The Ineffectiveness Of The Reconstruction Era

The education tests, Grandfather Clause, and Black Codes all express that Reconstruction was unsuccessful. This was on account of it didn 't finish the objectives of Reconstruction since one of the two fundamental objectives of Reconstruction was to increase social liberties for liberated slaves. Thusly, this turns out to be unsuccessful in light of endeavors at taking without end the privileges of African Americans, which undermined this bigger objective. Through state governments, laws were made which took away the rights that they were attempting to be picked up by African Americans, for example, voting, being able to pick who they work for, and not being oppressed. The motivation behind southern state governments taking endlessly those rights from African Americans was to reproduce servitude and reproduce an arrangement of white pecking order, which in fact had been banned.

Teagan Crisamore 802 In this essay I will be explaining the pros and cons of each plan then explaining which one is better. In the Wade-Davis bill the cons were: Having to Pledge to the union and Only white males who didn 't fight could vote,President Lincoln did not like this plan but Wade Davis made President Lincoln realize he would have to compromise. The Wade Davis bill also made it hard for people to vote so they started looking at the 10% plan. In the 10% plan the pros were : Only 10% of voters had to pledge allegiance to the union , there would be a new constitution to ban slavery and offered amnesty to the southerners or official pardon for illegal acts supporting the rebellion. The cons were: you had to swear an oath to the U.S and had to agree that slavery was wrong , most people agreed that the 10% plan didn 't go far enough and the amnesty did not apply to confederate leaders.

Although reconstruction brought essential changes for African American slaves it ultimately failed its purpose of unifying the nation. However, in order to comprehend why reconstruction failed it is important to understand the two phases it underwent. In addition, it is also crucial to look at the different plans that were propose in order to reunify the nation and if they were successful or not. First, phase one the presidential reconstruction was very complex due to the fact that it was carried out by two very divergent presidents and lacked unification. On one hand we had Abraham Lincoln 's plan which consisted of reconstructing and unifying the nation again.

The conventional idea is that Georgia did not succeed at its intentions is challenged by the interpretations of Noeleen McIlvenna, who wrote The Short Life of Free Georgia, a contradictory story of the colonization of the thirteenth colony. First and foremost, the proprietary colony was a place that was meant for debtors and the worthy poor. The colony was created to rid England of the poor and find suitable work for them. The elite looked at them with disregard; there was constant separation, such as The Black Act, which didn’t allow hunting and fishing on private property. This new colony was to be built for the betterment of English debtors.

Reconstruction was an attempt by Abraham Lincoln to rebuild the war-torn South. Its goals were to fix the economy, allow new freedmen to exercise their freedom, and restore white Southerners’ loyalty to the Union. Although the passing of the 14th and 15th amendment ensured that African-Americans’ rights are protected; white Southerners found ways to prevent them from enjoying their rights, such as the establishment of the KKK and the creation of Black Codes. The Government attempted to fight these problems with laws, such as the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. In spite of these revolutionary efforts; laws passed by the Government failed to be effective.

He appointed a cabinet composed of Northerners and Southerners and hoped to keep peace between the country’s pro-slavery and anti-slavery people, but it created lots of tension. People were accusing James of being biased to the southern colony interests and slavery issue. Two days after being in office, the U.S. Supreme Court gave a document that stated, “The federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the territories and denied African Americans the rights of U.S. citizens.” He hoped that the document would resolve the slavery issue, but he, “reportedly pressured a Northern justice to vote with the Southern majority in the case.” Then, the southerners were contempt, but the northerners were protesting, which led to diversity. Each had complete different opinions, and it was just getting everybody upset. Buchanan made the Northerners even more angry by supporting the Lecompton Constitution, which would have allowed Kansas to become a slave state, but it was voted down and Kansas became a part of the Union.

Slavery was a controversial topic among the U.S. citizens during this era. In the election, Lincoln did not win a single southern state vote, because of his reputation as being moderate on the slavery question. Although Lincoln initially arranged to abolish slavery in the south, he decided that he would control it in the south and refrain from allowing it to spread throughout the western territories. Lincoln contemplated war if slavery distributed into the western territories from the southern states. Since slavery already existed in the south, he did not have the motive to withdraw it because of the success it brought to the economy.

The Reconstruction period lasted from 1865 to 1877. The thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendment were created during the twelve years of rebuilding the country. All of the amendments were made to protect former slaves and their rights but on paper they did not have any rights. The reconstruction period had its successes and failures. 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.

Child labour laws did come to exist, but during 1900 to 1920 they were “purely a state authority.” So they did not achieve national recognition. As for civil rights, W.E.B. DuBois and other African-Americans “fought gladly and to the last drop of blood” for America, but were repented with “gloats in lynching, disfranchisement, caste, brutality and devilish insult”. (document I) Eventually later child labour laws and civil rights would be achieved at the national level, but progress can take time. Herbert Croly stated in the New Republic, that those who believe “the fundamental wrongs of a modern society can be easily and quickly righted as a consequence of a few laws… casts suspicion either upon his own sincerity of upon his grasp of the realities of modern social and industrial life.” (document F) Croley was pointing out that more reforms are needed to make the quality of America satisfactory, which would take some

Efforts from the congress after the rejection of President Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan involved enacting laws and amendments that enforced equal rights only to the now freed male slaves and gave them the right to vote and hold office. The government, confronted with formation of anti-equality groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and many others that opposed equality, soon enacted the Black Codes. The congress then passed the Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights Bills in hopes to settle the quarrels of slavery by declaring all born in the U.S as citizens but unfortunately, Johnson declined these bills. To retaliate, the Civil Rights Act