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Successes And Failures Of The Reconstruction Era

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Following the deadliest conflict in United States history, the federal government was confronted with the unprecedented task of establishing a modern economic system, settling a new and turbulent society, and rebuilding the ruins of the southern states. The Reconstruction era lasted from January 1, 1865, to March 31, 1877, and encompassed the years following the end of the civil war to the inauguration of President Rutherford B. Hayes. A Republican-controlled Congress imposed martial law, created the Freedmen’s Bureau to protect the newly-granted liberties of former slaves, and overrode a presidential veto to pass the first Civil Rights Act. Approaching these priorities proved to be divisive along political and racial lines; emancipationists called for African-Americans to be granted their full civil rights, moderates like Presidents Lincoln and Johnson wanted the government to treat former Confederates with leniency, and white supremacists like the first generation of the Ku Klux Klan terrorized communities with violence. Reconstruction policy took such a turbulent course and ultimately failed in building the South into a modern society …show more content…

For the century following the Civil War, “...the Reconstruction story had been shaped by successive generations of historians who gave Southern propaganda a gloss of historical authority. These scribes villainized the black politicians and the “Radical Republican” lawmakers who pushed Reconstruction-era reforms through Congress. “Carpetbaggers,” as the Northerners who moved south to work in politics and business were portrayed, became known as corrupt bandits rather than as the dedicated idealists that many of them were” (Murphy 56). Because Reconstruction policy was ultimately ineffective in changing Southern institutions, Southern attitudes towards racial and sectional relations remained unchanged as

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The Compromise of 1877 officially ended the Reconstruction Era by pulling out the last of the troops located in the South who monitored the progress of the newly enacted amendments. The Southern Democrats’ civil rights laws promised by the Democrats were betrayed as they resumed oppressing black Americans socially, politically, and economically. Segregation and institutional racism perpetuated through a multitude of laws, anti-black politicians in positions of power, and forced, unscrupulous labor were factors that continued to keep black Americans inferior to the white man in the years following the Reconstruction (Compromise of 1877). The supreme court case known as Plessy vs. Ferguson gave legal right to a separate but equal policy in education

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Many historians, researchers, politicians, and scholars have considered reconstruction as turning point for the ratification of equality laws that would eliminate racial segregation for equally rights. However, a close follow-up of the controversial developments that occurred immediately after the end of the Civil War in 1865 indicates dissimilarity. The reconstruction era might have made a history of enabling African Americans to vote and become state legislatures, but some major political personnel consider Reconstruction as a failure, which led to non-ending political controversies, murder, and assaults indicating general failure. Robert Smalls and Wade Hampton are some of the major political people who participated in the continuity of the Reconstruction era and their actions and words prove its failure, as explored in this study. However, their consideration of black freedom contrast because Smalls demonstrates the harmful actions of

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Reconstruction Dbq

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Was Reconstruction A Success Or Failure Essay

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1533 Words | 7 Pages

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The Union victory in the Civil War in 1865 may have given some 4 million slaves their freedom, but the process of rebuilding the South during the Reconstruction period (1865-1877) introduced a new set of significant challenges. Northerners assumed that martial law and the military’s role in the south would end in 1865. They expected the southerners to acknowledge defeat by treating blacks justly, rejecting Confederate leaders, and embraced southern Unionists. None of these things happened. Encouraged by President Andrew Jackson’s Reconstruction policy, which imposed no server penalties on the south, unashamed southerners elected former Confederates to state, local, and national offices, formed militia units composed of ex-soldiers, passed

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