The Effects on the American People during Reconstruction The Reconstruction era, spanning from 1865 to 1877, was a transformational period in American history. Reconstruction was marked by significant political, economic, gender, and racial shifts in the aftermath of the Civil War. Politically during Reconstruction, there was the major struggle to integrate the Confederate states back into the Union and the making of the rights for the newly freed African Americans. Economically, the South was faced with the huge task of rebuilding the infrastructure of the Southern states and transitioning from a slave-based economy to a free labor economy. Gender shifts for all women, particularly African American women, as they navigate their new roles …show more content…
The reconstruction period shows the complexities and differences of the nation as it redefined itself after the Civil War. Politically during Reconstruction, there was the major struggle to integrate the Confederate states back into the Union and the making of the rights for the newly freed African Americans. This meant that new laws and acts were signed for these new aspects of politics were put in place and there was a struggle to make politics integrated and fair to the people during this time. According to the American Yawp, it states, “President Johnson opposed the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment and vetoed the Civil Rights Act. But after winning a two-thirds majority in the 1866 midterm elections, Republicans overrode the veto, and in 1867, they passed the first Reconstruction Act, dissolving state governments and dividing the South into five military districts. Under these new terms, states would have to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, write new constitutions enfranchising African Americans, and abolish repressive “Black Codes” before rejoining the union.” What this quote from the American Yawp is stating is, …show more content…
This means that during Reconstruction there were many efforts to achieve racial equality and justice that faced a lot of difficulties but also saw successes. According to the American Yawp, it states, “Nightriders harassed and killed Black candidates and officeholders and frightened voters away from the polls. They also aimed to limit Black economic mobility by terrorizing freedpeople who tried to purchase land or otherwise become too independent from the white enslavers they used to rely on.” What this quote shows is that during Reconstruction groups like the Nightriders used much violence and intimidation to undermine African American progress in politics and the economy. The NightRiders also tried to terrorize African Americans who attempted to buy land or try to become independent from their enslavers. The Nighrider's main purpose was to maintain white dominance and to keep African Americans in different positions. Another quote from the American Yawp that explains the claim is, “African Americans actively sought ways to shed the vestiges of slavery. Many discarded the names their former enslavers had chosen for them and adopted new names like “Freeman'' and “Lincoln'' that affirmed their new identities as free citizens. Others resettled far from their former plantations, hoping to eventually farm their land or run their businesses. By the end of
Reconstruction(1865-1877) was the time period in which the US rebuilt after the Civil War. During this time, the question the rights of freed slaves in the United States were highly debated. Freedom, in my terms, is the privilege of doing as you please without restriction as long as it stays within the law. However, in this sense, black Americans during the Reconstruction period were not truly free despite Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. While legally free, black Americans were still viewed through the lens of racism and deeply-rooted social biases/stigmas that prevented them from exercising their legal rights as citizens of the United States. For example, black Americans were unable to wholly participate in the government as a
After a war that claimed the lives of more men than that of all other wars combined, much of the country was left in ruins, literally and figuratively. Dozens of towns in the South had been burned to the ground. Meanwhile, the relations between the North and South had crumbled to pieces. Something needed to be done so that the country could once again be the United States of America, not the Divided States of America. The years from 1865 to 1877 were a time of rebuilding – the broken communities and the broken relations. This time period was known as Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a failure on the basis that the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments that were passed should have given protection and freedom to the African American people, instead, it actually hurt them because the laws were not enforced, and eventually lead to the organization of white supremacy terrorist groups.
Reconstruction was a time period, following the Civil War, which focused on rebuilding the nation. Reconstruction was primarily focused with readmitting the seceded states into the Union. Another major issue was the condition of the approximately 4 million freedmen.
President Abraham Lincoln envisioned a conservative plan for the reconstruction of the south. Under Lincoln’s plan, as soon as ten percent of the voters in a southern state whom have voted in 1860 and had taken an oath of loyalty to the United States, they could then elect constitutional conventions. These conventions, upon adopting new state constitutions and abolishing slavery they would then be readmitted to the union. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln would change polices towards reconstruction of the south.
Reconstruction is the period of rebuilding the south that succeeded the Civil War (1861-1865). This period of time is set by the question now what? The Union won the war and most of the south was destroyed. Devastation, buildings turned into crumbles and lost crops. The South was drowning in poverty. To worsen the situation there were thousands of ex-slaves that were set free by the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13 Amendment. "All these ex-slaves", Dr. Susan Walens commented, "and no place to put them," The ex-slaves weren't just homeless but they had no rights, unlike white man. The government and congress had to solve the issues present in the south and the whole nation in order to re-establish the South. These issues were economical, social and political. The United States had 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.
The era of Reconstruction had intended to mend the problems resulting from the American Civil War. Unfortunately, southern Radicalists made enormous efforts to prevent this as they believed in white supremacy. These Radicalists did not want to permit African Americans the ability to vote however they were forced to when accepting readmission into the Union under the Fourteenth Amendment. To counter this, these confederates created "Black Codes" to ensure racial segregation and even forged white supremacy organizations. All of these events along with Republican scandals led to the inevitable failure of the Reconstruction era.
The Reconstruction Era that followed the Civil War was created to represent a period of political, economical, and social reconstruction of the Northern Union and the eleven Confederate states of the South. Though the conclusion of the Civil War and commencement of the Reconstruction Era represented the conclusion of slavery throughout the United States, it did not guarantee African Americans racial equality and freedom from prejudice and segregation in Southern states of the U.S. The few advancements during the Reconstruction Era, such as the establishments of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments failed to out weigh the extreme segregation caused by the early Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, gruesome violence derived from lynching tactics of Southern, white conservatives, political disasters caused by the restrictions on voting rights, and social injustice that the African Americans of the nineteenth and twentieth century experienced. Throughout the period of racial prejudice and unequal rights among races, the lives of African Americans were greatly influenced by black leaders who provided hope for a future Civil Rights movement and solutions to racial injustice in their modern day society.
Reconstruction was the time period following the Civil War, which lasted from 1865 to 1877, in which the United States began to rebuild. The term can also refer to the process the federal government used to readmit the defeated Confederate states to the Union. While all aspects of Reconstruction were not successful, the main goal of the time period was carried out, making Reconstruction over all successful. During this time, the Confederate states were readmitted to the Union, the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments were ratified, and African Americans were freed from slavery and able to start new lives.
The Civil war could very easily be known as one of the greatest tragedies in United States history. After the Civil War, the people of The United States had so much anger and hatred towards each other and the government that 11 Southern states seceded from the Nation and parted into two pieces. The Nation split into either the Northern abolitionist or the Southern planation farmers. The Reconstruction era was meant to be exactly how the name announces it to be. It was a time for the United States to fix the broken pieces the war had caused allowing the country to mend together and unite once again. The point of Reconstruction was to establish unity between the states and to also create and protect the civil rights of the former slaves. Although Reconstruction failed in many aspects such as the upraise in white supremacy and racism, the reconstruction era was a time the United States took a lead in the direction of race equality.
1865-1877 the Period of Reconstruction America has gone through many different struggles and positive changes. There have been so many different revolutionary moments in America. One of these revolutionary moments was Reconstruction after the Civil War. Reconstruction had different periods such as Emancipation and Reconstruction, Presidential Reconstruction, Radical Reconstruction, and the Compromise of 1877. The period of Reconstruction had many goals and accomplishments.
During the reconstruction period, African Americans benefited from the civil rights act of March 1866 and the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment. However, for African Americans in the former confederacy, opportunities were limited as in1865 and 1866 the former confederacy states passed black codes’ a replacement of the former slave codes, which once again forcibly cemented the second-class status of African Americans. The most oppressive of the codes was against vagrancy, ...
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.
Reconstruction was the rebuilding after the war. The Reconstruction period lasted from 1865-1877. Reconstruction was not only the physical rebuilding but also the “political, economic, and social changes” (Berkin, Cherny, Gormly, Miller, 2013, 417). The stages of Reconstruction were the Presidential Reconstruction, Freedom and the Legacy of Slavery, Congressional Reconstruction and Black Reconstruction. Reconstruction started off as a success. It united the United States. States that succeeded from the union had made new constitutions and accepted the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.
Aside from the presidential reconstruction, the Congressional Reconstruction was also taking place. The Congressman disagreed with both Lincoln and Johnson’s plans for Reconstruction. Their main two goals was to integrate African Americans into society by granting them citizenship and the right to vote, and the second goal was to destroy the political powers that former slaveholders had in the South. They first implemented these ideas by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 gave African Americans citizenship and forbade states from passing discriminatory laws. Although the black codes came about and Andrew Johnson vetoed the bill, Congress had the power to override his veto. This shows that even though the President is the leader of the nation, the Constitution guarantees that Congress has some measure of influence over the President and may chose to block his procedures, Check and Balances. With success, Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the country. All citizens were entitled to equal protection under law and be given their rights. The Congress agreed that if the Confederate states ratified the Fourteenth Amendment they could come back into the Union. Having not followed the Congress request, Congressed passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867. This forced the Confederate states to undergo Reconstruction as the Congress wanted. To ensure that Southerners could not change their state constitution in the future, they passed the Fifteenth Amendment and the last congressional Reconstruction law, another Civil Rights
Rudyard Kipling's short story “The Man Who Would be King” and the film “American Made” by Doug Liman both use characters who are ambitious for power and wealth. They demonstrate the effects of these ambitions on both them and others. Both the short story and the film feature extremely driven characters. Due to their deeds, these characters must deal with consequences. The stories depict the impact of ambition in a similar yet separate way.