Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Views on reconstruction
Success and failure of reconstruction
Cons and pros to the reconstruction
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Differing Views On Reconstruction By 1866, several distinct positions on Reconstruction emerged. These were divided into three opposing camps: Conservatives (democrats), Moderates, and Radicals. The Conservatives believed the South should be readmitted into the Union as soon as possible, but the Radicals and Moderates believed there should be consequences for succeeding. The question of what those consequences should be separated Radical from Moderate. The answer to this question was as related to how important each side believed it was to enfranchise African Americans into this country (socially, politically, economically, and culturally) as it was in exacting an appropriate punishment for the treasonous South. Although the two Republican factions disagreed on several aspects of Reconstruction policy, they both understood that the Conservative approach to Reconstruction could never be enacted. The Conservatives lead by President Johnson, believed in a rapid readmission, into the Union, for the defeated Southern states. Johnson's stipulations were solely that the states ratify the 13th Amendment, and repudiate Confederate war debt (thus making it null and void). A second more controversial measure to the democrat's plan for rapid reconstruction was the issuing of pardons to former Confederate officials, landowners, and generals. As a direct result of these pardons, former plantation owners' land was returned. The goal of the Conservatives during Reconstruction was obviously to return the South to the social, political, and economic structure of the antebellum period. The Conservative plans for reconstruction allowed the former Confederate leadership, which led the South to war to regain high ranking political positions. This made the Republicans fearful that the South would eventually move down the path of war with the Union. Furthermore, it also proved to the South that there were no consequences for succession. This was unacceptable to both Moderates and Radicals. In their eyes the South had committed treason and should have to suffer the consequences. However, Johnson never tried any of the Confederate leaders on charges of treason. The obvious answer to why the Conservatives wanted to enact this policy were because they were the ones guilty of succession. This was their way of protecting their self-interests. Before the war, Conservatives dominated Southern politics. After Southern succession they made up the majority of the Confederate government. However, the less than obvious answer was that they saw preserving the status quo antebellum as the only way to allow the Southern economy to one-day flourish. Considering that many conservatives were former slaveholders they enjoyed some vested interest in preserving the system.
The seed sown by the wealthy Southern plantation owner of racial disparity had germinated to later become the profoundly discriminatory society. The suppression and unjust behavior of white southern plantation owner towards black slaves had led the civil war, which transition the new era of uncertainty. The work of post-civil war does not end with the abolishment of slavery, but it only starts. The task of rebuilding the south, readmission of the confederate army to union, and providing assistance for the free people of post war, was later known as reconstruction. The work of reconstruction had not only failed to rebuild the nation as the united. But it also failed profoundly of what was the urgent needs of the post war; provide assistance
The most critical issue raised by the North’s victory was the South acceptance of transition of freedom for former slaves. Since most of southern whites did not agree with the idea of freedmen, they created several ways to foreclose the blacks to exercise their rights. The South utilized dirty tactics to preserve the idea of slavery, such as laws as the black codes, lynching and other violent ways promoted by groups known as Ku Klux Klan.
The thesis “The New View of Reconstruction”, Eric Foner reviews the constantly changing view on the subject of the Reconstruction. The postwar Reconstruction period has been viewed in many different lights throughout history but one fact remains true, that it was one of the most “violent, dramatic and controversial” times in US’s history (224). In the beginning of his thesis, Eric Foner talks about the way the Reconstruction was though as before the 1960 as a period of intense, corruption and manipulation of the freedman. After mentioning the old way of thinking before the 1960’s, Eric Foner reveals the reason for this train of thought, the ignored testimonials of the black freedman.
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...
Readmission to the union was a dividing factor between Republicans in politics. Lincoln advocated for the "Ten Percent Plan". This demanded that only ten percent of voters in a state take an oath to uphold the values presented in the constitution in order to rejoin the union. Lincoln would then pardon all but Confederate government figures and rights of citizenship would be readmitted. Radical Republicans opposed this plan, claiming that it was too lenient. They then passed the Wade Davis Bill. This bill required that a majority of the population take an oath stating that they had never supported the Confederacy. The Wade Davis Bill also required more rights for freedmen including the right to vote, hold office, own property and testify in court. Lincoln, wanting an easy transition into a unified country, used a pocket veto so he could continue with his plan. Lamentably, Lincoln was assassinated months after his decision and his successor, Andrew Johnson, took on the role of president. Johnson, having grown up in a poor southern household, sympathized with the south yet, abhorred the planter class. In his Reconstruction plan he issued a blanket pardon to all southerners except important confederate figures who would have to personally meet with the pres...
Although Lincoln and Johnson both passed Reconstruction plans that helped reunite the north and the south, ultimately Congress was not satisfied and passed its own plan. Lincoln passed a rather forgiving Reconstruction plan because in his opinion, the Confederate states had never seceded from the Union. The Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction included a ten percent plan, which “ would recognize them as people of the states within which they acted, and aid them to gain in all respects full acknowledgement and enjoyment of statehood, even though the persons who thus acted were but a tenth part of the original voters of their states” (W...
In the years paving the way to the Civil War, both north and south were disagreeable with one another, creating the three “triggering” reasons for the war: the fanaticism on the slavery issue, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the separation of the Democratic Party. North being against the bondage of individuals and the South being for it, there was no real way to evade the clash. For the south slavery was a form of obtaining a living, without subjugation the economy might drop majorly if not disappear. In the North there were significant ethical issues with the issue of subjugation. Amazing measures to keep and dispose of subjugation were taken and there was never a genuine adjusted center for bargain. Despite the fact that there were a lot of seemingly insignificant issues, the fundamental thing that divided these two states was bondage and the flexibilities for it or against. With these significant extremes, for example, John Brown and Uncle Tom's Cabin, the south felt disdain towards the danger the Northerners were holding against their alleged flexibilities. The more hatred the South advanced, the more combative they were to anything the Northerners did. Northerners were irritated and it parted Democrats over the issue of bondage and made another Republican gathering, which included: Whigs, Free Soilers, Know Nothings and previous Democrats and brought about a split of segments and abbreviated the street to common war. Southerners loathed the insubordination of the north and started to address how they could stay with the Union.
The United States, a nation that has undergone many hard changes, politically, economically, and socially. The success of this great nation has relied on different plans and objectives set out by the leaders that have gone before us. One plan that helped shape our nation was Reconstruction. Though many consider Reconstruction to be a failure, Reconstruction helped pass laws that recognized African Americans as equals, restored the Union, and provided educational opportunities for former slaves. These initiatives are what made Reconstruction a success.
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).
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...
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...
Reconstruction was intended to give African-Americans the chance for a new and better life. Many of them stayed with their old masters after being freed, while others left in search of opportunity through education as well as land ownership. However this was not exactly an easy task. There were many things standing in their way, chiefly white supremacists and the laws and restrictions they placed upon African-Americans. Beginning with the 'black codes' established by President Johnson's reconstruction plan, blacks were required to have a curfew as well as carry identification. Labor contracts established under Johnson's Reconstruction even bound the 'freedmen' to their respective plantations. A few years later, another set of laws known as the 'Jim Crow' laws directly undermined the status of blacks by placing unfair restrictions on everything from voting rights all the way to the segregation of water fountains. Besides these restrictions, the blacks had to deal with the Democratic Party whose northern wing even denounced racial equality. As a result of democratic hostility and the Republican Party's support of Black suffrage, freedmen greatly supported the Republican Party.
America has gone through many political, social and economic crises throughout her lifetime. One revolutionary movement called as Reconstruction after a civil war was established. Reconstruction refers to the era or period after the civil war when the United States was rebuilding and reuniting. Reconstruction was one of the complex situations in the US history. All the citizens had anticipated for the better nation from the reconstruction. Millions of people at that period were optimistic and hopeful because it was the greatest time of the transformation of social, political and economic status of a nation. Reconstruction was assumed to possess an enormous accomplishment in the US history, but it was not entirely successful in making that
...e, Brian. "A Wartime Alliance." White Hunters: The Golden Age of African Safaris. New York: H. Holt, 1999. 167-73. Print.
With the end of the Civil war in 1865, the new nation of the United States now faced challenges on restoring peace within the Union. The North, having won the civil war, now faced the task to implement reconstruction of the South. They came in contact with the questions of: What should happen to the freed slaves, should the freed slaves have rights, what should be done to the Confederate leaders, and how should the South be reconstructed? There were many different ideas and views on how Reconstruction should be handled, but only one succeeded more successfully than the other. Although they bear some superficial similarities, the difference between presidential and congressional reconstruction are clear. The president believed that Confederate