Reconstruction: Was it really a success? America has gone through many challenges throughout its life. Leaders come and go, with goals in mind for their future. But history takes its course, and the profound movements come to an end like Reconstruction. The Reconstruction started in the year 1865, the period after the Civil War with the idea to reunite the nation. The United States encountered numerous issues during the Reconstruction that involved the creation of the Ku Klux Klan, and poverty. Despite all the failures, the Reconstruction was only a success in that it restored the United States as a unified nation. The Reconstruction consisted of many failures, and one of them was the establishment of the Ku Klux Klan. It was an …show more content…
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, who was the president of the United States then declared the Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation granted freedom to the slaves residing in territory in rebellion against the federal government. However, after the proclamation, though free, they lived in desperate rural poverty. Majority of the slaves was released from their previous plantation penniless. They were helpless and could not support their family and themselves. An excerpt from an interview with Toby Jones, one of the slaves who prevailed through poverty, stated, “All we had to eat was what we could beg, and sometimes we went three days without a bite to eat.” Numerous freed slaves had to experience a loss of shelter, food, and money. This resulted in multiple of deaths during the Reconstruction period due to starvation from the lack of money to buy food with. Warren McKinney, another slave who lived in poverty, states, “Some folks say they ought to done more for the colored folks when they left, but they say they was broke, Freeing all the slaves left ‘em broke. That reconstruction was a mighty hard pull. We started working for Mr. Emerson. We liked it fine, I been here fifty-six years now. Living was not so hard. If a fellow could get a little bread and a place to stay, he was all right.” McKinney was freed and ached after like any …show more content…
One of the accomplishments includes the restoration of the ex-Confederate states that included South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, and Georgia. This was accomplished during the Lincoln and Johnson administrations. Another success was the creation of an agency called Freedmen’s Bureau. The Freedmen’s Bureau offered shelter, food, and medical attention to anybody in need of it after the war. In the Ordeals of Reconstruction, it states “The bureau achieved its greatest successes in education. It taught an estimated 200,000 blacks how to read. Many former slaves had a passion for learning, partly because they wanted to close the gap between themselves and whites and partly because they longed to read the Word of God.” The Bureau had a tremendous impact on the African-Americans considering that it helped establish schools that taught them how to read. This was a huge accomplishment because most had a passion to learn and this was a stepping stone for them. Even though the Bureau wasn't perfect, enabled them to find jobs to provide for themselves and their families, as well as homes, education, and a better life. Another success that aided them throughout Reconstruction and contributed to the start of it all was the three amendments and were called
Officially recognized as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, this federal institution aided millions of African Americans and poverty-stricken white people in the southern states after the Civil War. The Freedmen’s Bureau was able to accomplish many things in its years of operation, such as building new schools, colleges, and medical institutions; supplying food and medical provisions; and providing legal help by arranging employment agreements for African Americans. The Bureau was quite effective with hardworking agents, as they were able to contribute notably to the cause of the Bureau with its numerous accomplishments. In addition, they did not have a sufficient amount of funding and employees. But, some employees were not very diligent in their work as they were unscrupulous.
In 1863, Reconstruction became apparent, officially starting in 1865. Because of Reconstruction, several things in the USA went wrong. The negatives of reconstruction were enormous. Several ideas, such as Johnson’s plan, Lincoln’s plan, and the Radical Republican plan (“Reconstruction”). Because of the plans crashing and burning, the USA was continuously getting worse, and more and more and more separated.
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 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.
For example, The Klu Klux Klan was a group that violated African Americans and would beat them to death. This indicates that reconstruction was a failure because The Klu Klan impacted African Americans by depriving Black their newly won rights and killing them and not
The Union victory in the Civil War in 1865 may have given some 4 million slaves their freedom, but the process of rebuilding the South during the Reconstruction period (1865-1877) introduced a new set of significant challenges. Northerners assumed that martial law and the military’s role in the south would end in 1865. They expected the southerners to acknowledge defeat by treating blacks justly, rejecting Confederate leaders, and embraced southern Unionists. None of these things happened. Encouraged by President Andrew Jackson’s Reconstruction policy, which imposed no server penalties on the south, unashamed southerners elected former Confederates to state, local, and national offices, formed militia units composed of ex-soldiers, passed
The devastation of the war and the collapse of the economy left an abundance of people unemployed, homeless, and hungry. In March 1865, Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, better known as the Freedmen’s Bureau. The Bureau was responsible for feeding and clothing war refugees in the South using surplus of army supplied. The Bureau issued nearly 30,000 rations a day for the next year. Additionally, the Bureau assisted formerly enslaved people find work on plantations.
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 South killed Reconstruction most by their resistance against the North. Reconstruction started after the Civil war between 1865-1876. During the Civil War, the North and South battled, (The North won) and the South laid in ruins. The United States was willing to let the South back in under some conditions, and that marked the day Reconstruction started. During the Reconstruction era, the South resisted the North’s help and Reconstruction died.
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.
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.
Nevertheless, Reconstruction was met with enormous hurdles and, in the end, it failed to fully achieve its goals. This resulted in the continuation of racial tensions and prejudice in the years after the
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
Under the Compromise of 1877, the government could no longer intervene with state affairs. Also, there was nothing to keep the southerners from taking advantage to disobey the law. In fact, many southerners made up their own laws or black codes that put restrictions of African Americans. Even though protection laws were in place, they didn’t have much force behind them. I guess when you ask the question, was the Reconstruction a success or a failure?
Usually thought of as a positive and motivational era, the Reconstruction period had both advantages and disadvantages. Reconstruction was an accomplishment in that it re-established the United States as a unified country. Though this separation did not last many years, the Reconstruction resulted in the nation coming together and restored what we know as the United States. Reconstruction also finally settled the states’ rights vs. federalism debate that had been an issue since the 1790s. By 1877, all of the former Confederate states had drafted new constitutions, acknowledged the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, and pledged their loyalty to the U.S. government.