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Chapter 18 the reconstruction era
Chapter 18 the reconstruction era
The importance of the reconstruction era
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Recommended: Chapter 18 the reconstruction era
The book “Redemption; The Last Battle of The Civil War,” written by Nicholas Lemann focuses on one major politician during the reconstruction time period. Lemann illustrates the life of people in the south and the trials that the “Negros” faced. The conclusion of the civil war was supposed to be the end of racism and slavery, but white southerners continued to find ways to get around the new laws that were put into place. They created and passed “black codes” which, as the author says, “…legislated the freed slaves into a condition as close to their former one as it was possible to get without actually reinstituting slavery. ”(34)
Johnson was loyal to the Union but did not agree completely with Lincoln’s view on the freedom of African Americans since he was from Tennessee. Andrew Johnson wanted to reconstruct the nation but did not think the freedom of African Americans had anything role in it. Johnson pardons confederate leaders and lets the southern states incorporate Black Codes into their state constitutions. Eric Foner explains that “what aroused the most opposition to Johnson’s Reconstruction policy were the Black Codes, laws passed by the new southern governments that attempted to regulate the lives of the former slaves”(565). The Black Codes kept African Americans freedom limited, which is not what the republicans wanted.
Abraham Lincoln’s vs Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan Lincoln shared the uncommon belief that the confederate states could still be part of the union and that the cause of the rebellion was only a few within the states which lead him to begin the reconstruction in December of 1863. This resulted in plans with lenient guidelines and although they were challenged by Wade-Davis Bill, Lincoln still rejected his ideas and kept his policies in place. Lincoln also allowed land to be given the newly freed slave or homeless white by distributing the land that had been confiscated from former land owners however this fell through once Johnson took office. After Lincoln’s death when Johnson was elected many things started to turn away from giving blacks equal rights and resulted in many things such a black codes which kept newly freed slaves from having the same rights as whites. When Lincoln first acted after the civil war, he offered policies that would allow the confederate slaves to become part of the union again and would allow a pardon for those states.
The Reconstruction period was terrible for many people, but most of all the freedmen had it worse than anyone else. The freedmen had multiple different laws, first before the civil war there was the Slave Codes, then during Reconstruction there was the Black Codes and after that came the Jim Crow Laws. All three set of laws were terrible but the Black codes were worse than the Slave Codes and the Jim Crow Laws. Before and during the Civil War there were many slaves working for the white men (masters)
Within the history of the United States, the term “Reconstruction Era” has two different meanings: the first meaning is the entire coverage of the history of the Reconstruction era from 1865 to 1877; the second meaning focuses on the the transformation of the Southern states that goes from 1863 to 1877. In between 1863 and 1865, President Abraham Lincoln and Vice President Andrew Johnson took fairly moderate positions that were mainly designed to bring the Southern states back to normal as quickly as possible. For the Radical Republicans, they used Congress to block the President and Vice Presidents moderate stance, impose harsher punishments and provide better rights for the freedmen. Johnson’s interpretations of the policies Lincoln created
The Union triumph in the Civil War in 1865 may have given exactly 4 million slaves their flexibility, yet the procedure of revamping the South amid the Reconstruction period (1865-1877) presented another arrangement of critical difficulties. Under the organization of President Andrew Johnson in 1865 and 1866, new southern state lawmaking bodies passed prohibitive "dark codes" to control the work and conduct of previous slaves and other African Americans. Insult in the North over these codes disintegrated backing for the methodology known as Presidential Reconstruction and prompted the triumph of the more radical wing of the Republican Party. Amid Radical Reconstruction, which started in 1867, recently liberated blacks picked up a voice in government without precedent for American history, winning decision to southern state lawmaking bodies and even to the U.S. Congress. In under 10 years, in any case, reactionary forces–including the Ku Klux Klan–would reverse the progressions created by Radical
The 17th President of the US was Andrew Johnson. He became President just about six weeks after being appointed Vice President, the only other higher position he held was a Senator for Tennessee, so, Johnson came into office with very little experience. He became President so fast because just about six weeks after being appointed President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Johnson had a very difficult Presidency which ultimately led to him being the first US President to be impeached. Throughout the majority of Johnson’s Presidency he and Congress were butting heads.
Other obstacles such as poverty, slowed industrialization in the South, and corruption played a large role in the downfall of Reconstruction. Even though the South lost in the Civil War, they still had a large influence as to what happened in the United States. With President Lincoln in office, the blacks would have received their full rights and every race would become equal. Andrew Jackson holding office meant that things would be as close to slavery as they could be; he pushed the envelope per say. The blacks were almost dehumanized and treated like there was never a war for their
After the Andrew Johnson’s resistance to reconstruction included bring Confederate states into the Union and letting the African American men vote. Under his held ideals of “white suffrage”. It pitted him in opposition against Congress; thus, his stubborn stance against Reconstruction is the real reason that lead to his impeachment hearing under the Tenure of Office Act of 1867, which is a federal law that passed by congress to restrict the power of the President remove people from office without the approval of the Senate, when he removed Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton from his office. Reconstruction was the period following the Civil War, when the states of the Confederacy where the government controlled bringing them back into the union and gave rights to African Americans in the process. White suffrage simply meant: only white males could vote.
Johnson created the Black Codes, so that blacks had little freedom such as “legalized marriage, ownership of property and limited access to courts (Foner562)” slowly the black community was gaining justice and freedom but the whites wanted to put an end to any freedom. The fear of lynching was at its highest peak.
The reconstruction period was a failure because African Americans, mainly males, were not treated with equality although the constitution said that the they were free and had the right to vote, be educated and had the right to liberty, life and the pursuit to happiness. Organizations, like the KKK, were created to harm freed slaves and their families. Laws were created such as the Black Codes restricting former slaves from their rights. African Americans endured a lot of violence over the years. “In Grayson, Texas, a white man and two friends murdered three former slaves because the wanted to ‘ thin the niggers out and drive them to their hole’”.
Racism’s Impact on Reconstruction While the issue of slavery evidently contributed to the divide that resulted in the American Civil War, it is debated whether prevailing ideals of racism caused the failure of the era following the war known as Reconstruction. With the abolishment of slavery, many of the southern states had to reassemble the social, economic, and political systems instilled in their societies. The Reconstruction Era was originally led by a radical republican government that pushed to raise taxes, establish coalition governments, and deprive former confederates of superiority they might have once held. However, during this time common views were obtained that the South could recover independently and that African Americans
Reconstruction is during which the United States began to rebuild the Southern society after they lost to the civil war. It lasted from 1865 to 1877, and it was initiated by President Lincoln until his assassination in 1865. President Johnson continued Lincoln’s agenda to continue the Reconstruction. Throughout the process of Reconstruction, one of its main purpose was to guarantees for equal rights for all people, especially for the African Americans. Even though slavery was abolished after the civil war, many Southerners were still against the idea of equal rights for all black people, such as the Republicans.
Although many attempts were made to prioritize freedom and equality for all, these values were undermined by racist Southerners who wouldn’t accept equality. In the end, Reconstruction had failed and former slaves endured another hardship akin to slavery. However, Reconstruction still could have prospered. There are multiple events that, if they had occurred, Reconstruction would not have failed. For example, had the government continued to fund the Freedmen’s Bureau, then the South would have legislated their discriminatory laws much later, if not at all.
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.
