Reconstruction Dbq

1486 Words6 Pages

After the Civil War, there was death and destruction everywhere. America was looking to pick up the pieces of their broken country. From this need to make America a functioning country once more, Reconstruction was born. The Reconstruction era was controversial at the time. African Americans were getting their first breath of freedom and being integrated into government and society (“America's Reconstruction”). Radical Republicans played a major role in the integration of the African Americans. They believed it was their role to help the former slaves back on their feet, but many Southerners at the time did not agree with this idea. They didn’t like the idea of freedmen getting the right to vote and participate in government, while the former …show more content…

Throughout Reconstruction, the unification of the two nations came with the ratification of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments into the Southern states’ constitutions. President Abraham Lincoln conducted a plan known as The Ten-Percent Plan, but the Radical Republicans were vehemently opposed to the plan. They believed it was too lenient to the South and lacked required protection to the freedmen. Congress rejected Lincoln’s plan and came up with the Wade-Davis Bill, which was too extreme for Lincoln. It forbade any Confederate officials from ever participating in government. Lincoln then decided to use a pocket veto and rejected the Bill. After the assassination of Lincoln, his successor, Andrew Johnson took over and came up with the Presidential Reconstruction Plan. His plan required all the Confederate states to declare the secession illegal, swear their loyalty to the Union, and ratify the thirteenth amendment, which abolished slavery (Alchin). The Confederate states, desperate to get back into the union in order to restore the economy, happily obliged and were admitted into the …show more content…

The Women’s Rights Movement originated from the public protest meeting in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. Many at the meeting were skeptical about the demands being made to allow women to exercise the right to participate in government and vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the primary organizer of the meeting, remembered that many attending, including radical Lucretia Mott, thought that the demand was too far advanced for the time. They believed that advocating for political equality was also “too morally questionable” to include in this movement