Economic Inequality During The Reconstruction Era

Their audience were those who agreed with emancipation, and more specifically blacks who had just been free. Clearly from the image described, those two groups didn’t see blacks as their equals and despised them. Their purpose in creating this image was to install fear in blacks to keep them from voting and believing that they are equal to those in the ex-confederacy. The kkk had been using terror tactics all throughout the Reconstruction era because they didn’t want blacks to vote or participate in their politics the kkk wanted to keep white supremacy. For a while the South had enacted black codes which replaced the slave codes.

One of reasons the confederacy failed was because the U.S. Congress, with Lincoln’s support, proposed the 13th amendment which would abolish slavery in America. Although the confederate peace delegation was unwilling to accept a future without slavery, the radical and moderate Republicans designed a way to takeover the reconstruction program. The Radical Republicans wanted full citizenship rights for African Americans and wanted to implement harsh reconstruction policies toward the south. The radical republican views made up the majority of the Congress and helped to pass the 14th amendment which guaranteed equality under the law for all citizens, and protected freedmen from presidential vetoes, southern state legislatures, and federal court decisions. In 1869, Congress passed the fifteenth amendment stating that no citizen can be denied the right to vote because of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” To destroy the confederacy and make the south rejoin the union, extreme legal measures such as passing amendments needed to be taken by the government to affirm Union’s power over the south.

Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan became prominent in the south. however, this was no longer something reconstruction could help former slaves with. Eventually, Hayes was elected after Johnsons’ impeachment and the Reconstruction era ended. The reconstruction ended in 1877 due to the Compromise of 1877 and the pulling of republicans alongside union troops out of the deep south. though the reconstruction attempted to unify the country back together as one by allowing confederate states into the union under strict conditions, and to help former slaves by granting basic human rights there were still many issues present throughout the

This left the freedmen with the more rundown environments while the whites were able to have the best of the best wherever they happened to go. They were also used in order to make the ability to vote more restrictive and difficult to achieve. In order for the freedmen to have the ability to vote many, many obstacles would have to be overcome, such as having to pay a steep poll tax and pass extremely difficult tests, such as literacy tests. Even though the “Jim Crow” style of segregation disfranchised the majority of the freedmen, the South was still able to have it imposed. The reason for the “Jim Crow” laws being able to be enforced upon the society in the South was due to the fact that the freedmen did not have any support of the North to prevent the South from being able to achieve such extremes.

After the Union won the Civil War, slaves were given freedom, but African Americans were not completely free. President Andrew Johnson had very lenient policies for Reconstruction after the Civil War, which allowed southerners from the Confederate states to enact restrictive laws against blacks. These laws were called “Black Codes”, and were primarily designed to restrict African Americans’ labor and activity even though slavery had already been abolished. The Black Codes took away rights from African Americans that were guaranteed to them by the Fourteenth Amendment. For example, some states had laws that required African Americans to sign labor contracts each year and if they refused, they could be arrested, fined, or forced to work without pay.

The Reconstruction period after the Civil War was characterized by a battle of ideas waged between President Andrew Johnson and the Radical Republicans in Congress. While Johnson was lenient toward the South and didn't value African American rights, Congress focused on protecting and expanding the rights of former slaves through the Civil Rights Act and an extension of the Freedmen's

Although there was a period following the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 and 1868 in which former slaves were granted citizenship, their involvement in politics became rendered by the lack of education previously provided to slaves and inability of “withstanding the economic, political, and paramilitary opposition of the white majority” (Frederickson 382). Frederickson argues African Americans simply did not have the time or preparation to oppose racist forces. Using paramilitary forces, southern redeemers easily made threats to reconstruction forces as seen through the emergence of the violent Ku Klux Klan during the election of 1866. The opportunity for African Americans to gain a stance in society was short lived by the racist efforts of democrats in the south and impartial ideals from

After slavery, African Americans in the south were in a time of change. Though they were free from slavery, whippings, and auctions, I believe life became difficult for them even after slavery ended. Racism began to grow increasingly, as many could not accept the fact that there was no more slavery. It became stricter when the government in the South enforced laws called Black Codes. Those laws were set to grant only certain rights to people of color.

Life Under Slavery The enslaved African-Americans faced several hardships and danger because, in the 1800s, they did not protect enslaved families, but they were able to create family lives, religious beliefs, and a distant culture. At any time, a husband or wife could be sold to a different owner, or a slaveholder’s death could lead to the breakup of an enslaved family. So, if the slaves were sold to a different owner they aren 't responsible anymore for what happens to them. For example, if the slave gains a sickness something like that and the slave ends up dying they aren 't responsible for that. I am going to be talking about how the African Americans lived.

Some people were for slavery and some people opposed it. Bring equality to slaves during Reconstruction is said to have fail because when Reconstruction was over, blacks were still unable to defend themselves and their rights. The Reconstruction era might have fail to give blacks social and economical equality at the time, but it brought about many issues of slavery. After the Reconstruction Era, slavery might have died down, but it never died out. This era is what started the issue of slavery, and today slaves are free.

To do this, they sent troops into the South, which they were not very pleased with. During Reconstruction, freed slaves still did not have the same opportunities that white people did. The Civil rights laws were made to protect former slaves and make sure everyone is equal, but still, the South cannot agree and continues to make life nearly just as bad as it had been before the war. In the document written by a former slave, he expresses how poorly they have been treated. When Lincoln was president, Reconstruction ran alot smoother.

Before slaves were freed, they could not marry anyone. After the Civil War, the Black Codes in Mississippi improved the lives of African Americans by allowing marriage. Even though, the state allowed marriage, there was heavy restriction to the code. For example, in Section 3, the document states, “that is shall not be lawful for any freedman, free negro, or mulatto to intermarry with any white person… and any person who shall so intermarry shall be guilty of felony.” This shows that although slaves are freed, the state did not treat them as ordinary people. The state was trying to control the former slaves as much as they could without calling it

The Radical Republicans (just a faction of the Republican Party that also supported blacks freedoms in most cases) were very out raged at the treatment of the newly freed slaves and they tried to dismantle the black codes and also tried to lock the ex- Confederate people out of power all together. The southern white government had a range of ways they controlled how the newly freed slaves lived their lives and what freedoms they could have and which ones the government didn’t want them to have but over time these barriers were

When reconstruction ended, we all could say we were united under one nation. This ensured that blacks would always be free from going back to the life of a slave; although, many people were so against reconstruction it caused a lot of hate in the south towards the blacks. The black people were given rights that were much like the rights that white people had. The southern states had new constitutions and recognized the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments’ after reconstruction ended in 1877. Education was provided to the blacks, not just the whites.

Many historians, researchers, politicians, and scholars have considered reconstruction as turning point for the ratification of equality laws that would eliminate racial segregation for equally rights. However, a close follow-up of the controversial developments that occurred immediately after the end of the Civil War in 1865 indicates dissimilarity. The reconstruction era might have made a history of enabling African Americans to vote and become state legislatures, but some major political personnel consider Reconstruction as a failure, which led to non-ending political controversies, murder, and assaults indicating general failure. Robert Smalls and Wade Hampton are some of the major political people who participated in the continuity of the Reconstruction era and their actions and words prove its failure, as explored in this study. However, their consideration of black freedom contrast because Smalls demonstrates the harmful actions of