The failure of Reconstruction led to over ninety years of struggle for the rights of African Americans and caused major setbacks in the South. Reconstruction was the time from 1865 to 1877 when the United States attempted to rebuild the nation following the Civil War. Reconstruction was a struggle for many Americans, and it became known as the ‘Second Civil War’. Its main goals were to readmit the former Confederate states and its people back into the Union and to introduce African Americans into society. Who killed reconstruction: North or South? Reconstruction means to rebuild something that has been damaged or destroyed. Both Southern resistance and Northern neglect contributed to the death of Reconstruction. However, Southern resistance was the greater problem. Although it wasn’t the main reason Reconstruction ended, Northern neglect was still a significant problem. According to Document C, “many Northern voters shifted their attention to such national concerns as …show more content…
Document A states, “John W. Stephens, State Senator from Caswell, is dead. He was found murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in the Grand Jury room.” This details the brutal and exemplary murder of a Republican by the white terrorist group known as the KKK. Intimidation tactics like this threatened reconstruction because it made Republicans hesitant to run for office for fear of violence. This prevented the passing of acts that would advance African Americans in society. In addition, Document B states, “[the Klansmen] broke my door open, took me out of bed, took me to the woods and whipped me three hours or more.” This shows more intimidation tactics that white southerners used in order to keep Republicans out of office. This prevented Southern governments from helping African Americans. To sum it up, resistance in the form of aggression in the South killed Reconstruction by preventing the governments from helping African
Nicholas Lemann begins his book “Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War” with the 1873 Colfax, Louisiana massacre where a White League militia comprised of former Confederate soldiers killed black Republican voters. The Colfax massacre was perhaps the bloodiest event of Reconstruction. Lemann views this event as a startup of what would happen later in Mississippi if Federal troops did not defend black voters. Lemann blames Ulysses S. Grant’s Secretary of War, William W. Belknap, for not stopping the White Line activity in Louisiana and Mississippi. Grant had worked hard to stop the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1870s with Congress passing legislation and Federal troops putting down Klan activity.
A Military Reconstruction Act passed to make sure African American’s new rights were protected. The 13th Amendment ended slavery and the 14th Amendment gave African Americans citizenship and civil rights. The South killed reconstruction by killing the ones who were in favor and in charge of reconstruction. Document A is a great example of the South killing the ones in charge of reconstruction.
In 1863, Reconstruction became apparent, officially starting in 1865. Because of Reconstruction, several things in the USA went wrong. The negatives of reconstruction were enormous. Several ideas, such as Johnson’s plan, Lincoln’s plan, and the Radical Republican plan (“Reconstruction”). Because of the plans crashing and burning, the USA was continuously getting worse, and more and more and more separated.
After the Civil War The Reconstruction had been a failure in bringing the south back into the Union in the way it had used to be before the Civil War. However, the Reconstruction had also successfully been able to restore the unified nation and its acknowledgment to the thirteenth amendment, Fourteenth amendment, and the Fifteenth amendment. Therefore, the Reconstruction's failure wasn’t a very fair assessment, but it had been successful in restoring the United States and the bringing of freedom to the African American slaves.
Klansmen trying to restrict a Freedmen of his civil right to vote for president by telling him not to vote for a Radical Republican or let one of them vote in his place is the most significant problem on how the south resistance for the death of Reconstruction because they did not want to allow African American the rights the newly ratified fifteenth amendment and a Radical Republican as president because he supports Freedmen rights and the punishment of former
Reconstruction was an attempt to rebuild the country after the Civil War and tried to end the hatred between the North and South. In Reconstruction, the South was getting ready to come back to the USA after the Civil War. Reconstruction was supposed rebuild the South physically, and it was supposed to change the South’s thoughts on full equality for all races. The South thought that whites should always be superior, and that full equality should never happen. The North thought that equality was what should happen.
The Civil War was perhaps the deadliest war in American history, with roughly 600,000 casualties between the Northern and Southern states. The land was left in utter destruction, and the economy was weakened by the expensive war costs. Though the Southern states were admitted back into the Union, tensions between the former Confederate States and the Union states still existed. Upon the war’s end, slaves were freed, and granted the right to the pursuit of happiness and to vote. However, Reconstruction can be considered a failure since it isn 't until the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s that these rights are actually protected, and southern and northern states are properly assimilated.
Peter Schroeder Dr. Christopher Marshall Modern United States History 2/2/17 Writing Assignment 1: The African-American Experience with Reconstruction Reconstruction among the south refers to the point in time which the United States was attempting to establish a relationship between the union and the rebels. The Union had won the civil war, so the next step was to begin to mend the broken relationship between the north and the south. Though historians cannot agree on when it began, there is merit in saying that it started before the end of the Civil War. After victory, had been solidified for the Union, attention of President Lincoln turned towards reconstruction.
Reconstruction is a time period that no American is proud of. This was a time of terrorism, racism, and getting our country back on its feet. Reconstruction started after World War ll. Abraham Lincoln was the president during reconstruction until he was assassinated, leaving Andrew Johnson as the leader of our country. Some may say that this time period was really no big deal, and it all worked out in the end.
Reconstruction was a period of time dedicated to rebuilding the nation after the Civil War. The war ended with the South being defeated and their economy being devastated. Many Southerners struggled after the war with rebuilding their land and lives. The President and Congress had to decide the terms for which the former Confederate states would be permitted to join the Union. President Lincoln’s plan for reuniting the country was found in the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction.
While racial attitudes and “Reconstruction weariness” contributed to the collapse of Reconstruction efforts, the use of violence against whites and blacks combined with the belief in white supremacy played the
It is because of the southern racist whites’ resistance to reconstruction that the historical memory of the time is unique. Although the government sent troops in to protect blacks, they were eventually pulled out in the Compromise of 1877, which allowed Republican Hayes to win the close election in return. Without federal troops there for protection, racism kept on into the following decades, and caused for black leaders to emerge to push for their own rights later during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Had the government stuck with Reconstruction, perhaps racism would not have stayed in the south as long. Additionally, through propaganda like the movie Birth of a Nation, southern whites attempted to frame the Civil War and Reconstruction as a tragedy, which took away southern heritage and pride, and that the KKK was a good thing by restoring old ways.
Resistance means to oppose an offer or an offering. Southern resistance killed Reconstruction socially, economically, and politically. The South killed Reconstruction socially in the South by allowing a group called the KKK to take control and harm citizens. The Klu Klux Klan (KKK) was a group of white southerner men who publicly tortured or brutally harmed blacks and republicans for several reasons.
Reconstruction caused prejudice and inequality. To elaborate, the creation of the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Codes were both in the time period of reconstruction, which caused chaos and violence throughout the Union. One of the goals of reconstruction was to repair the economy in the South, because it depended on slavery, which was now illegal, due to the thirteenth amendment. The South’s economic system now depended on Sharecropping, which caused former slaves to be in constant debt and was unjust to the black society. The reconstruction time period, was a time of dispute between the Union.
The Reconstruction (1865-1877) was a period during which the life of the defeated South was to be returned to normal; it was also a time when the Black Americans attained some rights thanks to Lincoln and the Republican part of the Congress and despite Johnson’s intentions. An extremely violent time, it is sometimes called “the darkest period of American history”; still, it brought many important progressive changes to the US. Abraham Lincoln is known for proclaiming the black slaves Emancipation in 1863; he was convinced that it was necessary for the North to win the war. Lincoln believed that the Confederate states needed to be reintegrated back into the US while preserving the abolition of slavery; however, the 16th President wasn’t planning