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Reconstruction After Civil War Essay

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After the Civil War, about 4 million slaves were free. With this freedom came significant challenges. The states that seceded needed to reorganize and rebuild. During the period between 1865 and 1877 issues surrounding the inequalities of slavery and its political, social and economic impact and how to solve the problems of readmission also needed to be addresses. There were three separate plans of Reconstruction. The Executive/Presidential Reconstruction included the 1863 Proclamation of Amnesty, the ten-percent plan, the Thirteenth Amendment and the Black Codes. The Legislative/Congressional plan examined conditions in the South to determine if certain states deserved to have representation in Congress. Outcomes included the Freedman’s …show more content…

Johnson also outlined how the new state governments would be required to abolish slavery, reject secession, and rescind Confederate debt. State governments pretty much were free to manage their own affairs.
One thing the government did was enact the Black Code laws. These laws required African Americans to sign yearly labor contracts which limited economic options for freed slaves. Blacks could not vote, hold office, serve in the state military, and interracial marriage between blacks and whites was prohibited Needless to say, this didn't sit well with African Americans. Their resistance was detrimental to Johnson’s policies in the north.
In the south, Republicans wanted to establish governments based on equality before the law and male voting rights. Republicans wanted to work with Johnson, but Congress refused to seat representatives and senators from the Southern states. So, the Freedman’s Bureau and Civil Rights Bills were presented. The Freedman’s Bureau was an extension of an agency formed by Congress to assist in the transition from slavery to freedom. It helped to distribute food, supplies and land to the newly freed slaves. The Civil Rights bill granted all persons born in the United States natural citizenship and equality before the law. Stubbornly, Johnson these bills which permanently put him at odds with

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The Reconstruction, one of the roughest and controversial era in American history, took place after the Civil War between 1865 and 1877. This began the process of bringing the Nation back together and giving former slaves equals rights by three new Constitutional amendments.    From the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Lincoln’s goal was the restoration of the Confederate states to the Union. In 1863, Lincoln proposed the Ten Percent Plan that granted amnesty to those Confederate states which swore an oath of allegiance to the Union. It would have given a general pardon to all southerners excluding high-ranking Confederate army officers and government officials.

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On the other hand, Congress, most of all Radical Republicans, did not agree with Johnson’s actions. In fact, they would not allow the newly elected Southern representatives and senators from joining Congress in December of 1865. Instead , Congress enacted their own Reconstruction plan which consisted of: Creation of a Freedmen's Bureau to help newly freed slaves, passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to help protect freedmen from laws such as the Black Codes that were being passed in many Southern states, passage of the 14th Amendment, the purpose of which was to ensure that future legislatures could not revise the Civil Rights Act, passage of Reconstruction Acts that made restoration to the Union more difficult. Seven states were readmitted to the Union in 1868. Furthermore, congress prepared the 15th Amendment in 1868, it required the rest of the states to ratify the amendment to be readmitted and eventually all states were readmitted by 1870.

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Eric Foner, contributor to Encyclopedia Britannica and author of many books, describes the Reconstruction as a time in “which attempts were made to redress the inequities of slavery and its political, social, and economic legacy and to solve the problems arising from the readmission to the Union of the 11 states that had seceded at or before the outbreak of war” (Foner). Due to the secession of southern states, President Lincoln tried to weaken their abilities by issuing the Ten Percent Plan, which was when “one-tenth of a state’s prewar voters took an oath of loyalty, they could establish a new state government… the plan was an attempt to weaken the Confederacy rather than a blueprint for the postwar South” (Foner). This, then allowed the government to ensure that the states would not try to secede again, even if they wanted to. It guaranteed that the states would remain a part of the Union, leaving fewer and fewer states in the Confederacy as more voters took this oath. Later on, President Johnson granted state governments the ability to manage their own affairs, which often resulted in southern slaves “enacting the black codes, laws that required African Americans to sign yearly labour contracts and in other ways sought to limit the freedmen’s economic

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President Johnson was a supporter of state rights so he was not going to say or do anything. To him, the power to decide what to do with the newly free African-American was in the hands of the states. But when the Congress had a majority of Republicans after the election, it decided to overrule the southern states and with that, the period called Radical Reconstruction began. First, there was the Civil Rights Act in 1866, passed despite Johnson 's veto. There was no doubt anymore that freedmen were citizens and were to be treated as such. "

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The Union victory during the Civil War may have given 4 million slaves their freedom but the reconstruction attempts was a flop in the 1860s. The reconstruction was meant to bring the United States back together as one nation but there were faults so ultimately the era of Reconstruction was a failure. The Reconstruction Era in the United States was a failure and included unsuccessful efforts to defend former slaves, thrust freedmen into crippling poverty, and industrialization in the South lasted too long. Reunification of the Union was taken aback when many reconstruction efforts were unsuccessful. Failure to protect former slaves from white persecution and to change the social society in the South did not end well for newly freed slaves.

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Efforts from the congress after the rejection of President Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan involved enacting laws and amendments that enforced equal rights only to the now freed male slaves and gave them the right to vote and hold office. The government, confronted with formation of anti-equality groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and many others that opposed equality, soon enacted the Black Codes. The congress then passed the Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights Bills in hopes to settle the quarrels of slavery by declaring all born in the U.S as citizens but unfortunately, Johnson declined these bills. To retaliate, the Civil Rights Act

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After the Union won the major battles that is when Lincoln had put the ten percent plan on the table, this plan was when ten percent of the state’s eligible voters pledge oath to US then they could join the Union. To begin with, there are a few reasons why one would say that reconstruction in the south was a failure. One of these reasons being that, even after the civil war in the South’s government passed laws to limit the rights of the free African Americans. In document C we can see this is evident where it states “No negro or freedmen shall be allowed to come within the limits of the town of Opelousas without special permission of his employers. Whoever breaks this law will go to jail and work for two days on the public streets, or pay a fine of five dollars.”

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Reconstruction was the rebuilding of the nation after the Civil War. It was President Lincoln’s method of reuniting the south and north back together. This consisted of methods and rules for the states of the south to rejoin the north. During reconstruction, there were several amendments established in favor of African Americans, such as the 13th amendment that ended slavery, the 14th amendment which said everyone was equal, and the 15th amendment which stated all men could vote. Although reconstruction could be seen as a good thing, when reconstruction failed it caused Jim Crow Laws, Sharecropping, and KKK.

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Soon after the war was over, President Abraham Lincoln introduced his reconstruction plan to reunite the nation, and have it function the way it used to. On December 1863, President Lincoln issued his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction; it offered “full pardon” and the restoration of property to white Southerners. However, the prerequisites to receive full pardon include swearing an oath of allegiance to the United States and its laws; the only people excluded from the offer were Prominent Confederate military and civil leaders. On December 8, 1865, President Lincoln announced the terms of another reconstructive plan, known as “Lincoln’s Ten-Percent

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422 Words | 2 Pages

The Civil War and the period of Reconstruction brought significant political, social, and economic changes to American society, and these effects continued into the 20th century. Post Civil War (After the Civil War – The period after the Civil War) - President Abraham Lincoln and Congress were determined to rebuild the nation. Lincoln wanted to restore the Union by readmitting the southern states that had seceded, as well as provide African Americans with more rights. Period of Conflict -

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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 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.

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1136 Words | 5 Pages

One of reasons the confederacy failed was because the U.S. Congress, with Lincoln’s support, proposed the 13th amendment which would abolish slavery in America. Although the confederate peace delegation was unwilling to accept a future without slavery, the radical and moderate Republicans designed a way to takeover the reconstruction program. The Radical Republicans wanted full citizenship rights for African Americans and wanted to implement harsh reconstruction policies toward the south. The radical republican views made up the majority of the Congress and helped to pass the 14th amendment which guaranteed equality under the law for all citizens, and protected freedmen from presidential vetoes, southern state legislatures, and federal court decisions. In 1869, Congress passed the fifteenth amendment stating that no citizen can be denied the right to vote because of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

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Reconstruction era, which was followed by post-civil war, was meant to unite the states back together, reconstruct properties, and most importantly, abolish slavery in the South. Although the factors such as amendments legally freed former slaves, yet WRITE THESIS After the end of civil war in 1865, Reconstruction era, which was controlled by President Abraham Lincoln, appeared to quickly coalesce the Northern and Southern states. reconstruction amendments, which were approved between 1865 and 1870, played a huge role on giving legal rights to blacks and former slaves. 13th amendment constitutionally abolished slavery in 1865 and followed up by that, 14th and 15th amendment admitted equal citizenship, protection, and rights of suffrage despite the one’s race or skin color. Former slaves were no longer belongings of their owners.

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The Reconstruction (1865-1877) was a period during which the life of the defeated South was to be returned to normal; it was also a time when the Black Americans attained some rights thanks to Lincoln and the Republican part of the Congress and despite Johnson’s intentions. An extremely violent time, it is sometimes called “the darkest period of American history”; still, it brought many important progressive changes to the US. Abraham Lincoln is known for proclaiming the black slaves Emancipation in 1863; he was convinced that it was necessary for the North to win the war. Lincoln believed that the Confederate states needed to be reintegrated back into the US while preserving the abolition of slavery; however, the 16th President wasn’t planning

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