1.) What events and movements prompted the federal government to redefine the standing of African Americans in American society between 1857 and 1877?
The events and movements that promoted the federal government to redefine the standing of African Americans in American society between 1857 and 1877 started in 1857 with the Dred Scott Case. This is followed a few years later when 1863 President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation. This states that “all persons held as slaves are, and henceforward shall be free.” In 1863 President Lincoln announces The 10 Percent Plan. In March 1865 the Freedmen’s Bureau was created by Congress. In April 4, 1865 President Lincoln is assassinated making Andrew Johnson president where the next month in May 1865 the new President Johnson announces his plan for Reconstruction. Shortly after in November 1865 there are new “Black Codes” denying African Americans many rights and allowing unnecessary arrests. The next month in December 1865 the states ratify the 13th Amendment that abolishes slavery. Early the next year in February 1866 Congress attempts to protect ex-slaves by elevating the power of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Two months later in April 1866 Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1866. June that same year Congress submits the 14th Amendment to the states for ratification. In the Summer of 1866, rioting took place in Memphis and New Orleans by whites, showing Northerners that they need to take more action for the freedmen. The next year in March 1867 Congress separates the South into two military districts that are subject to Martial Law. This allows for ratification of the 14th Amendment and guarantees voting rights for African American men. In early 1868 President Johnson was impeac...
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.... This affected the nations politics by moving toward the first representation of an African American in the state legislature (digital history: Congressional reconstruction).
4.) Why did the federal government abandon its pursuit of racial equality?
The federal government abandoned its pursuit of racial equality because of the disputed presidential election of 1876. This played a part in this because of a split between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden. After much fighting and vote discrepancy it came down to a meeting in February 1877 in Washington D.C where the Democratic leaders accepted Hayes’s election in exchange for many Republican promises. This is when the Compromise of 1877 came about and federal troops were pulled out of the south. This brought Reconstruction to a formal end and therefore ending the protection and their pursuit of racial equality.
The first part of this book looks into African American political activity during the pre-Civil War and Civil War periods. He uses this part of the book to show that blacks, even while in slavery, used their position to gain rights from their slaveholders. These rights included the right to farm their own plots, sale of their produce, and to visit neighboring plantations. This was also the period
From the start of the American Civil War, 1860, until the end of the Reconstruction, 1877, the United States of America endured what can be considered a revolution. Prior to the year 1860, there was a lack of union because of central government power flourishing rather than state power. Therefore, there was a split of opposite sides, North and South, fighting for authority. One major issue that came into mind was of slavery. At first, there were enactments that were issued to limit or rather prevent conflict to erupt, such as the numerous compromises, Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. They did not fulfill the needs of the states, South states in particular; therefore, in the year 1860, the Civil War had commenced. There was the issue of inequality of Blacks in suffrage, politics, and the use of public facilities. However, much constitutional and social advancement in the period culminated in the revolution. To a radical extent, constitutional development between 1860 and 1877 amount to a revolution because of events like the Emancipation Proclamation, Civil Rights Act, the amendments that tried to change African Americans lives in American Society and contributed to get the union together. There is the social developments as well that to a lesser extent had amounted to the revolution because of organizations like the Klu Klux Klan, Freedmen’s Bureau lacking, and discrimination against African Americans that caused progression of violence and white supremacy.
Examine the condition of African-Americans in the late nineteenth century and explain why the Thirteenth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Fifteenth Amendment, which were enacted to aid the new freedmen, actually did little.
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.
The years after the civil war left one half of America, the north, satisfied and the other half, the south, mostly dissatisfied. Therefore the last third of the nineteenth century, 1865-1900, was a time period in which America was mending, repairing, improving, reshaping, and reconstructing its society, economy, culture, and policies. Basically it was changing everything it stood for. This continual change can be seen in the following events that took place during this time. These events are both causes and effects of why America is what it is today. These are some examples: the reconstruction of the south, the great movement towards the west, the agricultural revolution, the rise of industrialism, the completion of the transcontinental railroad, and America's growth to gaining world power. All of these are reasons and events that characterize America as being an ever-changing nation.
Throughout history, there has been a struggle for equality and justice. The oppression that African Americans have received throughout the generational period in which they first arrived in America has continued to be a raging war. Article I, Section 8 of the American Constitution enabled Congress to have certain rights and authorities over the laws. In the evaluation of the 1700s, 1800s, 1950s, and 1990s, the prolific effects can be seen through specific Congressional Acts.
After the Civil War was over and the Reconstruction-era began, changes were made such as the 13th amendment in 1865, which forbid slavery in the United States. Even though slavery was now prohibited, freed blacks were now left alone to struggle finding simple things like a roof to live in and a job to work for. Meanwhile, President Abraham Lincoln wanted to give the south humane conditions for them to be accepted back into the union and also wanted to give African Americans and former soldiers the right to vote, but that wasn’t very successful when put into the hands of Congress. Soon after Lincoln was killed in 1865, President Andrew Johnson came into presidency and changed the conditions giving African Americans a harder time adapting to their new lives as freedmen. Furthermore, the south became very violent against the blacks and came up with black codes, which put freed blacks as closely as possible back into a slave state. These black codes prohibited interracial marriages, the ownership of guns or liquor, congregation in large groups and had curfews for these freedmen. Furthermore, these black codes forced the freedmen to sign annual work contracts that were offensive and offered only in the agricultural f...
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.
Following the outbreak of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln believed that the Union could not survive while it remained profoundly divided on the subject of slavery. Revered by numerous historians, Lincoln’s actions throughout the Civil War created social and political change that would bring the United States of America into a new era of cultural reform. In attempting to abolish slavery and weaken the Confederacy, the Emancipation Proclamation redefined the objectives of the Civil War. While successful in gradually abolishing the institution of slavery in the southern states, the Emancipation Proclamation failed to extinguish racial discrimination against the newly freed African Americans. Indeed, although progress had been made, the use of intimidation and segregation by white southerners continued to strip black citizens of their fundamental rights, thus deepening racial tensions, not only in the southern states, but across the entire fractured nation.
Alongside the brutal, bloody Civil War and makeshift post-war reconstruction in the South were several monumental changes within the United States. As federal power increased, so did the power of the Constitution, as it began to expand and shift to encompass more and more people. With this also came a social change; millions of blacks, now freed by the thirteenth amendment, had the potential to be just as successful as their white brethren. As time went by, however, numerous pitfalls and opposing viewpoints challenged the idea of constitutional and social transformation. While there was a constitutional revolution occurring from 1860-1877, there was little to no social revolution happening at the same time.
History shows that slavery consisted of African Americans being treated inferior to whites. Slaves were mostly African Americans and even though today slavery is over people still look at blacks as less important than whites. Slavery has impacted our society today because people are still prejudice and discriminatory towards African Americans, they are still living in poverty and don’t have proper education and they don’t have an equal opportunity for jobs. Still today African Americans continue to lag behind whites.
In From Slavery to Freedom (2007), it was said that “the transition from slavery to freedom represents one of the major themes in the history of African Diaspora in the Americas” (para. 1). African American history plays an important role in American history not only because the Civil Rights Movement, but because of the strength and courage of Afro-Americans struggling to live a good life in America. Afro-Americans have been present in this country since the early 1600’s, and have been making history since. We as Americans have studied American history all throughout school, and took one Month out of the year to studied African American history. Of course we learn some things about the important people and events in African American history, but some of the most important things remain untold which will take more than a month to learn about.
The Republicans were losing their political clout. By agreeing to what has become known as the Compromise of 1877, the Republicans effectively abandoned the people they had fought so long to free. This was because this compromise between Democrats and Republicans effectively repealed the constitutional strides, which had been made thus far toward offering the black population of the U.S. equality.3
Change in political, social and economic development is most easily influenced by significant historical events. In The United State's history, we can find endless events that created the country and its political beliefs and moral values that its citizens practice today, but two of the most influential events regarding the country's past racial segregation and slavery involvement was the invention of the Cotton Gin and the Missouri Compromise. Both events are referred to as turning points or revolutions in political thinking, social standing, and economic stability in relation to their involvement in the increase of slavery and racial segregation.
Massive protests against racial segregation and discrimination broke out in the southern United States that came to national attention during the middle of the 1950’s. This movement started in centuries-long attempts by African slaves to resist slavery. After the Civil War American slaves were given basic civil rights. However, even though these rights were guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment they were not federally enforced. The struggle these African-Americans faced to have their rights ...