Reconstruction did not create a racially accepting society and it created racist groups, laws and failing government agencies.

Works Cited

"Freeman's Bureau." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 12 May 2014.
Mississippi Black Code. Penal Law. Section 5. 11 May 2014.
"United States Constitution". Amendment 13.
"United States Constitution". Amendment 14.
KKK Documentary. History Channel. 7 May 2014

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