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13th Ammendment Of African Americans During Reconstruction

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My group has decided that our position on whether or not African Americans were free during Reconstruction was that they were not. To prove this we used 4 documents out of the 5 provided. From document A, ammendments were established and to be specific the 13th ammendment. The 13th ammendment states that slavery shouldnt exist within the United States unless as a punishment for crime. However, during the same time this ammendment wwas passed, Henry Adams was told to call the boss and madam , "master" and "missus",, which are terms that are usually used in slavery due to the owner and slave relationship .But because these enslaved people are now free there should be no reason for them to be addressing bosses and madams that way because itll just bring them back to where theyve started as …show more content…

In document B the Black codes were created to maintain and attempt to keep everyone safe once slaves were free but, it did not have the aura of doing so. Instead it did not provide the enslaved with the freedom they were supposed to get. The Black Codes were actually restricting and limiting them even more than they were when they were enslaved. From document C, a statement from Henry ADams, who was a former slave, stated that " They were going to kill every colored person they found leaving their masters" this shows how whites continued to mistreat the freedmen as if they were still owned even after the civil war ended, in 1865. The fact that he had experienced this personally makes his words and statement even more important than others. In Document D, black officials were elected during reconstruction and this is only because of the 15th ammendment which gave them the chance to be elected on fairgrounds without being denied to vote. However, before 1870 also during the reconstruction many were not given the chance to run due to their race and discrimination. Therefore they werent free during the

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How would reconstruction have ended if Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and was able to enforce his reconstruction plan? How would the Emancipation Proclamation be enforced in the previously Slave-South? Would we enforce it differently than the Fugitive Slave Act?

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On June 2 1865 the United States entered into its bloodiest battle it had ever gotten into since the founding of the country. Over 600,000 people died in battle and all over the issue of slavery. When the civil war was over many thought that slavery had ended and that black people would get the freedom that had been wanting. Although the civil war had ended, white southerners kept African Americans as slaves under new laws passed called Black Codes. After the civil war, African Americans wanted more rights and more freedom.

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A 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.

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Black Codes were laws created by white southerners. They were intended to restrict freed blacks’ activity and guarantee their availability as a labor force now that slavery had been abolished. In the spring of the year 1868, Andrew Johnson became the first president to be impeached. Impeachment is a process through which an official is removed from office due to unlawful activity.

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In document 4 the evidence that can be used to support my subclaim is “ ‘...but he shall not be free to dine and drink at our table - to serve on a jury - to be a witness in court - to represent us in the legislature - to be a doctor - to join us at a concert, a lecture, the theater, or the church, or to marry our daughters. We are of another race, and he is inferior....” This evidence supports my subclaim because at this time people treated African Americans as if they were inferior. African Americans couldn’t serve on a jury, be a witness in court, represent in legislation, etc. Analysis of Document 2, entitled "Call to Rebellion", a speech spoken by Henry Highland Garnet delivered at the National Negro Convention of 1843 held in Buffalo, New York.

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(n.d.). Retrieved 22 July 2015, from http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/abj5059.0001.001/3?rgn=full+text;view=image (‘The American slave code in theory and practice: its distinctive features shown by its statutes, judicial decisions, and illustrative facts./ By William Goodell.’, n.d.) The Journal of Negro History – Books on Google Play. (1920, January 1). Retrieved 22 July 2015, from https://play.google.com/books/reader?printsec=frontcover&output=reader&id=QBaTtGgyWakC&pg=GBS.PA2 (‘The Journal of Negro History – Books on Google Play’,

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With reconstruction there were many doors opened for African Americans. They were able to be free, and to become a citizen, and male slaves over the age of 21 were able to vote. Also there was education for children and some adults, and there were marriages for former slaves. In the image drawn by A. R. Waud, he displays a male African American voting for the first time. This image shows how constitutionally this was groundbreaking for the former slaves.

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The Fourteenth Amendment addressed the issue of slaves being legally considered to be “property” because this amendment reaffirmed everyone born in the United States are citizens and therefore should be treated in the same regard in the eyes of the law. This amendment punished the former Confederate states since they were not allowed to return to the Union unless they had ratified this law which was passed to secure freedmen’s rights, something Southern whites hugely opposed.

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Document B is a statement made by a white person explaining the whites feelings toward Blacks. The Whites acknowledged the rights of Blacks to work, own property, and pay taxes, but goes on to say Blacks were not free to eat with Whites, or attend public events with Whites like theater, concerts, or lectures. Blacks didn’t have a very good reputation among Whites. The white people acknowledged the freedoms the Blacks had, but most didn’t like it and didn’t consider the Black’s to be their equal.

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The African Americans were “free” but were still being treated like slaves. They were given rights but had them taken away and were working for very little pay which was unfair compared to how whites were working for more. The blacks couldn’t even own a house or even rent unless they worked for a white man. They couldn’t even work unless it was for some white person or former owner. This is why reconstruction in the south after the civil war was a big

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To me, freedom means that everyone, regardless of race, has the same rights and equal protection under the law. The Reconstruction amendments were written so that African Americans would have rights equal to those of white citizens. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the US. The 14th granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves recently freed and the the 15th Amendment in the Constitution granted African American men the right to vote.

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These codes varied based on the states, but included aspects such as denying African Americans the right to vote, serve on juries, testify in court against southern whites, own property, attend public schools, and also included a mandate where they were forced to work low income, non-desirable jobs. This was not at all a more desirable situation for the freedmen in the south than they had when they were enslaved, so they had to turn again to the Northern leadership for help. At a convention in Alexandria, Virginia, a group of black men urged the North to help because they stood side by side with each other and fought for the same things in the war, and that nothing but military protection would protect the freedmen from falling back into what southern whites believed to be “their rightful

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African Americans never had freedom in the past, as they were treated poorly. White people discriminated black people back then just because they weren’t the same skin color or came from the same origin. “Set free by the 13th amendment, with citizenship guaranteed by the 14th amendment, black males were given the vote by the 15th amendment. From that point on, the freedmen were generally expected to fend for themselves. In retrospect, it can be seen that the 15th amendment was in reality only the beginning of a struggle for equality that would continue for more than a century before African Americans could begin to participate fully in American public and civic life.

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1097 Words | 5 Pages

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.

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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.

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