Positive And Negative Effects Of Reconstruction

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After the Union victory of the Civil War, slaves gained freedom, but were still set to face many challenges during the Reconstruction era. A lot of good and bad, and failed attempts became of the Reconstruction era. It was a time of rebuilding, and re-uniting as a nation. Most of the damage was done on Southern soil, which caused a lot to be repaired. There was also a lot of backfire of concepts, and backwards movement of progress in some aspects. The Reconstruction first and foremost provided freedom for slaves, and more was done to reinforce this freedom, and also to better the nation. The North and South experienced an expanded economy, through an encouragement of collaboration. Many laws were put into place to protect the freedmen, such …show more content…

Overall, I think that more everlasting positive came out of Reconstruction than the negative events. Slavery still ended up being an issue for many years to come, and total equality was not reached. But, the Civil Rights Bill was a major progression, and our nation would be a completely different place had that bill not been put into effect. I think that more negative things happened as a result of the Reconstruction era, but the power of the positive that came out of the Reconstruction era had a much greater impact on our nation to this day. I think that the things that I would handle differently during the Reconstruction era would be to not provide so much leniency to the South like Andrew Johnson did during his presidency, and a lot of the negative things like black codes would not have been put into place. If I were in charge, the South would still have their freedom since we would be united as a country, but not with such a divided feel. I would still have made the South swear their loyalty to the Union, but also watch over the South in a not so menacing way to make sure they stay on their word, and try to provide the education and work that the freedmen required. Overall, though, the Reconstruction era was definitely something that needed to happen to ensure that the nation was rebuilt not only in the South, but also as a whole. Positive and negative came out of it, but as a nation, we worked together to rebuild it for years to