The Union victory after the Civil War in 1865 gave 4 million slaves their freedom, but rebuilding the South during the Reconstruction (1865-1877) created new obstacles for African Americans. Under the Presidency of Andrew Johnson in 1865 and 1866, the southern states passed ‘black codes’ to control the labour and behaviour of former slaves and other African Americans. Opposition in the North over these codes decreased support for the Presidential Reconstruction and led to the triumph of the more radical wing of the Republican Party. During Radical Reconstruction, which began in 1867, newly freed African Americans gained a voice in government for the first time in American history, winning election to southern state legislatures and even the …show more content…
Congress. In less than ten years however, groups such as the ‘Ku Klux Klan’ changed back the progress made by Reconstruction in violence that brought white superiority in the South. Many presidents in this time period did not want to be too involved in the Civil rights movement, despite many chances to help the African Americans, they mostly hindered them.
Cleveland believed that Chinese immigrants were unwilling to cooperate and move into white society. Secretary of State Thomas Bayard argued for an extension on the Chinese Exclusion Act, and Cleveland persuaded Congress to pass the Scott Act, which prevented the return of Chinese immigrants who left the United States. The Scott Act swiftly passed both houses of Congress, which Cleveland signed as a law on October 1, 1888. Moreover, many of McKinley's critics exclaim that his interest for the civil rights movement didn't go far enough. For example, he wasn’t willing to use his presidential power to enforce the 15th Amendment. During his Presidency there were many murders, torturings, and civil rights violations throughout the country against African Americans that went unpunished and unresolved. President William Howard Taft was not interested in the civil rights movement, he met with an African-American leader, Booker T. Washington for advancing the cause of African-Americans. However, Taft simply told Washington to tell his fellow African-Americans to stay out of politics, as he felt that they had no place
there. In 1922, President Warren G. Harding gives a speech in Alabama where he condemns lynching. Harding was a Republican politician who wanted full civil rights for African Americans and women. He supported the ‘Dyer Anti-lynching Bill’ in 1920. He gained supporters for his views on women's suffrage, on the other hand however, he faced intense opposition on civil rights for blacks. 1920s was a time of extreme racism in Southern America, with many lynching’s going on. National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) stated that there was an average of at least two African Americans being lynched per week in 1920. President Herbert Hoover was a well known humanitarian, however as well as wanting African Americans votes, however he also tried to win the votes off the south, this backfired by losing the votes from the African Americans. Strangely, Hoover hardly ever mentioned civil rights while he was President. He believed that African-Americans and other races could progress more with education and wanted the races mixed into white culture. Hoover tried to appoint John J. Parker to the Supreme Court in 1930 to replace Edward Sanford, however the NAACP claimed that he made many court decisions against African Americans. The NAACP was successful in stopping this. Overall, presidents in the period 1877-1930 were not very involved in the civil rights movement, what little progress there was, was despite the presidents, who arguably hindered the movement.
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
After abolition of slavery, new challenges became present; one of them, the readmission of the Southern states was required into the Union. " The goal of Reconstruction was to readmit the South on terms that were acceptable to the North-full political and civil equality for blacks and denial of the political rights of whites who were the leaders of the secession movement" (Wormser, 2002). Easier said than done, reconstruction, in the sense originally though by President Lincoln took many years to become a reality due to a series of issues. The "Black codes" permitted, although dubious, displayed the resistance of the South, this and the lack of opportunities for blacks to owe land, as well as the obstacles they encountered to vote were the most prominent issues to overcome during reconstruction. After these problems were ironing out, equality in education, voting rights, and land ownership were established for blacks. Many historical figures defended the rights of those marginalized. Among them President Abraham Lincoln, who instituted the abolition of slavery in 1865 and set the basis for reconstruction in 1862, Frederick Douglas, a former slave who spoke for slave's freedom and after emancipation, for the rights of the newly freed, and Susan B. Anthony, a Quaker abolitionist, whom together with others started the suffrage movement.
They passed the Reconstruction Act, which was the desperate act to establish newly freed slaves. The African Americans were only reconsidered for their voting right after the Republican majority congress implementing of radical Reconstruction plan. Despite the congress trying to provide equal rights among the freed slaves, southern states other hand was equally reluctant. Congress hardened on Confederate states to implement the mandatory including of the African American in the election process, guaranteeing their voting rights. “Congressional Reconstruction embodied the most sweeping peacetime legislation in American history to that point. It sought to ensure that freed slaves could participate in the creating of new state governments in the former Confederacy” (Shi and Tindall 591). Congress was desperate to provide political rights to freed slaves. As a result of that, they passed the military Reconstruction Act. The military Reconstruction Act guaranteed the right to vote for the African American make, encouraging them to participate in conventions. “The South Carolina constitutional convention -which included 58 men who were once enslaved” (Hillstrom 55). Many states have started eliminating discrimination against freed slaves, and providing equal rights as every white citizen. As more and more state law was more soft towards them, many African American populations were engaging in the election process electing their own people to represent them. “…every former Confederate state elected at least some black delegates, and most states elected African Americans in about the same proportion as their population. A few states even elected a majority if black delegates” (Hillstrom 55). Although, many states were electing African Americans, there were still wide discrimination against elected black officials, in which case Congress has to provide
The North’s neglect and greediness caused the reconstruction to be a failure.The corrupt government, terrorist organizations, unfocused president, and ignorance were also part of the ending of the reconstruction. President Lincoln didn’t want the civil war he wanted to keep the nation together. When Lincoln went into office he wasn't planning on getting rid of slavery nor starting a civil war. Before the reconstruction era was the civil war. Many good things and bad things came from the civil war. The civil war was a war between the North and the South. The war for the north was to end slavery, but for the south it was about rights and liberty. It wasn’t until afterwards that Americans started to notice the good and the bad. Not as many people
The Civil War marked a defining moment in United States history. Long simmering sectional tensions reached critical when eleven slaveholding states seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. Political disagreement gave way to war as the Confederates insisted they had the right to leave the Union, while the loyal states refused to allow them to go. Four years of fighting claimed almost 1.5 million casualties, resulting in a Union victory. Even though the North won the war, they did a horrible job in trying to win the peace, or in other words, the Reconstruction era. Rather than eliminating slavery in the South, the Southerners had a new form of slavery, which was run by a new set of codes called "Black Codes”. With the help of President Johnson, the South continued their plantations, in essence becoming exactly what they were before the war. Overall, the South won Reconstruction because in the end they got slavery (without the name), they got an easy pass back into the Union, and things reverted back to the way they had been prior the war.
After a war that claimed the lives of more men than that of all other wars combined, much of the country was left in ruins, literally and figuratively. Dozens of towns in the South had been burned to the ground. Meanwhile, the relations between the North and South had crumbled to pieces. Something needed to be done so that the country could once again be the United States of America, not the Divided States of America. The years from 1865 to 1877 were a time of rebuilding – the broken communities and the broken relations. This time period was known as Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a failure on the basis that the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments that were passed should have given protection and freedom to the African American people, instead, it actually hurt them because the laws were not enforced, and eventually lead to the organization of white supremacy terrorist groups.
President Andrew Johnson did not support it, but his veto was overridden. After the bill passed he refused to enforce the law in the South, causing little effect. On top of President Johnson’s lack of approval, it was undermined by anti-black organizations, and it helped women and Native Americans even less than it did for African Americans. Native Americans were excluded from being considered citizens even if they were born in the United States. Women gained the right to make and enforce contracts, purchase land, and more, but they were not given the right to vote for another fifty years. In theory this act should have resulted in better treatment of African American because it was making them separate but equal to white people, but in reality when it was put in action it did not follow through with its original intentions. Much like the in 1866, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was followed by incidents of resistance and violence, but despite the proceedings this act declared that all citizens despite race, sex, religion, or national origin were not to be discriminated against. Within the first few weeks, segregated establishments were open to black patrons, and Jim Crow laws were starting to end. The laws giving minorities their civil rights were being enforced. This bill not only encompassed African Americans, but it gave women more opportunities. By 1924 Native Americans
President Johnson tried to enforce Lincoln’s Ten Percent Plan. That as soon as ten percent of the population of any southern state took an oath of loyalty to the union and adopted a constitution that abolished slavery they would be readmitted to the union. The radical republicans in congress totally disagreed with Johnson. Many of the southern states in 1865 under presidential reconstruction adopted what was known as black codes. These codes restricted blacks from any participation in the rights of citizenship. Blacks were confined to an inferior position, they were not legally slaves anymore, but they had no rights of citizenship.
... The cause was forfeited not by Republicans, who welcomed the African-American votes, but to the elite North who had concluded that the formal end of slavery was all the freed man needed and their unpreparedness for the ex-slaves to participate in the Southern commonwealth was evident. Racism, severe economic depression, an exhausted North and troubled South, and a campaign of organized violence toward the freed man, overturned Reconstruction. The North withdrew the last of the federal troops with the passing of The Compromise of 1877. The freed slaves continued to practice few voting rights until 1890, but they were soon stripped of all political, social and economic powers. Not until the civil rights movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s were the freedoms that were fought for by our Republican forefathers nearly 100 years before, finally seen through to fruition.
The era of Reconstruction had intended to mend the problems resulting from the American Civil War. Unfortunately, southern Radicalists made enormous efforts to prevent this as they believed in white supremacy. These Radicalists did not want to permit African Americans the ability to vote however they were forced to when accepting readmission into the Union under the Fourteenth Amendment. To counter this, these confederates created "Black Codes" to ensure racial segregation and even forged white supremacy organizations. All of these events along with Republican scandals led to the inevitable failure of the Reconstruction era.
After the ending of the Civil War in 1865, slavery was, at last, formally abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment. Due to the freedom of these African Americans and the South’s ever-growing hatred towards this group, African Americans were left to suffer harsh discrimination and horrible conditions. Africans Americans were left without homes, education, jobs, or money. Reconstruction was the Radical Republicans’ attempt to try and bring the Confederate states back to normal and unite both the South and the North into a whole country once again. Reconstruction was also set to protect and help the newly freed African Americans assimilate to the new society and the foreign economy they were placed in. Conditions of the African Americans in the South before, during, and after the reconstruction period were no doubt harsh. African Americans, before the Reconstruction Era, struggled to assimilate with the hateful society they were thrown in, if not still slaves. Although their condition improved slightly, African Americans during the reconstruction period experienced extreme terrorism, discrimination, pressure, and hatred from the south, along with the struggle of keeping alive. After the military was taken out of the South, African Americans’ condition after the Reconstruction Era relapsed back as if Reconstruction never happened.
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.
Reconstruction failed because of the North’s and South’s inability to come together on political, economic, and cultural issues during the rebuilding process in the post-war years. Though the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments abolished slavery and permitted rights for African Americans in the South, the establishment of such laws as the Black Codes by Southern State Governments inhibited African American’s freedom. Among regulating their right to vote, marry, and own property, the codes affected African American’s ability to earn jobs, which eliminated the black workforce, so it did not pose a threat of competing with white individuals who were seeking jobs. Economic progression in the South proved to be a failure during Reconstruction, due to the inability of the two sides’ coming together to an agreement on how the South should rebuild. Industrialization in the South only progressed as a stipulation from the Compromise of 1877, in which the Federal Government agreed to take the steps to help implement the
During the reconstruction period, African Americans benefited from the civil rights act of March 1866 and the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment. However, for African Americans in the former confederacy, opportunities were limited as in1865 and 1866 the former confederacy states passed black codes’ a replacement of the former slave codes, which once again forcibly cemented the second-class status of African Americans. The most oppressive of the codes was against vagrancy, ...
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.