As the Civil War came to its end the Reconstruction era took its place. Reconstruction in America was the period from which previously part of the Confederacy were gotten back into the United States. This period was, above all else, people had a lot of questions and concerns about the future, they were alert to each action the government made. Politicians straggle over the development of new system for farther role and status of freed slaves in the South. The main concern was to see whether the reconstruction period would bring economic, social and political equality to African American people.
The Reconstruction of the South attempted to solve some of the economic problems of the freed slaves but unfortunate in reality could do very
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Since African American were kept out of society for more than 200 years, it was hard for whites to accepted blacks as equal people. Southern states passed the Black Codes, which restricted African Americans freedom. The point of the codes was to reduce influence of free blacks which were granted some rights during the Presidential Reconstruction, to prevent them from voting, bearing arms, be together to worship and learning to read and write. They also imposed restrictions on black citizenship to be able to still control labor of blacks. Another factor which made it harder for freed slaves to enter the society was the Ku Klux Klan organization, which can be described as “Original American Terrorist Organizations”. Most white’s southern viewed literacy, political equality, or any advancement for blacks as a loss to whites. (3) Terrorist groups like the Klan, the Knights of the White Camelia, the Red Shirts, and several others formed during Reconstruction to maintain the preexisting social order of white supremacy in the South. Black Americans had to suffer a lot, but still later on they …show more content…
It created a political situation tantamount to slavery and it also placed the same southerners in political power who had power before the war (6)! Radical Republicans attempted to developed political equality for freedmen by the passage of Reconstruction Amendments: 13th- ended slavery, 14th gave equal protection under the law and 15th gave blacks right to vote. Unfortunately South, where most slaves were located, refused to ratify 14th amendment, altogether it was passed after the first Reconstruction Act as states were mandated to ratify it in order to be readmitted to the Union. At the end of the Reconstruction blacks still suffered from the political inequality in one way or the
Reconstruction gave potential hope and opportunity for the black population even though it failed to bring economic gains to blacks. it instead established social gains as more and blacks migrated to the south, the federal freedman bureau made education more widely available for blacks.
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.
The seed sown by the wealthy Southern plantation owner of racial disparity had germinated to later become the profoundly discriminatory society. The suppression and unjust behavior of white southern plantation owner towards black slaves had led the civil war, which transition the new era of uncertainty. The work of post-civil war does not end with the abolishment of slavery, but it only starts. The task of rebuilding the south, readmission of the confederate army to union, and providing assistance for the free people of post war, was later known as reconstruction. The work of reconstruction had not only failed to rebuild the nation as the united. But it also failed profoundly of what was the urgent needs of the post war; provide assistance
Reconstruction was a time period, following the Civil War, which focused on rebuilding the nation. Reconstruction was primarily focused with readmitting the seceded states into the Union. Another major issue was the condition of the approximately 4 million freedmen.
After the Civil War ended in 1865, it was followed by an era known as Reconstruction that lasted until 1877, with the goal to rebuild the nation. Lincoln was the president at the beginning of this era, until his assassination caused his vice president, Andrew Johnson to take his place in 1865. Johnson was faced with numerous issues such as the reunification of the union and the unknown status of the ex-slaves, while compromising between the principles of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. After the Election of 1868, Ulysses S. Grant, a former war hero with no political experience, became the nation’s new president, but was involved in numerous acts of corruption. Reconstruction successfully reintegrated the southern states into the Union through Lincoln and Johnson’s Reconstruction Plans, but was mostly a failure due to the continued discriminatory policies against African Americans, such as the Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, and sharecropping, as well as the widespread corruption of the elite in the North and the Panic of 1873,
After the Union victory in the Civil War, the South was still bitter and needed vast societal changes that matched those in the North. Reconstruction efforts were made to to make the regions more similar socially, politically, and economically; because despite the fact that they were on nation, the two societies were very different. There were still unresolved issues in regards to the status of former slaves and what system of labor should replace slavery. After the Union’s victory in the Civil War, reform efforts were made during the Reconstruction era to reunite the North and South and make ideas in the South more similar to those in the North; but this failed because of the South’s preconcieved ideas towards race.
After the end of American Civil War in 1865, The Thirteenth Amendment was added to the constitution of the United States that stated “Neither slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have duly convicted, shall exist in the United States, nor any place subject to their jurisdiction.” By this no black people could be owned by the whites. In spite of this, blacks were severely segregated in the South. This resulted in the formation of anti-radical movement in the South called Ku Klux Klan organization which represented white supremacy by whipping ...
Reconstruction is the period of rebuilding the south that succeeded the Civil War (1861-1865). This period of time is set by the question now what? The Union won the war and most of the south was destroyed. Devastation, buildings turned into crumbles and lost crops. The South was drowning in poverty. To worsen the situation there were thousands of ex-slaves that were set free by the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13 Amendment. "All these ex-slaves", Dr. Susan Walens commented, "and no place to put them," The ex-slaves weren't just homeless but they had no rights, unlike white man. The government and congress had to solve the issues present in the south and the whole nation in order to re-establish the South. These issues were economical, social and political. The United States had presidential and congressional reconstruction. Reconstruction was a failure, a great attempt to unify the nation. It was a failure due to the events that took place during this period.
Reconstruction is known as the period after the Civil war. The whole country was separated in two, people didn’t know what to do, the south was completely destroyed, and there were a lot of decisions to be made by the president. It lasted four years, and there was over half a million casualties between the union (North) and the confederate states (South). The north was declared the winner of the war after General Lee surrender in the Appomattox court house on April 9, 1865. The causes of the war was the secession of several southern states, they argued that it was up to them and it was in their rights to decide whether they should make slavery legal or illegal in their own boundaries. But the Union had other things in mind, the union wanted to decide whether or not the states were going to have slaves. This was just to make sure the country was equal on slavery and non-slavery on both sides, but states thought the union was abusing their power and being too strict on them, and that is when they decided to secede. The first state to secede was south Carolina, then they were followed by six other states, among those states were Florida, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. These states got together and created the confederate states of America in February 4, 1861, and the president was Jefferson Davis, they also made a government similar to the one of the U.S. Constitution.
The period of Reconstruction after the Civil War was successful because it brought the Confederate states back into the Union, which is what one definition of the term Reconstruction refers to, and it helped African Americans to experience aspects of life that they had never before been allowed to. Due to the ratification of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments, former slaves were able to start new lives for themselves with legal rights to defend their actions.
The Civil war could very easily be known as one of the greatest tragedies in United States history. After the Civil War, the people of The United States had so much anger and hatred towards each other and the government that 11 Southern states seceded from the Nation and parted into two pieces. The Nation split into either the Northern abolitionist or the Southern planation farmers. The Reconstruction era was meant to be exactly how the name announces it to be. It was a time for the United States to fix the broken pieces the war had caused allowing the country to mend together and unite once again. The point of Reconstruction was to establish unity between the states and to also create and protect the civil rights of the former slaves. Although Reconstruction failed in many aspects such as the upraise in white supremacy and racism, the reconstruction era was a time the United States took a lead in the direction of race equality.
Bruce Catton made the statement that when the two sides of the nation went to war they destroyed one America, inventing another, which is still forming in the present. The war changed the political aspect of the country expanding the federal government. While local state governments still exist in the present, its power had, is much more restricted than what it was in the pre-war years. Such examples like the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were passed during Reconstruction; they showed the power that the federal government had in post-war America. Though the amendments promised voting rights and anti-discrimination laws towards African Americans, the federal government forced the Southern States to accept these amendments amongst other regulations to become part of the Union, showing the true power that the government had over the nation and the states. Society and the economy of the nation were have affected the South though farming and sharecropping still existed, life like that of the Antebellum years was over, leading to industrialization to begin to take place in the South. Such social issues as racism still affect and affected the nation well into the mid-twentieth century with the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, which saw its main emphases of events in the 1950s and
After the emancipation of slaves in 1862, the status of African-Americans in post civil war America up until the beginning of the twentieth century did not go through a great deal of change. Much legislation was passed to help blacks in this period. The Civil Rights act of 1875 prohibited segregation in public facilities and various government amendments gave African-Americans even more guaranteed rights. Even with this government legislation, the newly dubbed 'freedmen' were still discriminated against by most people and, ironically, they were soon to be restricted and segregated once again under government rulings in important court cases of the era.
Through these achievements of Reconstruction, it created a better life for many people in the South.
After the civil war, newly freed slaves faced many challenges. Whites, especially in the south, regarded blacks as inferior more than ever before. The black codes were just one obstacle the freed slaves had to overcome. They were laws that were passed in the southern states that had the intent and the effect of restricting African Americans freedom. These laws made it possible for the south to regain control over the black population in much of the same ways they had before. The black codes effected reconstruction, and even today’s society in many ways.