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Was Reconstruction Really A Success Essay

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Reconstruction: Was it really a success? America has gone through many challenges throughout its life. Leaders come and go, with goals in mind for their future. But history takes its course, and the profound movements come to an end like Reconstruction. The Reconstruction started in the year 1865, the period after the Civil War with the idea to reunite the nation. The United States encountered numerous issues during the Reconstruction that involved the creation of the Ku Klux Klan, and poverty. Despite all the failures, the Reconstruction was only a success in that it restored the United States as a unified nation. The Reconstruction consisted of many failures, and one of them was the establishment of the Ku Klux Klan. It was an …show more content…

During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, who was the president of the United States then declared the Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation granted freedom to the slaves residing in territory in rebellion against the federal government. However, after the proclamation, though free, they lived in desperate rural poverty. Majority of the slaves was released from their previous plantation penniless. They were helpless and could not support their family and themselves. An excerpt from an interview with Toby Jones, one of the slaves who prevailed through poverty, stated, “All we had to eat was what we could beg, and sometimes we went three days without a bite to eat.” Numerous freed slaves had to experience a loss of shelter, food, and money. This resulted in multiple of deaths during the Reconstruction period due to starvation from the lack of money to buy food with. Warren McKinney, another slave who lived in poverty, states, “Some folks say they ought to done more for the colored folks when they left, but they say they was broke, Freeing all the slaves left ‘em broke. That reconstruction was a mighty hard pull. We started working for Mr. Emerson. We liked it fine, I been here fifty-six years now. Living was not so hard. If a fellow could get a little bread and a place to stay, he was all right.” McKinney was freed and ached after like any …show more content…

One of the accomplishments includes the restoration of the ex-Confederate states that included South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, and Georgia. This was accomplished during the Lincoln and Johnson administrations. Another success was the creation of an agency called Freedmen’s Bureau. The Freedmen’s Bureau offered shelter, food, and medical attention to anybody in need of it after the war. In the Ordeals of Reconstruction, it states “The bureau achieved its greatest successes in education. It taught an estimated 200,000 blacks how to read. Many former slaves had a passion for learning, partly because they wanted to close the gap between themselves and whites and partly because they longed to read the Word of God.” The Bureau had a tremendous impact on the African-Americans considering that it helped establish schools that taught them how to read. This was a huge accomplishment because most had a passion to learn and this was a stepping stone for them. Even though the Bureau wasn't perfect, enabled them to find jobs to provide for themselves and their families, as well as homes, education, and a better life. Another success that aided them throughout Reconstruction and contributed to the start of it all was the three amendments and were called

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Officially recognized as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, this federal institution aided millions of African Americans and poverty-stricken white people in the southern states after the Civil War. The Freedmen’s Bureau was able to accomplish many things in its years of operation, such as building new schools, colleges, and medical institutions; supplying food and medical provisions; and providing legal help by arranging employment agreements for African Americans. The Bureau was quite effective with hardworking agents, as they were able to contribute notably to the cause of the Bureau with its numerous accomplishments. In addition, they did not have a sufficient amount of funding and employees. But, some employees were not very diligent in their work as they were unscrupulous.

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Moreover, the institution of slavery ultimately came to an end in the nation of America as an outcome of the Civil War. Slavery's elimination was not one of the primary reasons for starting the war, yet it became an increasingly significant concern. The proclamation known as the Emancipation Proclamation, which was issued in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln, stated that all slaves residing in territory ruled by the Union were to be set free. Though it did not immediately liberate all slaves since it applied primarily to places that were not under the authority of the Union, it changed the centerpiece of the war to the elimination of slavery and had an enormous effect on public opinion. Also, it liberated areas that were not under the control

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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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