Pros And Cons Of Reconstruction After The Civil War

After the Civil War, America was in a lot of turmoil, especially in the southern states. A goal of the U.S was to bring the southern states back into the union and fix up all the physical damage that tore apart the south. Reconstruction had a couple main goals to bring America back together and that was to fix the southern states of all the damage that was done, explain how the southern states could be readmitted into the union, and also implement how whites and blacks could live together without slavery. Also during reconstruction, black and white teachers would help teach former slaves who were illiterate how to read and write. Thought the main goal of reconstruction was to rebuild America, there were three different plans on how America

Radicals also wanted blacks to have the same rights and opportunities as whites such as participating in the workforce. Radicals wanted the central government to step in a take a huge role at rebuilding the country even though it was against the views that the central government should not be too involved with the state governments. Radicals supported the Freedman’s Bureau, an act to help freed slaves find a job, education, land, and other essentials to be able to live in America, but Johnson vetoed the bill. Radicals also introduced the Civil Rights Act of 1866 stating the definition of a U.S citizen and guarantee that all citizens were protected under the law in hopes that former slaves were protected by the government from angered whites. Johnson also vetoed that bill and that created tension in the moderate republicans who called his actions racist. The moderates then joined the radicals in hopes that they could reverse Johnson’s veto which ended up working. Radicals also introduced the Reconstruction Act of 1867. In this act, they stated that lead officials of confederate states should not be able to vote and obtain office. It also called for the southern states to be divided into five different military states to protect blacks by using the army. The radical leaders stated a great case for their plan for reconstruction but the only thing that held them back was Andrew Johnson

The plan was a mix of Johnson’s own ideas for reconstruction and some of the ideas that Lincoln had in his Ten Percent Plan. Even though his plan was very lenient toward former confederate officials, republicans and other northerners were in agreement with his plan for the most part. Obviously there will be people who do not agree with his entire plan such as the Radical Republican group. There was not much of another option to go by so Johnson’s Plan had to be put into use. Lincoln was assassinated so there was no real support behind his ten percent plan. Even though Lincoln’s plan was not used, some of the ideas from his plan were still included in Johnson’s such as taking an oath of loyalty by the former confederate officials to rejoin the union and create a state government. The republicans were too radical for Johnson in their views of how former slaves should be treated. They also wanted harsher punishment for southern officials which would have taken more time where Johnson just wanted reconstruction to be over as soon as possible. The radicals did have convincing plans to restore America but Johnson rejected a lot of the ideas that the radicals