“War was easy. The hard part was cleaning up afterward.”- Evan Meekins. Ensuing the Civil War, the era of Reconstruction was a burdensome time in the south. Their land was destroyed, the economy was in transition, and their society was in cataclysm. Reconstruction was the endeavor to rebuild and reform the South politically, economically and socially after the Civil War. The Reconstruction was followed with accomplishments. The first accomplishment of the Reconstruction was the three drafted amendments. By 1877, each state in the South had a new draft of their state constitution. As stated by William Hoar, “Meanwhile, emancipation of the slaves was formalized as the now-occupied Southern states ratified the 13th Amendment” (Hoar). The new amendments- the thirteenth, …show more content…
On the other side of the Reconstruction, it was filled with missteps. While the Reconstruction gave the slaves their freedom, the idea of it was pessimistic. To begin with, the Southern whites rejected all forms of equality and the African Americans wanted nothing but freedom and land to call their own. The differences between the two races led to inevitable riots. The Reconstruction failed when the states adopted the Black Codes. According to William Hoar about the Black Codes, “In an attempt to bring order, a number of states legally adopted Black Codes prohibiting the often uneducated and illiterate Blacks from sitting on juries, carrying weapons, committing adultery, being vagrants, and violating curfew and segregation laws”. John Alexander Carroll and Odie B. Faulk in Home of the Brave, “That blacks had to have a steady occupation and they carried heavy penalties for violations of labor contracts.” Eventually the codes effectively made racism legal (Hoar). The next misstep of the Reconstruction was the Ku Klux Klan. The Black Code gave the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan more aim and opportunity to
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Show MoreA few days after the civil War ended, President Lincoln was assassinated and never had the chance to implement his Reconstruction plan. The Reconstruction Era occurred in the period of 1865 to 1877 under the reign of President Andrew Johnson who was the predecessor of President Lincoln. Congress was not scheduled to convene until December 1865, which gave Johnson eight months to pursue his own Reconstruction policies. Under his Reconstruction policies, the former Confederate states were required to join back into the Union and heal the wounds of the nation.
Fortunately for some period of time the success of the reconstruction outweigh the negative, these negatives quickly escalated during this important milestone for the country. The process of the reconstruction quickly went downhill, after the positives transformed into negatives, the negatives did not end there and the list continued to grow. The addition of “black codes” began to destroy the newly established freedom of the former slaves. White supremacist congressmen passed the laws known as black codes to forbid “blacks the right to make contracts, testify against whites, marry white women, be unemployed, and loiter in public places”.
Black codes came into the picture after the civil war. Black codes were mainly used to put black people into a position as similar to slavery as possible. Later, Jim Crow laws came into America. They were used as a way to continue oppressing and separating black people. For hundreds of years, there have been countless laws made to justify devaluing black lives and protect the legality of slavery.
After viewing the documentaries “The Second Civil War”, some of the successes that was brought from the reconstruction were the reunification of the union which had lasted four years, and what made it successful, was that it was restored and brought together by the Reconstruction. The next success is the expansion of the South and North 's economy. The reconstruction had brought many offers to the South as well as to the North since it proposed to collaborate in order to make a better place. Another success is more laws. The laws protected the rights of the newly freedmen, and accepted them as men, having the right to vote, and speak.
In the years following the civil war, the union and the confederacy worked together to salvage land and fix towns that had been destroyed. Because the Union attacked the south at their homes, entire towns were in ruin. There were left in an agricultural crisis because of attacks on farms, destroying barns and killing animals. Reconstruction was necessary because of this. As far as success goes, the Reconstruction Acts were mostly unsuccessful.
For most blacks, life under early Reconstruction didn’t seem all that different from slavery. They had no land to call their own and they continued to work on the land of their previous owners. Some states passed laws that were particularly intended to limit the flexibility of African-Americans. These laws, known as the “black codes,” restricted ex-slaves from owning weapons, from traveling without a pass, from serving on juries or
Reconstruction was a program used to help the south rebuild and join
Reconstruction is the time period after the Civil War, where the country attempted to improve the Union. There were many successes, but what also comes along with success is failure. During the reconstruction many failures were present; such as the lack of racial equality and blatant racism towards blacks, a failing economy in the South, and tense relations between the North and the South. This created a very intense and challenging period of time for the Union.
The Reconstruction Era of American history was plagued by many problems. One of the most important problems being the recently released from slavery Freedmen. Freedmen were in a tricky situation in which they had just been released from their owner and had nowhere to go, but the Federal Government made many successful attempts to help them out. The Government helped alleviate all the problems Freedmen had from their finances to basic needs and rights, and in doing so, made the period of reconstruction more helpful than harmful for Freedmen. The events of reconstruction were helpful to freedmen as they were not only freed from slavery, they were given rights directly from the federal government.
The Civil War allowed the United States to make the changes necessary to unify the country. In addition, it began one of the most transitional periods in the United States’ history. This period, the Reconstruction, brought about many political, social, and economic changes, which were both beneficial and disagreeable. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the Panic of 1873, and the formation of the Ku Klux Klan are just a few examples of heavily impacting events for the United States. During the Reconstruction period there were numerous political transformations in the country.
Maceo Cardinale Kwik Reconstruction Reconstruction was the twelve years after the civil war. Those twelve years were full of readjustment fixing the ruin the United States had fallen into. The problems that had the United states in disarray were how to, rebuild the South, reunite the states, and ensure the rights and protection of the newly freed African Americans. The civil war left the South in shambles, and newly freed slaves struggled to adjust to their new freedom. Most Southerners hated reconstruction and everything else about the North.
The thirteenth amendment stated that all former slaves were granted freedom. The reconstruction period, “did create the essential constitutional foundation for further advances in the quest for equality”. It laid the building blocks for the future building for civil rights not just for blacks but women and other minorities. Former slaves, “ found comfort in their family and in the churches they established”. Blacks took community in each other and bonded over the mutual idea of freedom .
The American civil war led to the reunion of the South and the North. But, its consequences led the Republicans to take the lead of reconstructing what the war had destroyed especially in the South because it contained larger numbers of newly freed slaves. Just after the civil war, America entered into what was called as the reconstruction era. Reconstruction refers to when “the federal government established the terms on which rebellious Southern states would be integrated back into the Union” (Watts 246). As a further matter, it also meant “the process of helping the 4 million freed slaves after the civil war [to] make the transition to freedom” (DeFord and Schwarz 96).
The reconstruction was said to have brought a change. However, Newly free slaves faced many challenges, and whites in the south saw blacks as way less than they did before. Black codes were introduced as a way to give people of color freedom in a constitutional form. They were unique to southern states and they each had their own variation of them. It was a way to restrict the black labor force and freed people as much of slave status as possible.
Reconstruction era, which was followed by post-civil war, was meant to unite the states back together, reconstruct properties, and most importantly, abolish slavery in the South. Although the factors such as amendments legally freed former slaves, yet WRITE THESIS After the end of civil war in 1865, Reconstruction era, which was controlled by President Abraham Lincoln, appeared to quickly coalesce the Northern and Southern states. reconstruction amendments, which were approved between 1865 and 1870, played a huge role on giving legal rights to blacks and former slaves. 13th amendment constitutionally abolished slavery in 1865 and followed up by that, 14th and 15th amendment admitted equal citizenship, protection, and rights of suffrage despite the one’s race or skin color. Former slaves were no longer belongings of their owners.