Reconstruction And Reconstruction Essay

496 Words1 Page

Reconstruction had drastically varying levels of effects on ex-confederates and freedmen. After the civil war ended the United States had to reintegrate both a formerly slave population and a formerly rebellious population back into the country. Under Andrew Johnson, the guiding reconstruction principle was that the South never had a right to secede in the first place. Under such a mentality, as long as ex-confederates peacefully joined the union, there was little or no punishment for their transgressions. Between 1865 and 1867 Johnson appointed provisional governors and ordered them to call state conventions to establish new all-white governments "To represent them, they chose former Confederates" (Roark, 428). These newly constructed …show more content…

The system of sharecropping replaced slavery in many places throughout the South. Landowners would provide housing, and tools to the share croppers and in return, sharecroppers received a share of their crop. The amount to be earned by freedmen was established by the landowners, and they had little to no opportunity for social or economic mobility. Sharecropping for the freedmen, especially in areas where Black Codes were enforced, result in a kind of serfdom that tied workers to the land they did not own "[a]t the core of the black codes... [l]egislators sought to hustle freedmen back to the plantations" (Roark, 428). 

 Displeased by the results of reconstructed south mimicking the pre-Civil war system, Republicans in Congress, they took the lead in reconstruction after 1867. Radical Republicans felt the war had been fought for equal rights and wanted to see the powers of the national government expanded. The aforementioned Black Codes were a primary source of inequality as "many ways in which the rights of "freedom" were abridged" (Cobbs, 3).

 In an unionized effort, this lead to the passing of the civil rights bill which defined persons born in the United States as citizens and established nationwide equality before the law of

More about Reconstruction And Reconstruction Essay

Open Document