To My Honorable Congressman, Right now, in Congress, they are preparing to vote on the Resolution to end Reconstruction. The Resolution states that if the states in rebellion have successfully fulfilled the requirements of the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 and 1868, have in good faith implement policies and regulations in accordance with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and willingly allow the Federal Government to restructure southern politics, society, and the economy, then the Federal Government will remove federal troops from southern states and give them the reins to control Reconstruction to individual states. I advise you to vote to not end Reconstruction because these claims will enrage the Southern Democrats and Southern states.
Abraham Lincoln’s vs Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan Lincoln shared the uncommon belief that the confederate states could still be part of the union and that the cause of the rebellion was only a few within the states which lead him to begin the reconstruction in December of 1863. This resulted in plans with lenient guidelines and although they were challenged by Wade-Davis Bill, Lincoln still rejected his ideas and kept his policies in place. Lincoln also allowed land to be given the newly freed slave or homeless white by distributing the land that had been confiscated from former land owners however this fell through once Johnson took office. After Lincoln’s death when Johnson was elected many things started to turn away from giving blacks equal rights and resulted in many things such a black codes which kept newly freed slaves from having the same rights as whites. When Lincoln first acted after the civil war, he offered policies that would allow the confederate slaves to become part of the union again and would allow a pardon for those states.
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.
By the spring of 1865, the Civil War came to an end and there were many important challenging questions the nation was faced with. A few included how could the south physically and economically be rebuilt, what should be done with the newly freedmen and women, and who would direct the process of reconstruction? President Lincoln, President Johnson, and the radical republicans (congressional) each constructed a plan they believed would be best for the nation. The congressional plan best helped the nation and freedmen due to passed legislation such as the Pacific Railroad Act, Civil Rights Bill that granted American citizenship to blacks, and had goal of destroying the Black Codes, that isolated blacks from society.
After the Civil War, the Reconstruction Era began, in which America attempted to reform the southern states. It’s purpose was to rebuild the South and to unite the nation. Reconstruction introduced many different changes that were both beneficial and harmful for the United States.. Laws were passed that granted African Americans legal rights, however there were also many occasions where they were being persecuted. Some people had good intentions during Reconstruction, but overall, it was a failure.
After four years of war between the Union and the Confederacy, the Union succeeded in winning the war. But after such a brutal war, half of the nation was in ruins. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, wanted to make the nation one again. To do this, he first thought of the Ten Percent Plan. This plan stated that once 10% of a state’s voters swore an oath pertaining to being loyal to the United States of America, they could form a new state government, and that state government would have to declare an end to slavery.
These speeches moved people and set goals for African Americans and others to be free from slavery. First of all, The two main goals of the Reconstruction Era were to bring back the former confederate states back into the Union. Also, to ensure equal citizenship and rights to former slaves. The Reconstruction Era reorganized and reestablished the seceded states in the union after the American Civil War. During the Reconstruction African Americans gained voice in the Government for the first time in History.
After the Civil War, there were “three and a half million men and women” (Brinkley, 352) freed from slavery. These individuals now faced Reconstruction, the reestablishment of the south after their secession from the Union. There were many different ideas on the proper way to proceed with reconstruction. To African Americans, the goals of reconstruction was freedom, to some that meant political equality others economic success, or social equivalence.
After the Civil war, former slaves had a glimpse of a future filled with prosperity, but Reconstruction failed due to faulty leadership in the Union and continuous outlash from the Confederacy. Lincoln planned to offer the South a pardon for their crimes against the country, and that Southern states would be reimbursed into the union if 10% its citizens voted to do so; Abraham Lincoln didn’t want to punish the South, but Congress wasn’t very pleased with Lincoln’s forgiveness. President Johnson picked up where Lincoln left off; however, instead of showing immediate mercy to the South, Andrew Johnson confiscated land from wealthy Southerners. Johnson was compliant enough to pardon ex-confederates, but if someone were worth more than 20,000 dollars
The Republican nominee, Ulysses S. Grant, was elected president by a very slim margin in 1868 which led to Congress ratifying the Fifteenth Amendment only a year later. The third and final amendment of the era prohibited the state and federal governments from refusing any citizen the right to vote based on their race or prior condition of servitude. Although the law stated that any citizen had the right to vote, it failed to include women. Female rights advocates saw the Reconstruction Era as a time to claim their own emancipation, as the African-Americans were doing at the time. Women took advantage of the time and started to demand liberty for divorce laws, the recognition that they had control over their own bodies, and birth control.
Impeachment of President Johnson and Failure of Reconstruction After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson became president on April 15, 1865. The end of Civil War had given freedom to many slaves. However, the progression of reforming the South during the Reconstruction period brought completely new challenges. On May 29, 1865, Johnson announced his plans for Reconstruction which was a huge disappointment for the Radical Republicans. When it came to Johnson, it was clear for Radical Republicans that he clearly favored for the former slaveholders rather than the former slaves.
The victory of the Union in the Civil War had given the freedom for most of the slaves. But the freed slaves’ now face a new injustice during the Reconstruction Period. The question of freed blacks’ status after the war in South still maintained unresolved even they passed the Thirteenth Amendment, the abolition of slavery. Later on, in the control of president Andrew Johnson, white southerners reestablished the civil authority in the former Confederate states. They then enacted “Black Codes”-a series of restrictive laws.
Reconstruction is during which the United States began to rebuild the Southern society after they lost to the civil war. It lasted from 1865 to 1877, and it was initiated by President Lincoln until his assassination in 1865. President Johnson continued Lincoln’s agenda to continue the Reconstruction. Throughout the process of Reconstruction, one of its main purpose was to guarantees for equal rights for all people, especially for the African Americans. Even though slavery was abolished after the civil war, many Southerners were still against the idea of equal rights for all black people, such as the Republicans.
The American Civil War that was started due to the controversy over slavery in 1861, was won by The Union supported by President Lincoln against the Confederate states. President Lincoln’s original goal during the civil war was to reunify the nation as quickly as possible and help both sides come to an understanding. After the Civil War ended in 1865, the newly formed United States’ reconstruction era began. The Reconstruction era was put into effect by the Congress in 1866 and lasted until 1877. The Union’s victory in the Civil War had given African Americans a new sense of hope, devastated the southern economy, and eased the history of disunity in American political life.
After the Civil War was over their was supposed to be a new birth of freedom for the African American people. From 1865 to 1875 America was going under reconstruction to reunite the north and the south. One of the first incidents was the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's main goal as the president was to abolish slavery, and give citizenship and rights to the African Americans.
