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Reconstruction Dbq

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Some believe it is safe to say that the Reconstruction era was a complete failure. It fell short of achieving it’s goals and was counterproductive. In many ways it created a worse environment for the African American society, they were better of in way prior to the civil war. Many people argue that the Reconstruction era was successful because of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments. The thirteenth amendment “ended” slavery but only in name. Nearly 300 years of servitude created a mindset that African Americans were less than people. In the minds of white men they were property. Slavery continued in America for years after the amendment passed. The fourteenth and fifteenth amendment supposedly secured the rights of slaves …show more content…

They were a lower class with separate schools, water fountains, restaurants, and seating on public transportation. They faced varies forms of oppression and race-inspired violence. Could you imagine the fear they felt being beaten for the color of their skin and origin. A trait they cannot control. In 1954 the United States Supreme Court passed the “separate but equal” doctrine. That was the basis of state sanctioned discrimination and segregation. Civil rights activists started non-violent protest because they wanted to be treated equal not just have the title. Reconstruction made political authority unclear, what they said they were doing and what they were doing were not equivalent. It confused the issue of equality. The authority of the federal government was frequently called into question by southern states who manipulated, challenged and side-stepped as well as violently resisting the capitol and United States Constitution. The reconstruction era adopted political confusion and fighting. Carpetbaggers and scalawags reaped the spoils of corrupt office holding and cooperated with new governments often for personal gain. Freedmen were not able to properly exercise the political power they had been thrown …show more content…

In the decades after the Civil War the government did little to none to rebuild the southern infrastructure. The south remained embedded in it’s traditional agricultural economy. This was anything but progressive. The region was locked into a pattern of economic backwardness and failure. Reconstruction failed to bring any land reform of importance to the South this left African Americans in an inherently unequal state with no opportunities to meet their basic human needs. They were unable to get ahead in life or move on from their enslaved past. African Americans had to remain dependent on their former owners. Sharecropping became the legal form of slavery. It kept African Americans tied to the land they worked which was owned by rich white

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345 Words | 2 Pages

Reconstruction failed because freedman became their own group somewhere between slave and full citizen. They no longer had to serve their master for the rest of their life however they had nothing going for them: no land, no investments, no specialized skills, and no education. Freedman could not leave the plantation they grew up on because they had nowhere to go and no way of getting there. Planters could then take advantage of the situation and the freedman would then end up living in the same quarters and not able to make a profit due to the steep prices the planters sold grain and cheap prices they bought from the freedman, leaving freedman always in the debt of their former masters, just as their ancestors had been when they were indentured

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201 Words | 1 Pages

Reconstruction was socially unsuccessful because of the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow Laws, and Segregation. The Ku Klux Klan would threaten, beat, and murder blacks and republicans. They would burn crosses on their raids, and would throw little wooden caskets in the home of the Republican or African American who was being raided. Jim Crow Laws separated the population because, it make it so white people would always have the better out of black people such as, seats on a train, or there American rights would be discriminated on. Jim Crow Laws also made it so blacks would have to go to different schools, different public transportation areas, different schools, and different restaurants.

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902 Words | 4 Pages

The Reconstruction era ended separation between the North and the South, as previously, the South had wanted to be separate from the North. The economy in the South became devastated because there were less people to work on plantations. A large racist group, which was very popular back then known as the KKK became more involved in the South, being fueled with hatred towards blacks and whites who supported civil

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462 Words | 2 Pages

Question: How effective or ineffective was Reconstruction, and what part if any did conflict in government play this? When analyzing the Reconstruction period, it is evident that there are two perspectives that can be deduced. Firstly, it is vital to review the issue of slavery. It is during the reconstruction that slaves received new rights and opportunities as citizens of America.

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1243 Words | 5 Pages

The Civil War ended slavery and three Constitutional Amendments altered African American rights. The 13th Amendment abolished/discontinued slavery in all territories and states. The 14th Amendment gave equal protection to all males regardless of race and prohibited states from depriving them of this right. The 15th Amendment allowed for African Americans males to vote. With these amendments being ratified, it became a requirement for southern states to be readmitted into the Union.

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536 Words | 3 Pages

Therefore, to understand why it was predominantly a failure, it is essential to recognize the conditions that caused it. Poverty in the South was a considerable element in the failure of Reconstruction. The South’s central economic wealth came from plantation owners, and when that is taken away, the economy is impacted tremendously. Freedmen looking for job opportunities found little to none, or went into sharecropping causing them to spiral into a vicious cycle of poverty with little to no hope of getting out. On top of this, taxes were raised in order to help reconstruct the south, causing many people to barely get by or become homeless.

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1494 Words | 6 Pages

One of the main goals of Reconstruction was to require that the South give African-Americans equal rights. With slavery abolished, the Federal Government decided that it was now time to give African-Americans the rights given to the rest of American citizens. This was in the mid 1800s. Needless to say, these plans were not put in place, or at least not properly enforced, for many more years. It took a well-organized uprising by African-Americans about 100 years later to finally make some progress.

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4950 Words | 20 Pages

There are different perspectives on the history of Reconstruction; some people believe that rebuilding the South during the period of 1865 to 1877 was a very important stage in the United States history because it was the start of American Society as a home of freedom. However, others view Reconstruction as a negative impact on African Americans. Ronald E. Butchart sees Reconstruction as the main reason for educational discrimination against African Americans. Reconstruction in the South helped African Americans in good ways, such as giving them the freedom they deserved. Like anything else, Reconstruction in the South had purposes, achievements, and failures.

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883 Words | 4 Pages

Keeping African Americans segregated and not treating their condition’s equal led to a even more discrimination resulting in a lack of rights. In the 1896, Plessey vs Ferguson case, the Supreme Court stated that all facilities could be segregated, but they had to be equal. “Requiring railway companies carrying passengers in their coaches in that state to provide equal, but separate accommodations for the white and [African Americans] races, by providing two or more passenger coaches for each passenger train.” (Document F). This quote shows that the train compartments were required to be kept separate but equal.

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515 Words | 3 Pages

The thirteenth amendment stated that all former slaves were granted freedom. The reconstruction period, “did create the essential constitutional foundation for further advances in the quest for equality”. It laid the building blocks for the future building for civil rights not just for blacks but women and other minorities. Former slaves, “ found comfort in their family and in the churches they established”. Blacks took community in each other and bonded over the mutual idea of freedom .

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192 Words | 1 Pages

The Reconstruction, in my opinion, was a failure for it did not freed every man of color even though the Thirteen amendment formally abolished slavery; in the antebellum years and with the assassination of President Lincoln, the road to Reconstruction took a different road. Moreover, the Southern states were required to take a bow of loyalty to the Nation and abolish slavery before being readmitted to the Union. However, in the mid-west states black codes were stablished to regulate the migration of free African-Americans, while the black codes established in Southern States were an attempt to suppress the freedmen and force them into labor for low to no wages. Also, African- Americans were restricted on property ownership, business management

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936 Words | 4 Pages

The education tests, Grandfather Clause, and Black Codes all express that Reconstruction was unsuccessful. This was on account of it didn 't finish the objectives of Reconstruction since one of the two fundamental objectives of Reconstruction was to increase social liberties for liberated slaves. Thusly, this turns out to be unsuccessful in light of endeavors at taking without end the privileges of African Americans, which undermined this bigger objective. Through state governments, laws were made which took away the rights that they were attempting to be picked up by African Americans, for example, voting, being able to pick who they work for, and not being oppressed. The motivation behind southern state governments taking endlessly those rights from African Americans was to reproduce servitude and reproduce an arrangement of white pecking order, which in fact had been banned.

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1277 Words | 6 Pages

Reconstruction was intended to unify the states once more and allowing for the United States to stabilize its economy in a post war era. The Union may have felt minimal impact under its industrial institution, but the south was in shambles and its agricultural institution that was its pre-war economy was not nonexistent under Reconstruction. In the south the lives of planters, non-slave holding whites, and even former slaves was directly affected by reconstruction. The farmers no longer had guaranteed labor to work their fields, which meant a decline in agriculture production and the export of raw materials. Freed slaves who remained in the south did not have a means to support their family due to the lack of support and work for freed slaves and if any support was coming it was slowed down by the divide of the Union on Reconstruction.

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1464 Words | 6 Pages

Although many attempts were made to prioritize freedom and equality for all, these values were undermined by racist Southerners who wouldn’t accept equality. In the end, Reconstruction had failed and former slaves endured another hardship akin to slavery. However, Reconstruction still could have prospered. There are multiple events that, if they had occurred, Reconstruction would not have failed. For example, had the government continued to fund the Freedmen’s Bureau, then the South would have legislated their discriminatory laws much later, if not at all.

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835 Words | 4 Pages

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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