Reconstruction Dbq

The Reconstruction Act was an immediate response after the Civil War to try and rebuild the United States. Although the military conflicts were over the Reconstruction was in many ways still considered a war. The important struggle was how the radical northerners wanted to punish the south and the southerners who desperately just wanted to preserve their way of life. The federal government outlawed slavery with the 13th amendment, defined citizenship and protected the americans with the 14th amendment, and extended suffrage to all men by adding the 15th amendment. These amendments required southern states to accept them in order to be readmitted into the Union. Although these were great steps towards racial equality, the enforcement of these rights was very difficult. The Reconstruction Act was a success due to it’s ability to restore the United States as a unified nation. The Confederacy was …show more content…

It brought many problems with it causing it to fail, mainly because of the white’s resistance against the blacks. The southern whites or the “confederates” were very uncooperative with new laws passed by the blacks or the yankees. Many groups were formed to revolt against these people. The biggest group that many of us know today, the Ku Klux Klan, who emerged to maintain white dominance and intimidate black voters or any white people that supported them. As soon as the former confederates earned their right to vote again they began to undo most of the social and economic reforms through a systematic process in an effort to undo the Reconstruction and restore it to the Old South. They passed laws stating that the 14th and 15th amendments only applied for African Americans at the federal level. Although the Radical Republicans worked for years to try and restore and secure the equal rights, that changed in 1874. Under the Democratic leadership, many of the Reconstruction programs were hurt or eliminated