More handpicked essays just for you.
Failure of reconstruction after the civil war
Why did reconstruction failed
Failure of reconstruction after the civil war
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Failure of reconstruction after the civil war
The Reconstruction was a failure, because it lacked on economic contribution, and to abolish the freed slaves, it did not bring about long-term racial integration. Reconstruction endured from 1865 to 1877 and was a standout amongst the most disputable periods in the country's history. One of the reasons for the failure of Reconstruction was the dropped costs of harvests. Numerous ranchers could not live off what they earned. The depression caused the cost of cotton to about drop by half. A considerable number of the principle yields, for example, tobacco, rice, and sugar additionally declined. "The depression disturbed business, bankrupted vendors, truly undermined the financial circumstance or craftsman, and everything except dispensed with …show more content…
Given the circumstances, divisions in the federal government over Reconstruction caused a failure to carry out these goals. Lincoln initially proposed the 10% arrangement, which offered a merciful path for the Southern States to rejoin the Union. When Lincoln was assassinated, Andrew Johnson, a previous owner of slaves, moved toward becoming president and started his own particular arrangement for Reconstruction. Conservatives and moderates needed the South to readily admitted into the Union and Congress. These Republicans needed a bigger number of changes than those Johnson was giving. In the meantime, radical Republicans needed extraordinary change, wanting to "remake the South in the picture of the North". These tensions inside the Republican Party and the Southern-inclining president prompted little advance and even an arraignment impeachment of Andrew Johnson. The Northern caused the Union to holdup the advance and did not bring the South once again into the Union. Another failure that caused the Reconstruction was the political focus that affected the economic prosperity in the North following the Civil
After the Civil War, the victorious Union enacted a policy of Reconstruction in the former Confederate states. Reconstruction was aimed at creating as smooth a transition as possible for the southern states to re-enter the Union as well as enacting economic and social changes. However, several factors brought about its failure, and as a result the consequences can be seen in the race problems we still have today. In 1862, President Lincoln had appointed temporary military governors to re-establish functional governments in occupied southern states. In order for a state to be allowed to re-enter the Union, it had to meet the criteria, which was established to be that at least 10 percent of the voting population polled in 1860 must denounce the Confederacy and swear allegiance to the Union again. However this was not good enough for Congress, which at the time was dominated by Radical Republicans who fervently called for social and economic change in the south, specifically the rights of blacks. They were especially concerned with guaranteeing black civil and voting rights, and criticized Lincoln for excluding this in the original plan for Reconstruction.
Following Lincoln’s tragic assassination, President Andrew Johnson took on the accountability of making Reconstruction a reality. Andrew Johnson wanted to use Lincoln’s ideas of reconstruction but in a modified form. Since Congress would be in recess for eight more months Johnson decided to go ahead with his plan. Johnson's goal in reconstruction was to grant amnesty to all former Confederates (except high officials), the ordinances of secession were to be revoked, Confederate debts would repudiate, and the states had to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. Once the states swore to a loyalty oath to abide by the conditions they would be allowed to return to the Union. After swearing to the oath Confederate States would be allowed to govern themselves. With this power the states implemented the creation of a system of black codes that restricted the actions of freed slaves in much the same way, if not exactly the same way, that slaves were restricted under the old law. The end result of his plan was a hopeless conflict with the Radical Republicans who dominated Congress, passed measures over Johnson's vetoes, and attempted to limit the power of the executive concerning appointments and removals.
President Johnson tried to enforce Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan. That as soon as ten percent of the population of any southern state took an oath of loyalty to the union and adopted a constitution that abolished slavery they would be readmitted to the union. The radical republicans in congress totally disagreed with Johnson. Many of the southern states in 1865 under presidential reconstruction adopted what was known as black codes. These codes restricted blacks from any participation in the rights of citizenship. Blacks were confined to an inferior position, they were not legally slaves anymore, but they had no rights of citizenship.
Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States during the beginning era of Reconstruction, had plans to free slaves and grant them freedoms like never before. In 1863, before the war had ended, Lincoln had issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction for the areas of the South that the Union armies occupied. This proclamation was also called the 10 percent plan. It suggested that a state could reenter the Union when 10 percent of that state’s 1860 vote count had taken an oath of allegiance to the United States and pledge to abide by emancipation. Although this policy was put into place to help shorten the war, it also forced governments to further Lincoln’s emancipation policies and abolish slavery. Radical Republicans opposed this plan because they feared it was too lenient towards the South, fearing that his moderate plan would leave in place the political and economic structure that permitted slavery in the South. Many Congressmen believed that only until the South could be dismantled and rebuilt with more Northern philosophies, slaves would never be able to enjoy the benefits of freedom: social, political, and economic freedom.
The social history regarding reconstruction has been of great controversy for the last two decades in America. Several wars that occurred in America made reconstruction efforts to lag behind. Fundamental shortcomings of the reconstruction were based on racism, politics, capitalism and social relations. The philosophy was dominant by the people of South under the leadership of Lincoln. Lincoln plans were projected towards bringing the states from the South together as one nation. However, the efforts of the Activist were faded by the intrusion of the Republicans from the North. Northerners were capitalists and disapproved the ideas that Lincoln attempted to spread in the South (Foner Par 2).
The United States had a presidential and congressional reconstruction. Reconstruction was a failure, a great attempt to unify the nation. It was a failure due to the events that took place during this period. It was 1865, black men were tasting freedom, the confederation was defeated, the south was defeated, but the unchained blacks had no real freedom. " A man maybe free and yet not independent," Mississippi planter Samuel Agnew observed in his diary (Foner 481).
During the 1800s, the succeeding era following the American Civil War was sought to be a period of prosperity, privilege and freedom for those affected by the calamitous war and preceding period of oppression. This era of reconstruction made a genuine effort to; Readmit Confederate States to Union, establish and defend the rights to newly-freed African Americans, and integrate them into the United State's social, economic and political operations. However, the reality of this adverse situation was that southern, democratic radicals would institute new laws known as "Black Codes" (OI) which would set a nationwide precedent that they would go as far as they needed to maintain their confederate way of life. Other southern radicals had also created White Supremacy Organizations to combat opposing Republicans and freedmen. The severity of the situation synergized with Confederate hate established the grounds in which the efforts of Reconstruction ultimately failed.
The Reconstruction was undoubtedly a failure. The political and social aim of Reconstruction was to form national unity as well as create civil rights and equality for African Americans. Even though Reconstruction laid the foundation for equal rights in the United States, it did not achieve its primary goals. In the time of Reconstruction, many African Americans still felt the effects of oppression and many were still trapped in an undesirable social and economic class. The Reconstruction was an overall fail despite the fact that it was the shaky groundwork for a fight for equality in the years to come.
The reconstruction of the Union began under President Lincoln before the end of the war, and carried on by President Johnson after the assassination of President Lincoln. After Lincoln’s death, the leadership of the nation bestowed upon Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. According to A. Brinkley (pg. 375), Johnson revealed his plan for reconstruction or “Restoration”, as he preferred to call it, soon after he took office and implemented it during the summer of 1865 when Congress was in recess. Like Lincoln, he offered some form of amnesty to Southerners who would take a pledge of loyalty to the Union. In most other respect, however, his plan resembled the Wade-Davis Bill. The next phase of reconstruction, known as the Congressional Plan or "Radical" modernization had begun, which undid everything started by Presidents Lincoln and Johnson. These radicals, mostly republicans, motivated by three main factors revenge, concern for the freedmen, and political concerns. The Radicals in Congress pushed through a number of measures designed to assist the freedmen, but also demonstrate the supremacy of Congress over the president. These events included the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the 14th Amendment, the Tenure of Office Act, and the Army Appropriations Act. The Radical Republicans prepared an effort in Congress to impeach the president Johnson as a payback for resisting their platforms. The vote in the Senate was 35-19 for conviction, one vote short of the necessary two-thirds. This was in turn to a few Republicans that had crossed over and voted with the Democrats, thus refuting the ultimate retaliation to the Radicals. If the removal of President Johnson had gone thru, it might have permanently weakened the executive branch. Congr...
The primary sources I selected to write about have do with the horrible years of the Reconstruction Period, how freedom for former slaves was a huge issue and debate across the whole nation, especially the south because of the views slave holders had. From these primary sources we see what former slave holders had to say about their views on the freedom of slaves, and the views of former slaves as well on freedom and the sacrifices and pain they had to go through to be where they are at today.
William Mason Grosvenor believes that Reconstruction should be harsh. Grosvenor has two main arguments to support this belief, manifest destiny and the potential for the reoccurrence of a similar event to the war if Reconstruction was carried out in a lenient manner. Grosvenor argues that the country, pre-Civil War, was never truly a single unified country, but rather a group of peoples with vastly different values held together by a constitution which they had outgrown, saying, “[n]o chemical union had ever taken place; for that the white-hot crucible of civil war was found necessary.” Furthermore, Grosvenor believes that the succession of the South demonstrated this divide while simultaneously violating the doctrine of manifest destiny through
One of the first goals of Reconstruction was to readmit the Confederate states into the Union, and during the debate in Congress over how to readmit the states, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were ratified. The United States had three different presidents between 1865 and 1877, who all had different opinions as to how the actions of readmitting the states should be carried out. President Lincoln devised the Ten Percent Plan in an effort to get the Confederate states to rejoin the Union. In Lincoln's plan, all Confederates, other than high-ranking officials, would be pardoned if they would swear allegiance to the Union and promise to obey its laws. Once ten percent of the people on the 1860 voting lists took the oath of allegiance, the state would be free to form a state government, and would be readmitted to the Union. Many of the Republicans in Congress were angered by this plan, because they believed that it was too lenient. After President Lincoln was assassinated, Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency with a new plan, which became known as Presiden...
The Americans of African and European Ancestry did not have a very good relationship during the Civil war. They were a major cause of the Civil War. But, did they fix or rebuild that relationship after the war from the years 1865 to 1900? My opinion would be no. I do not believe that the Americans of African and European ancestry successfully rebuilt their relationship right after the Civil war. Even though slavery was finally slowly getting abolished, there was still much discrimination against the African Americans. The Jim Crow laws and the black codes discriminated against black people. The Ku Klux Klan in particular discriminated against black people. Even though the United States government tried to put laws into the Constitution to protect black people, the African Americans were discriminated in every aspect of life from housing, working, educating, and even going to public restrooms!
As President, Johnson decided to follow Lincolns plans by granting amnesty to almost all former confederates; establishing a Provisional government; and ratifying the thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery. However, Johnson was not the same man as Lincoln for he was quite unpopular, especially with Congress. As the south was in a transitional period, its politics were changing as well. First, the Reconstruction Act allowed blacks to v...
After the Civil War, the South needed to rejoin the North to become a United States. President Abraham Lincoln was very lenient with the idea of restoring the states with the Union. He developed a plan called the Ten-Percent Plan, which proclaimed that ten percent of the southern states’ population needed to pledge to be loyal to the United States. After Lincoln’s assassination, President Andrew Johnson took over. He was much more lenient towards the South than Lincoln was, giving the South the right to regulate their actions. For example, African Americans could be controlled, but still couldn’t be bought nor sold. Slavery technically ended, but the new sharecropper sy...