Failure Of Reconstruction Essay

Following the end of the Civil War, the United States of America set its sights on restructuring the South. Idealistically, the North was to serve as a model and guide the redevelopment of southern society - purging it of slavery, introducing manufacturing, and creating new markets. Realistically, however, this was not the case. The Civil War was fought on the grounds of abolishing slavery, providing rights for blacks, and redeveloping the South’s economy, yet the years following its end saw very little change. Due to a lack of enforcement from the North and the federal government, the Reconstruction proved to be a dramatic failure. Although officially and legally abolished in 1865 via the 13th Amendment, slavery continued to manifest in the

Unfortunately for the North, Lincoln and the Republican’s plans were largely unsuccessful. Later, when the Civil Rights Bill was passed in 1866, which ensured full citizenship for any free men, Johnson moved to veto it, but was met with the ratification of the 15th Amendment, which stated that the right to vote cannot be denied or abridged based on race. Initially, racists were met with many more obstacles than in the past: all men legally had citizenship rights. However, such laws failed to be enforced, due to a fear of more conflict arising and the debt that had amassed from the war. States in the South started monopolizing slaughterhouses to reduce the presence of blacks in the market, resulting in sharecropping and further dependence on white men, and setting a precedent that the federal government could not control the rights of citizens. Moreover, an immeasurable number of black codes and Jim Crow laws were enacted, ranging from literacy tests and voting requirements to fines for teaching a black student. These were not the last of the restrictions