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Was the reconstruction era a success or failure
Success of the reconstruction period
Was the reconstruction era a success or failure
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Reconstruction Era The reconstruction was a failure in U.S history. Due to the “Ku Klux Klan”, they renamed the slave codes to the black codes, and racial segregation towards african americans. Reconstruction could’ve been a success towards the United States if people didn’t treat African American and blacks with so much disrespect once they were free out of slavery. The reconstruction started to become a problem when the Ku Klux Klan (known as the KKK) came to power. The Ku Klux Klan form back in 1866 in Pulaski Tennessee. Judge Thomas M. Jones know as a social movement made a response towards the thirteenth amendment that legislate the end of slavery. Six rebel soldier changed the Greek word “kuklos”(meaning circle or band) to Ku Klux then adding the klan at the end. They as a group dress up at night and perform rituals to torment and offend such religions and races. They also set out a scare towards blacks that believe they were going to rise against them and also to whites who are working with blacks(“List 1”). The Ku Klux Klan has become a problem towards the reconstruction because of how much tomenting and violence they used towards blacks …show more content…
Black codes were state laws passed in the south during reconstruction. The law deliberate to restrict the civil right of African Americans. The approval of the code provoke the U.S. Congress to pass a law to the Civil Rights Acts to protect African American citizen in the south.”President Andrew Johnson opposed the 1866 measure enacted during his administration. However, the radical Republican-led Congress was able to overturn presidential vetoes to determine Reconstruction policy”(“Black Codes” 1). This quote shows how the republican were able to overturn the president’s veto towards the black codes because they felt the need to establish the black codes cause they feel unsafe without
Reconstruction was a nasty period in History. Reconstruction took place after the civil war. In the civil war there was lots of devastation. Buildings and houses were being destroyed so people needed something called Reconstruction. Reconstruction was something people really needed after the civil war because they needed to rebuild a community. Some people didn't want reconstruction because they liked destruction. Then also after the civil war slavery was abolished, as well some people don't like that either. South killed Reconstruction because South resistance had KKK, and South was murdering people.
The Mississippi Black Codes document of 1865 was presented to us by Walter L. Fleming, who was a historian who dealt with the south and more specifically the reconstruction era. He was targeting future historians who were studying this era. He nearly states the pros and cons of what the Mississippi Black Codes asked of their citizens. There were several things in the document that interested me in what history was at this time period. On the other hand, there were parts of the amendments to the government which I found very unethical with my present-day mindset. I realize such times were different, but it still made me sick to my stomach that “Freedmen, Free Negroes, and Mulattoes” were treated very differently than the ways such as whites were treated. The author breaks down the documents into different sections of the reconstruction plan. At first, he starts out talking about vagrant laws, which stated that the newly emancipated citizens had special laws that pertained to them. They were treated like animals that were forced to work if they did not have ownership of property. If they couldn’t hold down a job, on the second
“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” George Santayana stated what happens if we do not learn from our past. After the Civil War the United States wanted to build itself back up. The nation was in rubble because half of the country was fighting the other. That left it in a sad and fallen state. The issue of slavery was a long debated topic. They thought they could get over this and start anew. Reconstruction means the actions or process of rebuilding what has been damaged or destroyed. Did the North or the South kill Reconstruction? That issue is still up for debate. In my opinion, the South killed Reconstruction and stopped it dead in its tracks. The South did not respect the African American’s right to vote and would terrorize
Even when the Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, and the black people embraced education, built their own churches, reunited with their broken families and worked very hard in the sharecropping system, nothing was enough for the Reconstruction to succeed. Whites never gave total freedom to African Americans. Blacks were forced to endure curfews, passes, and living on rented land, which put them in a similar situation as slaves. In
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.
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).
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).
Reconstruction has been brutally murdered! For a little over a decade after the Civil War, the victorious North launched a campaign of social, economic, and political recovery in South. Martial law was also implemented in the South. Eventually, the North hoped to admit the territory in the former Confederacy back into the United States as states. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments freed the African Americans, made them citizens, and gave them the right to vote. Despite this, Reconstruction was unfortunately cut short in 1877. The North killed Recosntruction because of racism, negligence, and distractions.
... and slavery left millions of newly freed African Americans in the South without an education, a home, or a job. Before reconstruction was put in place, African Americans in the South were left roaming helplessly and hopelessly. During the reconstruction period, the African Americans’ situation did not get much better. Although helped by the government, African Americans were faced with a new problem. African Americans in the South were now being terrorized and violently discriminated by nativist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Such groups formed in backlash to Reconstruction and canceled out all the positive factors of Reconstruction. At last, after the Compromise of 1877, the military was taken out of the South and all of the Reconstruction’s efforts were basically for nothing. African Americans in the South were back to the conditions they started with.
Imagine yourself wrongly convicted of a crime. You spent years in jail awaiting your release date. It finally comes, and when they let you out, they slap handcuffs around your wrists and tell you every single action you do. In a nutshell, that’s how the Black Code works. The southerners wanted control over the blacks after the Civil War, and states created their own Black Codes. After
After the civil war, newly freed slaves faced many challenges. Whites, especially in the south, regarded blacks as inferior more than ever before. The black codes were just one obstacle the freed slaves had to overcome. They were laws that were passed in the southern states that had the intent and the effect of restricting African Americans freedom. These laws made it possible for the south to regain control over the black population in much of the same ways they had before. The black codes effected reconstruction, and even today’s society in many ways.
...d or were members of the organization. By the 1870’s many of the state governments that had been set up by Republicans using the loose coalition of black southerners, carpet baggers, and scalawags had been reverted back and put in the hands of white supremacists and the old elite, seeking revenge. This came in the form of segregation, the denial of land and jobs to blacks, as well as poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent blacks from voting. In the end, Reconstruction held such promise for a truly equal south, but the actions taken by President Johnson and the eventual lack of northern support left the fledgling Reconstruction governments to fend for themselves in a sea of hostile extremists and angered southerners. This failure is the direct cause of the race issues such as segregation and profiling, which still arise even today in the 21st century.
William Howard Russell once said, "Little did I conceive of the greatness of the defeat, the magnitude of the disaster which it had entailed upon the United States. So short-lived has been the American Union, that men who saw it rise may live to see it fall.” At one point in History, the United States was not one nation. The Civil War had created many issues for the United States and the country was desperate for a solution. This solution was thought to be reconstruction. Reconstruction was the attempt from the early 60's until the late 70's to resolve the issues of the war after slavery was dismissed and the Confederacy was defeated. Reconstruction also attempted to address how states would again become part of the Union, the status of Confederate leaders, and the status of African Americans across the United States.
Reconstruction was needed and the period following the civil war, the reconstruction period, fostered many significant results and achievements especially for Constitutional amendments. While mending a broken country, the reconstruction period still left many fresh wounds. There was great successes and championships for former slaves and the blacks rights, but their was still lingering thoughts and acts of discrimination towards these groups. Reconstruction produced three amendments defending the people 's rights, yet discrimination towards blacks was peeking to new heights. Laws were not enough to change the hearts and minds of the people, which was at the core of the issue. With the unfortunate loss of the nation’s leader, it would be almost a hundred years later until America had leaders strong enough, in the nineteen sixties, that could change the ideas of racism and