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Was Reconstruction A Success Or Failure Essay

502 Words3 Pages

To judge the Reconstruction’s success or failure, we need to examine the purpose of the Reconstruction in the first place. Reconstruction was the period in which the South was being readmitted into the Union and end of slavery. Another goal was to protect the rights of African Americans in the South. I share the view of many in which they view Reconstruction falling in between success and failure. It was able to implement some of the things it set out to do but with great difficulty. Three major groups stand out as either affecting or being affected by Reconstruction. The first are the Republicans of the North who took the driver seat that is Reconstruction. Their main wish was reunite the nation and to abolish slavery but also protect the …show more content…

The Wade-Davis Bill was pocket vetoed by Lincoln but they were able to create the Freedman’s Bureau which was designed to help African Americans. While there were failures, there were triumphs which included Civil Rights Act of 1866, 13th, and 14th Amendment. This was a step forward for African American freedoms but Southerners unhappy with these changes formed the Ku Klux Klan committing mass murders and race riots to intimidate African Americans. The tone of Reconstruction changed in 1867 with Radical Reconstruction and pass the First Reconstruction Act. They also passed the Second Reconstruction Act and the 15th amendment which was aimed at freedom of voting. The South did everything in their power to limit rights of former slaves and ended up passing laws called the Black Codes. During this time, former slaves were trying to readjust to their new lives but most ended falling back into the cycle with sharecroppers. The turning point of Reconstruction happened with the Depression of 1873. The Resumption Act of 1875 caused many northerners to vote for Democrats. With Republicans no longer in power, Reconstruction was on decline as Southerners were returning to power and it finally ended with the Compromise of 1877 where Democrats would give up the presidency if they withdraw the troops from the South and end Reconstruction. In the end, what Northerners got was a nation in one piece but the South resisted those changes until it was able to find the advantage and end

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The failure of Reconstruction led to over ninety years of struggle for the rights of African Americans and caused major setbacks in the South. Reconstruction was the time from 1865 to 1877 when the United States attempted to rebuild the nation following the Civil War. Reconstruction was a struggle for many Americans, and it became known as the ‘Second Civil War’. Its main goals were to readmit the former Confederate states and its people back into the Union and to introduce African Americans into society. Who killed reconstruction: North or South?

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The Union victory during the Civil War may have given 4 million slaves their freedom but the reconstruction attempts was a flop in the 1860s. The reconstruction was meant to bring the United States back together as one nation but there were faults so ultimately the era of Reconstruction was a failure. The Reconstruction Era in the United States was a failure and included unsuccessful efforts to defend former slaves, thrust freedmen into crippling poverty, and industrialization in the South lasted too long. Reunification of the Union was taken aback when many reconstruction efforts were unsuccessful. Failure to protect former slaves from white persecution and to change the social society in the South did not end well for newly freed slaves.

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Within the history of the United States, the term “Reconstruction Era” has two different meanings: the first meaning is the entire coverage of the history of the Reconstruction era from 1865 to 1877; the second meaning focuses on the the transformation of the Southern states that goes from 1863 to 1877. In between 1863 and 1865, President Abraham Lincoln and Vice President Andrew Johnson took fairly moderate positions that were mainly designed to bring the Southern states back to normal as quickly as possible. For the Radical Republicans, they used Congress to block the President and Vice Presidents moderate stance, impose harsher punishments and provide better rights for the freedmen. Johnson’s interpretations of the policies Lincoln created

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The Reconstruction era was a historic period from 1865-1877 where slavery was in the process of being abolished. It was a very long process, the north and the south fought over whether or not they could own slaves. The north disliked slavery because it was inhumane, while the south liked it due to the free labor. Each side had their mind set on their own goals and as a result there were many political outcomes, failures and successes To begin with, there were many different effects from the Reconstruction period that were negative. The North wanted to abolish slavery altogether and to do so they passed many bills and amendments.

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Reconstruction failed to help blacks to be independence. The Freedmen’s Bureau could only helped a little. Also can be seen through from the Black Codes and other laws that restricting former slaves. Although Reconstruction was failed, but there was some turning point in that and it restored the United States as a unified nation: the separation lasted 4 years, and Reconstruction had brought them. If without reconstruction, another group couldn’t got the courage to fight for their rights.

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It all depends how you look at it. Laws that were set up weren’t always followed correctly, but laws were still being set up to protect African Americans rights. It must have been a success because now today, they are known as citizens and have the right to vote. But then again, the rise of the Klu Klux Klan and other white supremacy groups, in combination with the Black Codes, began to intimidate freed slaves and push back their civil liberties. For me, the Reconstruction was a

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Unfortunately for the North, Lincoln and the Republican’s plans were largely unsuccessful. Later, when the Civil Rights Bill was passed in 1866, which ensured full citizenship for any free men, Johnson moved to veto it, but was met with the ratification of the 15th Amendment, which stated that the right to vote cannot be denied or abridged based on race. Initially, racists were met with many more obstacles than in the past: all men legally had citizenship rights. However, such laws failed to be enforced, due to a fear of more conflict arising and the debt that had amassed from the war. States in the South started monopolizing slaughterhouses to reduce the presence of blacks in the market, resulting in sharecropping and further dependence on white men, and setting a precedent that the federal government could not control the rights of citizens.

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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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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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The American Civil War that was started due to the controversy over slavery in 1861, was won by The Union supported by President Lincoln against the Confederate states. President Lincoln’s original goal during the civil war was to reunify the nation as quickly as possible and help both sides come to an understanding. After the Civil War ended in 1865, the newly formed United States’ reconstruction era began. The Reconstruction era was put into effect by the Congress in 1866 and lasted until 1877. The Union’s victory in the Civil War had given African Americans a new sense of hope, devastated the southern economy, and eased the history of disunity in American political life.

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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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