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Summary Of Reconstruction By David Foner

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The concept of the Reconstruction was a “second founding” of the nation is based on the results of the Reconstruction. David Blight states in his lecture that the Reconstruction represented “… great change, great experimentation, change…” and the leadership “… rewrote the country you live in.” What evidence is there to support Blight’s argument? Foner’s A Short History of the Reconstruction provides some evidence. According to Foner, the Reconstruction Act inspired blacks where they achieve some type of parity with whites. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments would give some support to Foner’s belief. Elections to political office, prosperity in business, and mobility were part of this idea of Blight’s, but there was another side to this that was felt more strongly within America. …show more content…

The counterrevolution Blight speaks of defines the second founding for the freedom the blacks achieved was in effect short lived even with the changes in law. I would imagine the opinionated Blight had some subtle cheap shots about President Johnson, similar to those he had emitted in his course about the political groups he disagrees with. It is Johnson, the head of a country, who could have altered the direction this “second founding” would take. Blight, without much of an argument from me, ranks Johnson a “minus two on the list of presidents.” Other than the few minor “cheap shots” made about Johnson, there was one statement that Blight makes that gives an indication of the black plight after the Civil War; “He was not only not anti-slavery, he was an open racist.” Johnson believed America should be a white man’s country forever, even though originally it was controlled by another

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President L.B.J. believed it was “the job of the states, not the federal government, to deal with those issues.” To clarify, President L.B.J. believed the states should decide what is “best” for their states, meaning a southern state could withstand discrimination against colored people. This would contradict his stance on the act as president before the presidential election. As a Senate Majority Leader, Johnson did not “directly oppose the civil right bill” however, he did help push through a provision stating that “anyone accused of violating the act would get a jury trial. ”(Holland 1964).

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What I believe Blight wants us to see that he takes from this book. Is the way he looked at how presidents engaged the civil war and how slaves and ex-soldiers reacted to certain situations. Blights will analysis the Civil War as reconciliationists, white supremacist, and emancipationist. We will know that all of these ideas will combine over time. How he describes reconciliationist is how the war caused a lot of damage and death.

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Both the Presidential Reconstruction and Congressional Reconstruction agreed that the abolition of slaves and giving Africans the right to vote was absolutely essential for the Union. However, they both disagreed on how quickly this should be applied to the government. President Abraham thought that this should be a slow process. Many people thought that this was strange and went against everything that he had originally fought for. Yet, Lincoln was using the idea that if you slowly allowed Africans to vote and become citizens then there would be less violence.

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This indicated that they had no real power to influence any of the changes being enforced by the federal government. This would damage Johnson’s civil rights effort because it implies that he had chosen the people on the basis of their skin colour rather than ‘for their competence, wisdom and courage’ as he had claimed. This would have had a negative impact on his civil rights effort as it meant that these high profile appointments were only surface gains as they did not influence or improve the lives of the majority of black Americans who earned an income of less than half of that of white Americans. This would also undermine Johnson claims that the appointments of these black Americans to major posts would give the young black children a sense of hope as it would demonstrate to them that there was no barrier to their success. This is because even though the intention was there, the fact these appointments had made no difference to their lives meant that there would still be economic problems and other issues related to poverty which may have limited their

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Johnson's speech argues that there is “no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem.” stating that we as a nation are bringing conflict towards one another simply due to the fact we are not the same color. He urges the people not based on their positions but rather the fact that they are all Americans and he wants the freedom that their past ancestors died for to be granted to every man and woman.

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The Reconstruction was important to American history because it gave all different types of people their rights. The fourteenth amendment, The Dawes act and The Homestead Act all have things in common. All of these acts involve something to do with race and or forcing people out of their homes or land. The fourteenth Amendment gave men of color “equal” rights to white men.

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”(Dallek, 1) johnson was the only president in american history to have lost a war. This is the reason why he is such a poor president in the ranks. LBJ knew that laws were not enough. Therefore was born the concept of affirmative action, Johnson’s

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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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Maceo Cardinale Kwik Reconstruction Reconstruction was the twelve years after the civil war. Those twelve years were full of readjustment fixing the ruin the United States had fallen into. The problems that had the United states in disarray were how to, rebuild the South, reunite the states, and ensure the rights and protection of the newly freed African Americans. The civil war left the South in shambles, and newly freed slaves struggled to adjust to their new freedom. Most Southerners hated reconstruction and everything else about the North.

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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 the time period after the Civil War, where the country attempted to improve the Union. There were many successes, but what also comes along with success is failure. During the reconstruction many failures were present; such as the lack of racial equality and blatant racism towards blacks, a failing economy in the South, and tense relations between the North and the South. This created a very intense and challenging period of time for the Union.

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So then, what is now seen as the Reconstruction Era is now muddled by the thought of the U.S. being controlled in a disorderly manner by blacks; compared to the reality of Reconstruction explained by Eric Foner. One of the

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Chaotic confusion and the protests posed to the Johnson office by the black community would eventually cause President Johnson to succumb a big deal of support not only for his government, but precisely for his Great Society programs. The problematic individualistic advance of the Great Society between blacks was that it suggested that blacks indeed had an equal opportunity, the logical for a colorblind War on Poverty was tremendously enervated by the shifting character of the black battle for equal opportunity (Davies, p. 56). The problematic colorblind methodology was that opportunity for blacks was essentially parallel. Intrinsic bias and de-facto separation in urban places led to discouraged and keep urban black ghettos below poverty line. Since there was a very little chance of equal stability for blacks due to these wrongful social establishments, the idea of equal opportunity through individualistic development was discouraging.

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