Failure of Reconstruction for Freed Slaves

After years of a cruel war that pitted brother against brother, the United States of America entered into a period of time called Reconstruction. Reconstruction was an act implemented by Congress to help rebuild the majorly devastated southern states. Another of its goals was help newly freed slaves successfully merge into life as a free people among many hostile whites.
It was a goal of President Abraham Lincoln’s for Reconstruction to be a very smooth and successful period of time. “With malice toward none, with charity to all,” Lincoln said in his second inauguration speech. He was referring to not only the conflict between black men and white men, but also the hard feelings between the north and south. The southern states had entered the Civil War with such confidence and dreams of independence that many were now humiliated at the idea of having to receive aid from the federal government. President Lincoln’s assassination also put in the country in further turmoil.
However, an America like the one before the war would not come together quite so easily. A nation that had full equality for both blacks and whites has taken 100 years for us to achieve, if we have even achieved that yet. Even though the politicians of the day agreed on the need of Reconstruction, their ideas of how to accomplish it were vastly different. Just because one was against slavery did not necessarily mean that one was pro-African-American. Now that the slaves were free, the problem of their liberties and rights became an issue.
Many issues kept Reconstruction from helping the newly freed slaves. For instance, the vast majority of former slaves were uneducated. In many southern states, before and during the Civil War, the educating of slaves was illeg...

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...tion, originally, had been planned as a slow, gradual process, moving too quickly just caused more issues.
In conclusion, Reconstruction failed for the freedmen for a variety of reasons. I believe the main reason for this failure was the inability for the two political parties to agree on what they wanted to achieve. Did they want total freedom for the freed slaves, only partial freedom, or just the rebuilding that issue coupled with unpopularity, the freedman’s culture being rooted in the south, and the freed slaves’ inability to find work outside of the south resulted in a process that took over a century to work successfully. I feel that it is very unfortunate that President Lincoln was killed so shortly after the end of the Civil War. I believe that since Reconstruction was Lincoln’s idea he would have carried it out more successfully than his successors did.