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Pros And Cons Of Reconstruction Era

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The period between the end of the Civil War and the Great Depression had many notable achievements such as western expansion and the Reconstruction Era. However it was also a time period in which many minority groups were fairly disappointed in the American government. The Reconstruction Amendments had many holes not making it effective enough, and with more expansion to the West came more extreme racism towards Native Americans. It is clear that there were attempts to change America for all the people’s freedom, but there are still many flaws those changes possess. Because of that, I find myself in the middle of the debate about who benefited most from this time period. I think the best way to look at history is to try understanding both sides of an issue. Of course doing this isn 't a way to justify truly sickening behavior, and it shouldn 't be. However staying in the middle of this debate is the most reasonable stance because it is fairly easy to see the pros and cons on each side. There is no side that is one hundred percent correct rather they both have plausible answers to an open ended question. …show more content…

One of our most famous, or infamous, wars was centered around the enslavement of a whole race because white people in the South needed cheap labor and saw themselves as racially superior. However, after the war I have to admit that the Government at least tried with the Reconstruction Amendments. The 15th amendment gave the right to vote to African-American males which was a huge step in the right direction for change. This new amendment definitely benefited the black community considering there was a rise of African-American officeholders during the Reconstruction Era (Foner,

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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.

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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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When thinking about the civil war, one of the first things that comes to mind is how did everything end up afterwards. Did things go back to normal? How long did it take to rebuild? Was the reconstruction of the south success or failure? 2 years before the Confederacy formally surrendered the Union began reconstruction.

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From segregation and voting laws to sharecropping, reconstruction did not turn out to be the success it had the potential to be. Many years later, we are

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What were the goals of Reconstruction? Why weren 't all of these goals achieved? Was Reconstruction a failure? Support your answers with details and examples. Reconstruction - the federal government plan to solve the issues formed from the end of the Civil War – can be divided into 2 parts: physically rebuilding the South and reconstructing the Southern Society.

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Sources Analysis Freedom During the Reconstruction era, the idea of freedom could have many different meanings. Everyday factors that we don't often think about today such as the color of our skin, where we were born, and whether or not we own land determined what limitations were placed on the ability to live our life to the fullest. To dig deeper into what freedom meant for different individuals during this time period, I analyzed three primary sources written by those who experienced this first hand. These included “Excerpts from The Black Codes of Mississippi” (1865), “Jourdan Anderson to his old master” (1865), and “Testimony on the Ku Klux Klan in Congressional Hearing” (1872).

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No, I disagree with this proposition that Reconstruction was a missed opportunity. In the history of the United States, "Reconstruction" refers to the policies between 1863 and 1877 when the U.S. focused on ending the slavery, demolishing the Confederacy, and rebuilding the nation and the Constitution. Abraham Lincoln’s whole post war idea was to facilitate and reconciliation but he was assassinated and we left with Andrew Johnson. Although the slavery was banned, segregation created new social injustice, which lasted for another century. Economically speaking, the South was never recovered completely and there were specific problems left unsolved over state rights.

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April 12, 1961, marked one of the most historical events that have ever occurred in the United States -the Civil War. This war was fought by the Union (Northern states) and the Confederates (Southern states). Several factors contributed to the clash of both sides, such include: trades, tariffs, states’ rights, and the idea of slavery. After four years of fighting, the Southern states lied under complete destruction. On May 9, 1865, the fighting was over -the Union had won the war.

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It all depends how you look at it. Laws that were set up weren’t always followed correctly, but laws were still being set up to protect African Americans rights. It must have been a success because now today, they are known as citizens and have the right to vote. But then again, the rise of the Klu Klux Klan and other white supremacy groups, in combination with the Black Codes, began to intimidate freed slaves and push back their civil liberties. For me, the Reconstruction was a

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Reconstruction was a period of time dedicated to rebuilding the nation after the Civil War. The war ended with the South being defeated and their economy being devastated. Many Southerners struggled after the war with rebuilding their land and lives. The President and Congress had to decide the terms for which the former Confederate states would be permitted to join the Union. President Lincoln’s plan for reuniting the country was found in the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction.

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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.

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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

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24 November 2015 The Real Death of Reconstruction There is no easy way to decide who can be held accountable for the end of the Reconstruction Era. Attempts to rebuild the South ceased to exist in 1877, just over ten years after the Confederacy surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox Court House, Virginia. It seemed as though everything was on the right track in 1876, the one hundred year anniversary of The United States. That was, however, until the South waged conflict against black and white citizens of The United States.

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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).

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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.

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