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Civil war and reconstruction APUSH
The effect of the jim crow laws
Civil war and reconstruction APUSH
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The period after the Civil War was a very difficult time in the United States’ history. This time was known as the Reconstruction period and it was a very controversial time. There were many issues that had to be addressed such as what to do with the free blacks in the south and how states would be readmitted to the Union. This era saw the rise of the Radical Republicans. The government was going through changes, southerners were going through changes, and blacks were going through changes. Whites in the south were left without people to work their plantations. Slavery was indeed a very important topic during this time. Many of the reconstruction plans that were proposed required states to prohibit slavery in order to be readmitted to the Union. When the Civil War ended in 1865, there was no definite plan for reconstructing the Union. This was a very serious matter. President Lincoln had begun thinking about this while he was in office. In 1863 he proposed his Ten Percent Plan. This policy would allow seceding states to return to the Union if ten percent of their prewar voters took an oath of loyalty to the Union and if the state would prohibit slavery. Although the plan forced states to prohibit slavery it did not force them to grant equal rights to blacks. The Ten Percent Plan was a good idea but some Republicans felt that it was not strict enough. This paved the way for the Wade-Davis Bill. This bill required the majority of a state’s prewar voters to pledge loyalty to the Union and that blacks were seen as equal in the eyes of the law. These plans led to controversy. Some people felt that because the constitution never mentioned succession, the states never actually seceded the Union so they didn’t need to be formally readmitted. Others felt that the states from the South had given up their rights once they left the Union so they must be readmitted. Upon the close of the Civil War, Congress was not in session. They would not meet again until December. This left the burden of developing a reconstruction plan on the shoulders of President Andrew Johnson. So in May of 1865 Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan was unveiled. Under this plan, Johnson gave pardons and restored property rights to former white landowners if they pledged loyalty to the Union and the Constitution.... ... middle of paper ... ...win Stanton. President Johnson was tried for impeachment but the Senate could not convict him. During this time many things were done to help free blacks in the South. The thirteenth amendment prohibited slavery. The Freedmen’s Bureau was created to assist blacks with things such as education and finding homes. The Homestead Act which gave blacks preferential treatment to get public land in the south. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 defined what civil rights were entitled to citizens. The fourteenth amendment which prohibited states from violating the rights of their citizens. The fifteenth amendment which guaranteed every male citizen the right to vote regardless of race. Although the government did all these things to help the black man, it was still tough living in this era. The Ku Klux Klan were at the height of their power. If was hard for blacks to farm because they could not get supplies on credit. There were not many opportunities for free blacks other than work for very small wages on a white persons farm or move to the city and work in a factory. This is what led to the migration of blacks from the farms to the cities and from south to north.
Groups of people soon received new rights. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. It gave black Americans full citizenship and guaranteed them equal treatment. Also, it passed the Fourteenth Amendment to make sure that the Supreme Court couldn’t declare the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional. The amendment made blacks citizens of the United States and the states in which they lived. Also, states were forbidden to deprive blacks of life, liberty, or property without due process. Additionally, blacks could not be discriminated by the law. If a state would deprive blacks of their rights as citizens, it’s number of congressional representatives would be reduced. The Civil Rights Act as well as the Fourteenth Amendment affected both the North and the South.
...dom and right to vote established by the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, blacks were still oppressed by strong black codes and Jim Crow laws. The federal government created strong legislation for blacks to be helped and educated, but it was ineffective due to strong opposition. Although blacks cried out to agencies, such as the Freemen's Bureau, declaring that they were "in a more unpleasant condition than our former" (Document E), their cries were often overshadowed by violence.
After the Civil War, America went through a period of Reconstruction. This was when former Confederate states were readmitted to the Union. Lincoln had a plan that would allow them to come back, but they wouldn’t be able to do it easily. He would make 10% of the population swear an oath of loyalty and establish a government to be recognized. However, he was assassinated in Ford’s Theater and Andrew Johnson became the president; Johnson provided an easy path for Southerners. Congress did their best to ensure equal rights to freedmen, but failed because of groups who were against Reconstruction, white southern Democrats gaining control within the government and the lack of having a plan in place for recently freedmen.
“The best way to predict your future is to create it” (Lincoln). President states the principal of Reconstruction, where to unite the United States, there must be an authoritative action to carry it out. The Reconstruction Era (1863-1877) is a period where Lincoln sought to restore the divided nation by uniting the confederates and the union and to involve the freedmen into the American society. The main objectives were to initially restore the union, to rebuild the South and to enact progressive legislation for the rights of the freed slaves. Thus, the executive and legislature branches had enacted a series of polices to “create the future” for the United States. Although the policies tied down to the Reconstructive motive, there was controversy
Johnson, having grown up in a poor southern household, sympathized with the south yet, abhorred the planter class. In his Reconstruction plan, he issued a blanket pardon to all southerners except important confederate figures who would have to personally meet with the president in order to be forgiven and given citizenship. . Slaves in America had been promised freedom, and through the Emancipation Proclamation, freedom from slavery is technically what they received.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Free blacks from the south were facing many situations from the whites from the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws were to prevent free blacks and other non-whites from being able to vote and have a voice within the government. Laws and statements were established such as the Grandfather Clause, which would prevent anyone whose grandfather could not vote from voting. Since the majority of blacks grandfathers did not vote and was not even free, free blacks in the south were denied the right to vote. Free blacks were now being denied any privilege that non slaves (whites) already had. Their "freedom" was only from slavery, now they realized that they were still a slave to the world. Also during this time blacks were being discriminated against and the lynchings of blacks were occurring. Blacks were becoming endangered and feared for their lives.
Although Lincoln and Johnson both passed Reconstruction plans that helped reunite the north and the south, ultimately Congress was not satisfied and passed its own plan. Lincoln passed a rather forgiving Reconstruction plan because in his opinion, the Confederate states had never seceded from the Union. The Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction included a ten percent plan, which “ would recognize them as people of the states within which they acted, and aid them to gain in all respects full acknowledgement and enjoyment of statehood, even though the persons who thus acted were but a tenth part of the original voters of their states” (W...
loyalty oath. If this happened then that state could setup a new state government. Under
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.
... 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.
One of the first goals of Reconstruction was to readmit the Confederate states into the Union, and during the debate in Congress over how to readmit the states, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were ratified. The United States had three different presidents between 1865 and 1877, who all had different opinions as to how the actions of readmitting the states should be carried out. President Lincoln devised the Ten Percent Plan in an effort to get the Confederate states to rejoin the Union. In Lincoln's plan, all Confederates, other than high-ranking officials, would be pardoned if they would swear allegiance to the Union and promise to obey its laws. Once ten percent of the people on the 1860 voting lists took the oath of allegiance, the state would be free to form a state government, and would be readmitted to the Union. Many of the Republicans in Congress were angered by this plan, because they believed that it was too lenient. After President Lincoln was assassinated, Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency with a new plan, which became known as Presiden...
During the time of reconstruction, the 13th amendment abolished slavery. As the Nation was attempting to pick up their broken pieces and mend the brokenness of the states, former slaves were getting the opportunity to start their new, free lives. This however, created tension between the Northerners and the Southerners once again. The Southerners hated the fact that their slaves were being freed and did not belong to them anymore. The plantations were suffering without the slaves laboring and the owners were running out of solutions. This created tension between the Southern planation owners and the now freed African Americans. There were many laws throughout the North and the South that were made purposely to discriminate the African Americans.
After the Civil War, the South needed to rejoin the North to become a United States. President Abraham Lincoln was very lenient with the idea of restoring the states with the Union. He developed a plan called the Ten-Percent Plan, which proclaimed that ten percent of the southern states’ population needed to pledge to be loyal to the United States. After Lincoln’s assassination, President Andrew Johnson took over. He was much more lenient towards the South than Lincoln was, giving the South the right to regulate their actions. For example, African Americans could be controlled, but still couldn’t be bought nor sold. Slavery technically ended, but the new sharecropper sy...
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
The Civil War was an important war over the freedom of slaves in the U.S.. The Civil War is well known for being caused by the issue of slavery, but it is really a combination of different events and actions that caused tensions to rise throughout the country. The economic and political issues in the U.S., along with certain actions caused the Civil war, which is one of the United States’s worst wars. All in all, the Civil War was one of the most devastating wars for our country as a whole, and the process of rebuilding would take years and is no easy job.