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Reconstruction Dbq

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Recommended: Social and political development during the reconstruction era in America

The Reconstruction era, which followed the American Civil War, was a time of significant social, political, and economic change in the United States. After years of slavery and armed conflict, the country was faced with the challenge of rebuilding and reconciling a deeply divided society. The period saw remarkable progress in integrating freed slaves into society and politics, with the ratification of constitutional amendments, granting citizenship and voting rights to African Americans. However, despite these achievements, the Reconstruction era ultimately failed to create racial equality and healing divisions caused by the Civil War due to ongoing racism, political opposition, and economic struggles in the South. This DBQ will explore the reasons behind the failure of the Reconstruction era and the impact on this failure. During the Reconstruction era, ongoing systemic racism persisted in American society despite efforts to create a more equal and just society where …show more content…

Some politicians, like a senator from Kentucky, turned a blind eye to the oppression that freedmen faced constantly in their homes as well as at the polls. This lack of support from the government was a downfall in the Reconstruction movement. White southerners found ways to prevent African Americans from voting by using tactics like harassment, bullying, and intimidation to scare them away from the polls.Laws like the grandfather clause and literacy tests were created to prevent many people of color from be able to vote, ensuring the Democratic Party (southerners) could regain control of politics. These actions show that people didn’t respect African Americans as citizens even under the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. As a result of this, political opposition was a significant factor in the failure of Reconstruction being able to create a truly equal and just society for

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Eric Foner’s A Short History of Reconstruction, is an abridged version of the multiple award-winning Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution (1988), offers a summary of some of the most influential pieces of history with his arguments regarding themes, such as the way South was changed amid and after this time, the development of racial mentalities and designs and the part of African Americans in bringing change within the Reconstruction. Additionally, another subject that Foner states in the book, is the development of a national state through the Civil War and Reconstruction that confined another arrangement of purposes with level rights to all Americans paying little to their race and the way changes in the North’s economy after

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639 Words | 3 Pages

Each of these four articles explain why the United States government failed in reconstruction based on generations that pass by. Thomas W. Wilson’s talks and displays about how the government attempted taking over the South. Carter Woodson pressures that most of the slaves were indignant while reconstruction was going on, where Thomas Bailey states that it’s the Radicals who are to be blamed for pushing it on the freed men. Lastly, Mary Beth Norton continues with the concern with the struggle of reconstruction that the South held from the beginning. Each author explains their understanding of why reconstruction had failed due to their generation and experience.

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Because of this, racial relations would be kept stagnant for the greater part of the next century. The Reconstruction Movement had many fumbles and failures. From Andrew Johnson’s initial betrayal of the movement, to the rise of organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, and then the Republican’s sacrifice to secure Rutherford Hayes as the 19th President of the United States, Reconstruction Movement failed to deliver what it

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811 Words | 4 Pages

Reconstruction was a failure because it caused violence towards white republicans and former slaves. The divide between north and south shifted from the battlefield to politics, and Jim Crow Laws kept African Americans enslaved with the only added bonus being US citizenship and the right for men to vote regardless of race. Reconstruction was meant to help people of all races unite as a country, as well as bring the north and south together after the Civil War. However, the tension between the races only became stronger and brought violence as well as death to former slaves. The KKK killed, harmed, and threatened African Americans all over the United States.

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It is discussed that the lives of black American did not improve significantly as racism was entrenched in governments and white Americans, especially southerners. Although amendments and acts sought out to better the lives of black Americans, it did not mean they were immediately treated as equal and given rights. Black Americans had a very difficult life post-Civil War as the rest of America was not prepared to stop depriving them of their civil rights as it was beneficial to them to have black Americans kept under oppression. The abolition of slavery cost slave owners over $2 billion in property only. This severely impacted the economy as it was in crisis and white slave owners did not have any slaves to serve them on plantations.

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The reconstruction period was a failure because African Americans, mainly males, were not treated with equality although the constitution said that the they were free and had the right to vote, be educated and had the right to liberty, life and the pursuit to happiness. Organizations, like the KKK, were created to harm freed slaves and their families. Laws were created such as the Black Codes restricting former slaves from their rights. African Americans endured a lot of violence over the years. “In Grayson, Texas, a white man and two friends murdered three former slaves because the wanted to ‘ thin the niggers out and drive them to their hole’”.

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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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Reconstruction Essay Throughout history, there have been many forms of discrimination, based on gender, nationality, religion, age, parental status, sexuality, disability, race, among many others. For as long as discrimination has existed, there have been people who have abnegated its morality, and who have actively fought against it. As one might expect, such individuals have envisaged many different means of combatting this bigotry, and one of the concepts that those individuals have repeatedly utilized has been the idea that using the government to pass laws against the virulence of discrimination. This, however, has not proven to be efficacious. Laws can be circumvented in numerous ways, and, because of this, no real progress has been

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But, when these officials were elected to Congress, they passed the “black codes” and thus the relations between the president and legislators became worst (Schriefer, Sivell and Arch R1). These so called “Black Codes” were “a series of laws to deprive blacks of their constitutional rights” that they were enacted mainly by Deep South legislatures. Black Codes differ from a state to another but they were stricter in the Deep South as they were sometimes irrationally austere. (Hazen 30) Furthermore, with the emergence of organizations such as the Red Shirts and the White League with the rise of the Conservative White Democrats’ power, efforts to prevent Black Americans from voting were escalating (Watts 247), even if the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S constitution that gave the Blacks the right to vote had been ratified in 1870.

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The years following the Civil war brought about an enormous change to the very threads of our country. Nearly 5 days after the civil war ended, President Lincoln had been assassinated and our country was thrown into a great deal of turmoil, especially because our new president was the racist southerner, Andrew Johnson. We needed to rebuild our country from the death and destruction that had happened during the Civil War and the matter of the rights for the newly freed slaves would become a Pressing Issue in our country. Overall, the age of reconstruction was successful in bringing rights to African Americans in our country through the 14th and 15th amendments but was also a failure because of the continued hate and oppression that they would

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The five main factors essential to understanding race relations in the post-war South are the politics of white supremacy, limited opportunities in careers and housing for both African American and Caucasian veterans, the economic boom, voting rights and the county unit system. After World War II, the South faced difficulties as demagogues of segregationist values were being challenged by leaders in the black communities to give equal rights to those of all races. World War II demonstrated that while the fight for freedom had been won over seas it had not been successful in America. Both Caucasian and black veterans came back to difficulty in integrating into society. While the South faced the economic demands of a post-war era it left very few opportunities in

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1515 Words | 7 Pages

Racial relations during reconstruction era For African Americans, the Reconstruction era held a lot of promise. The nation had the opportunity to rebuild itself after the Civil War in a way that

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Not only does a vote serve as a person’s voice, electing representatives who represent all the people’s issues and goals help modify the community for the better. Unfortunately, these opportunities were not given freely to African Americans. Jim Crow Laws implemented various types of tests and methods to deter Black people from voting. For example, before being allowed to register to vote, most southern state voting officials enforced that Black people “pass literacy tests or recite the Constitution” (Pendergast 121). This method was highly effective because the majority of African American people were not taught how to read or write during slavery and therefore did not pass.

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As the Era of Reconstruction began in the latter half of the 1860s, the Union was forced to confront the following question: Who is an American? Would Southerners be rewarded for their treason, or would African Americans finally be able to bask in the glory of freedom? Following the war, the Radical Republican government made its post-war intentions clear: to reunite the country and to bestow full rights to blacks. “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as G-d gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation 's wounds” (Lincoln). Reconstruction culminated in 1877 due to economic crisis and a lack of Northern will.

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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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