Reconstruction Dbq

In 1865-1877 (the period after the Civil War) was Reconstruction. President Abraham Lincoln started planning for Reconstruction of the south during the Civil War as Union soldiers. Reconstruction was a time of great pain and endless questions, known as the period following the civil war of rebuilding the United States. This still concluded as a war because it waged by radical northerners who wanted to punish the South and Southerners who desperately wanted to preserve their way of life. The South had started the civil war that caused so much destruction and deaths. According to the article Reconstruction: After the Civil War, the American South Rebuilds it says “Southern whites had a reason to be bitter. They had lost the Civil War. Now much

Southern states were required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment before being readmitted to the union. The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted on July 9, 1868 as a Reconstruction Amendment. It was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War, addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws. “ The states had to ratify the 14th Amendment to be accepted. (The amendment requires states to provide equal protection under the law to all persons (not only to citizens) within their jurisdictions). Southern states were required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment in order to be eligible for readmission into the Union. In June 1868, seven ex-Confederate states voted to ratify the amendment, and the amendment finally passed.” ( yahoo) . “ The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. It did this by granting citizenship to anyone born in the United States and prohibiting states from denying or abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the U.S., depriving any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” (pbs) To sum this up the 14th amendment was important because it granted freed slaves citizenship and equal

slaves wherever they were. The 13th amendment was adopted in 1865, it abolishes slavery or involuntary servitude except in punishment for a crime. This amendment is an a reconstruction amendment also. In the article: The Reconstruction Amendments: The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments it says, “ On December 6, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery within the United States and its territories. It reads: 'Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.' The exception that allows servitude as punishment for a crime allows prisons to use inmate labor.” ( study.com) The 13th amendment is saying slavery cannot exist unless it is a