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Us history reconstruction leq
Reconstruction era african americans
Thesis on reconstruction era
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Support or oppose, citing evidence with explanation, the following statement. “Reconstruction was a failure in the United States.” Reconstruction after the United States Civil War was a substantial failure. This time period was supposed to be an era of positive reform and improved civil liberties yet was plagued with corruption and lack of steady change overall. Reconstruction did have significant improvements including the new infrastructure implemented by the Northerners such as the public schools, orphanages, railroads and the ability for African-Americans to hold political office for a duration of time. These advancements were shadowed by the massive deficiency of Reconstruction. The social opinion was degraded after the federal government …show more content…
imposed plans to “rebuild” the South which costed a great deal of money which increased taxes largely. Opponents of Reconstruction swiftly began a propaganda war that labeled the supporters as either scalawags, southerners who cooperated, or carpetbaggers, northerners which ran the programs simply to make a raw profit. Many of those who participated in Reconstruction were corrupt and sold their votes for money and favors. In a novel by Mark Twain and Charles Warner named The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873), they discussed greed and political corruption in post-civil war America. The term “Gilded Age” implied that something was draped in gold and wealth while it covering the atrocious conditions of the south and the untrustworthy government. President Grant’s administration demonstrates this clearly through all of the scandals which arose. Grant had little political experience when he was elected in 1868 as he was a grand military general. When he was elected to be the President he placed many of his close friends and supporters in government positions and not necessarily men most qualified to fill those positions. Some of these scandals include Black Friday (1869), New York Custom House ring (1872), Whiskey Ring (1875), Safe Burglary (1876) and many others. “There was one thing that the white South feared more than Negro dishonesty, ignorance, and incompetency, and that was Negro honesty, knowledge, and efficiency.”- An elderly black man in Mississippi (1869).
This new fear of the voting freedman angered many southern democrats. A war of intimidation began in the south in which the Ku Klux Klan was established that focused on murdering freedmen. There were even openly operating paramilitaries such as the White League who concentrated their attacks upon Republicans. In some towns the entire southern adult male population was engaged in a war against Reconstruction at one point. Reconstruction had done little to redistribute the wealth and land throughout the south. Likewise it did very little to alter the power structure of the region because the Southerners knew that when restrictions were to loosen things would return back to the ordinary conditions. All of the promises from the federal government such as “Forty acres and a mule” by General Sherman were lost and hardly anything was done to guarantee land rights to the …show more content…
freedmen. The federal court system also lacked in the field of dynamic reform as well.
Throughout the 1860’s and 1870’s the Supreme Court often restricted the scope of the fourteenth and fifteen amendments. In the Slaughter-House cases, the court ruled that the 14th Amendment applied only to the federal government, not to state governments. Another way reform was restricted was through the implication of new voting restrictions. In United States v. Reese, the court cleared the war for poll taxes, literary tests, property requirements, and other restrictions. It would be another 100 years when the 24th Amendment was adopted in which the poll tax was abolished for elections. These newly imposed limits indirectly barred freedmen from voting and effectively rendering the south the same as it was before Reconstruction. By 1876, Southern Democrats had regained control of the southern
legislatures. At the end of the Civil War, the former slaves were propelled into a state of freedom and they had hope to radically change their lives for the better. The Freedman’s Bureau enjoyed successes but was underfunded and eventually came to an end. After it became evident the government would not redistribute the land the freedmen had to find other ways to work farms and sharecropping came to exist. In this weakened form of slavery the workers were tied to land that they did not own and were only given enough crops to survive but not enough to save up and move on. Furthermore, continued disenchantment with the white society caused blacks to further separate from white spheres. This created even more of class separation. Yet from this black communities were created incorporating Baptist and other black churches. The goals of reconstruction were to bring former confederate states back into the union and to ensure and recognize the equal rights of former slaves. The first goal was much more realistic as the states simply had to ratify new constitutions while ensuring the rights of the freedmen was a failure. Reforms were made but they were minute relative to the deficiency of the Northern reform programs.
Yes, Reconstruction was doomed to fail. The first reason for this was that Lincoln started a plan or policy for Reconstruction before the Civil War was over (page 792 of our assigned readings). Lincoln said that "he intended to to deal with the defeated South "with malice toward none" and "charity for all" to "achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves (Page 792 of our assigned readings)."" The first problem with this thought is that who knows how the war would play out? Yes, Lincoln believed that this proposition would help end the war, but was that a good time to begin Reconstruction? Before the war even ended? Lincoln's plan eventually angered many Radical Republicans, and that is how the Wade-Davis Bill was introduced.
The Northern Neglect killed Reconstruction by having a better government.. With a better government they were able to control more. Until President Grant started to get to busy looking for government frauds. "Northern voters shifted their attention to such national concerns as the Panic of 1873 and corruption in Grant’s administration.”(Danzer Doc. C)
In conclusion, Reconstruction failed for the freedmen for a variety of reasons. I believe the main reason for this failure was the inability for the two political parties to agree on what they wanted to achieve. Did they want total freedom for the freed slaves, only partial freedom, or just the rebuilding that issue coupled with unpopularity, the freedman’s culture being rooted in the south, and the freed slaves’ inability to find work outside of the south resulted in a process that took over a century to work successfully. I feel that it is very unfortunate that President Lincoln was killed so shortly after the end of the Civil War. I believe that since Reconstruction was Lincoln’s idea he would have carried it out more successfully than his successors did.
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,
The social history regarding reconstruction has been of great controversy for the last two decades in America. Several wars that occurred in America made reconstruction efforts to lag behind. Fundamental shortcomings of the reconstruction were based on racism, politics, capitalism and social relations. The philosophy was dominant by the people of South under the leadership of Lincoln. Lincoln plans were projected towards bringing the states from the South together as one nation. However, the efforts of the Activist were faded by the intrusion of the Republicans from the North. Northerners were capitalists and disapproved the ideas that Lincoln attempted to spread in the South (Foner Par 2).
The United States had a 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. It was 1865, black men were tasting freedom, the confederation was defeated, the south was defeated, but the unchained blacks had no real freedom. " A man maybe free and yet not independent," Mississippi planter Samuel Agnew observed in his diary (Foner 481).
Cassel, S. (2008, June 1). The Failure of Reconstruction. History conection. Retrieved April 18, 2014, from http://www.flamingnet.com/bookreviews/resources/essays_bookreviews/reconstruction.cfm
loyalty oath. If this happened then that state could setup a new state government. Under
The Reconstruction was undoubtedly a failure. The political and social aim of Reconstruction was to form national unity as well as create civil rights and equality for African Americans. Even though Reconstruction laid the foundation for equal rights in the United States, it did not achieve its primary goals. In the time of Reconstruction, many African Americans still felt the effects of oppression and many were still trapped in an undesirable social and economic class. The Reconstruction was an overall fail despite the fact that it was the shaky groundwork for a fight for equality in the years to come.
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.
As a country, America has gone through many political changes throughout her lifetime. Leaders have come and gone, all of them having different objectives and plans for the future. As history takes its course, though, most all of these “revolutionary movements” come to an end. One such movement was Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a time period in America consisting of many leaders, goals and accomplishments. Though, like all things in life, it did come to an end, the resulting outcome has been labeled both a success and a failure. When Reconstruction began in 1865, a broken America had just finished fighting the Civil War. In all respects, Reconstruction was mainly just that. It was a time period of “putting back the pieces”, as people
Reconstruction has been brutally murdered! For a little over a decade after the Civil War, the victorious North launched a campaign of social, economic, and political recovery in South. Martial law was also implemented in the South. Eventually, the North hoped to admit the territory in the former Confederacy back into the United States as states. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments freed the African Americans, made them citizens, and gave them the right to vote. Despite this, Reconstruction was unfortunately cut short in 1877. The North killed Recosntruction because of racism, negligence, and distractions.
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.
Reconstruction was intended to give African-Americans the chance for a new and better life. Many of them stayed with their old masters after being freed, while others left in search of opportunity through education as well as land ownership. However this was not exactly an easy task. There were many things standing in their way, chiefly white supremacists and the laws and restrictions they placed upon African-Americans. Beginning with the 'black codes' established by President Johnson's reconstruction plan, blacks were required to have a curfew as well as carry identification. Labor contracts established under Johnson's Reconstruction even bound the 'freedmen' to their respective plantations. A few years later, another set of laws known as the 'Jim Crow' laws directly undermined the status of blacks by placing unfair restrictions on everything from voting rights all the way to the segregation of water fountains. Besides these restrictions, the blacks had to deal with the Democratic Party whose northern wing even denounced racial equality. As a result of democratic hostility and the Republican Party's support of Black suffrage, freedmen greatly supported the Republican Party.
Reconstruction was a failure for African Americans politically because of rights gained and lost, economically due to being able to earn and lose money, and socially because for the most part they gained positions in the community, which could go either way, good or bad.