Failure Of Reconstruction Essay

The end of the Civil War in 1865 exited a period of strife and conflict and rapidly ushered in another. At the dawn of the period of Reconstruction, the relatively new nation of America was availed of an opportunity to redefine itself based on the principles of true freedom for all of its citizens. Unfortunately, the ingrained biases, preferences, and selfishness of the human condition consigned the possibility to the gloom of unrecognized potential. Due to legislative outcomes, the attitudes of the public sphere, and the condition of the freed slaves at the end of 1877, Reconstruction should be considered a failure.
Legislative actions were a significant contributor to the failure of Reconstruction. The outlook of the freed slaves at the end

of the Civil War was one filled with opportunity and optimism. In January of 1865, General Sherman of the Union forces issued Special Field Order 15, which endowed freed slaves with a land grant of forty acres and a mule. Just a few short months later, President Andrew Johnson reversed this order and instructed that possession of all lands be returned to their prior owners. The claim to “40 Acres and a Mule” became a rallying cry, a cause, for the blacks of the South, for it was in the possession of land that freedom was defined. The taste of freedom had been given, and then quickly taken away, and this was just the first of a success of such retractions.
Another significant legislative failure of the era was the passage of Black Codes in the southern states.

The elite planter class resisted en masse the implementation of freedom through equality, and these groups of laws were the very embodiment of that denial. In essence, the Black Codes re-established slavery through legislated racism that prohibited a variety of rights including voting and also required blacks to engage in annual labor contracts which were, in essence, forced contractual slavery. The North responded quickly with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, but even this Act required a congressional override of a presidential veto to become enacted and it still did not protect the right to vote for blacks. The codification of racism into law, through loopholes such as poll taxes, literacy testing, and property ownership requirements, continued throughout the era and extended far into the future of America. (Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty! An American History, p

585)
The second sign of the failure of Reconstruction can be found in the attitudes of the public sphere surrounding issues of black freedoms, rights, and equality. Most negative in their views were the planters of the South. They viewed freed slaves as lazy, unambitious, and lacking in moral character (575). The very same laborers that had, for decades, provided back-breaking labor to line the pockets of the ruling elite were now somehow to be thought of as a slothful class, while those making these same accusations were loathe themselves to dirty their hands in the fields of labor.
This attitude was not limited only to the South, but also experienced a rebirth and growth in the North. The re-election of President Grant in 1872 resulted in an outcry from Liberal Republicans against the continued failures of the Reconstruction efforts in the South. Many believed that the problems with Reconstruction were not caused by the selfish “carpet baggers and scalawags” and the still-influential planter elite, but rather could be blamed on the involvement of blacks and the “Negro government” (598) that they alleged had risen to power. Racism was wide-spread and accepted without judgement. This attitude, along with a general Northern fatigue for all things Reconstruction, also contributed to the eventual failure of the policies of Reconstruction.
Finally, and most significantly, the condition of the freed slaves by the end of 1877 – economic prospects, actual realized freedoms, freedom of person – clearly supports the failure of Reconstruction.

On the whole, they had certainly experienced gains over the twelve years since the surrender of the Confederacy. They were certainly allowed to marry, to travel freely, to own their own labor, to own property, and to vote. However, all of these freedoms also came with restrictions that would often nullify their actual practice. The state of free labor is one clear example of this less-than-ideal reality. Because there were strict restrictions on land ownership, most blacks were circumstantially force to return to labor on the very plantations and for the very same owners from which they had been freed just a brief time earlier. Under the guise of free labor, they entered into sharecropping agreements that presented the theoretical possibility of self-sufficiency and financial growth. The reality was often quite different as they signed away many of their rights through these agreements that essentially consigned them once more to a status of slavery controlled by the plantation owner.

(574)
Another clear example of the failure of Reconstruction to change the condition of freed slaves for the better was the birth and rise to power of the Ku Klux Klan. Founded in 1866 in Tennessee, this organization existed solely to terrorize and intimidate blacks and those that supported their rights and freedoms. Their membership consisted of individuals that thought themselves “respectable citizens” (595) who engaged in acts of violence and murder against blacks. The freed slaves had escaped a system of brutality and physical abuse at the hand of their white owners and within a year found themselves under the tyranny of yet again these same individuals, only this time in hoods and robes. Federal enforcement acts passed in 1870 and 1871 outlawed this organization and federal forces were used to support their suppression. By 1872, peace was present throughout the entire South, but this was a peace of the white man, not the black man. Though disbanded, the specter of the KKK would always loom large and serve as a constant reminder to blacks of their role in society as an inferior class. In less than fifty years, the KKK would experience a resurgence that returned their reign of terror to the South that would pervade much of the twentieth century. The failure of Reconstruction is most evident in the inability of the freed slaves to be able to feel a sense of freedom in their economic or physical condition.
At the end of the Civil War, a new era was dawning for the black man in America. His voice was being heard and the canvas of his future was blank and ready to be drawn. The process of creating a definition of what freedom meant and how it would apply in a practical sense was just beginning. However, by 1877, Blacks’ legal rights and freedoms were scarcely expanded, racism ran rampant throughout the nation, and a sense of true freedom remained elusive. At the sunset of era, it was clear that Reconstruction was a failure.