Reasons For Reconstruction

Who is to blame for the death of the Reconstruction; the North or the South? The years following the Civil War in America were known as the Reconstruction. During this time period, many former slaves were beginning to see freedom. There was a great deal of resistance and tension rising between the North and the South. During the Reconstruction period, there were laws passed in the South limiting the freedoms of freedmen and former slaves. These laws were known as the “Black Codes”. An example of a black code, “No negro or freedmen shall be allowed to come within the limits of the town of Opelousas without special permission from his employers. Whoever breaks this law will go to jail and work for two days on the public streets, or pay a

The KKK was out to get any person who helped during the Reconstruction. Northerners were tired of the South’s resistance. A state Senator of Caswell, John W. Stephens, was fatally stabbed to death by members of the Ku Klux Klan because he wanted change for America. People who wanted America to change were usually killed or silenced by organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. Anyone who supported congressmen from the South who did not want to end this problem was “…a coward, a traitor, or a fool.” (Document 3) The Klansmen created terror in Southern communities by targeting African American officials, making the community more vulnerable. The townspeople couldn’t do anything about it because a majority of the white officials were members of the

An example of this was when Klansmen kidnapped a former slave named Abraham Colby and took him in to the woods. They whipped him for 3 straight hours and left him from dead. In his testimony to a joint House and Senate Committees in 1872, he stated that, “On the 29th of October 1869, [the Klansmen] broke my door open, took me out of bed, took me to the woods and whipped me three hours or more and left me for dead. They said to me, "Do you think you will ever vote another damned Radical ticket?" I said, "If there was an election tomorrow, I would vote the Radical ticket." They set in and whipped me a thousand licks more, with sticks and straps that had buckles on the ends of them.” (Document 5). When questioned what the character of these men were, Abraham stated, “Some are first-class men in our town. One is a lawyer, one a doctor, and some are farmers… They said I had voted for Grant and had carried the Negroes against them. About two days before they whipped me they offered me $5,000 to go with them and said they would pay me $2,500 in cash if I would let another man go to the legislature in my place. I told them that I would not do it if they would give me all the county was worth… No man can make a free speech in my county. I do not believe it can be done anywhere in Georgia.” (Document 5). Southerners evoked fear into the community and terrorized them so they would not vote. African Americans were too