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Views on reconstruction era
American reconstruction
Views on reconstruction era
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The Reconstruction has been killed! Who’s to blame, the North or South? The Northern neglect stopped Reconstruction because of neglect and racism. At the time the Reconstruction ended, the Declaration of Independence became one hundred years old in 1876 (Background Essay, Paragraph 1). Another important event that occurred was the election of 1876 for the new president. It was Rutherford B. Hayes against Samuel J. Tilden. The election caused talk of a new Civil War but then the Compromise of 1877 gave Hayes presidency. Rutherford B. Hayes became the new president at the time the Reconstruction was coming to an end (Background Essay, Paragraph 4). The presidential election did not help the Reconstruction at all. It destroyed American dream for the black people who were in the South (Background Essay, Paragraph 1). Neglect was one of the reasons that made the North cause the end of the Reconstruction. President Grant was so busy with other things that he began to put the Reconstruction to the side. In Document C, Paragraph 1 it says, “The tide …show more content…
of public opinion in the North began to turn against Reconstruction policies.” The government was neglecting the Reconstruction because they were having problems with corruption. Grant was trying to find the root of the problem. The Northerners were concerned about the Panic of 1873. They were beginning to observe the corruption. “In the 1870s, Northern voters grew indifferent to events in the South”, as stated in Document C, Paragraph 1. The other reason the North ended Reconstruction is because of racism.
People from the North said, “The blacks, as a people, are unfitted for the proper exercise of political duties.” (Document D, Paragraph 1). They believed that blacks were unfit to be in the government because they thought that they were lower class than white people. In Document D, Paragraph 1 the North says, “Blacks need a period of probation and instruction.” The Northerners were getting sick and tired of racial equality. It showed that racism existed in the North because the Northerners didn’t want blacks being in the government. They denied equal rights and thought that the black people were corrupt and a threat to society. The Northerners lost interest in the Reconstruction because they thought blacks needed a period of probation and instruction. They believed that blacks would do horribly in government because some of them couldn’t read and
write. Northern Neglect was responsible for the destruction of Reconstruction because of neglect and racism. It was the North’s idea to have Reconstruction, but they turned against it in the end. Others may think it was the South who ended Reconstruction.
Although it wasn’t the main reason reason Reconstruction ended, northern neglect was still a significant problem. “...in the 1870s, Northern voters grew indifferent to events in the South. Weary of the ‘Negro question and ‘sick of carpet-bag’ government, many Northern voters shifted their attention to such national concerns as the Panic of 1873 and corruption in Grant’s administration….” (Harper’s weekly Doc C) If we want to know as much information as possible about how the North lost interest in Reconstruction we must understand the
The Reconstruction was the process of trying to rebuild the South after the devastating effect of the Civil War. Some interesting facts during the Civil War were first, in 1869 the first college football game took place, second, African American universities became a reality, and last, in 1870, Hiram Revels was elected the first black Senator. In the end, Reconstruction died, but we’ve all been asking the same thing; North or South: Who killed the Reconstruction? Answering this question, I believe the North killed the Reconstruction by a lack of focus on it, the racism on African Americans, and being sick of assisting the South.
The South won in Reconstruction in many ways. Rebuilding the South was one of its major focuses. Several canals, bridges, and railroads were rebuilt with Reconstruction funds. The Republicans in Congress agreed with southern legislatures on how important business was. For this, a large amount of money was gathered to help the South’s reconstruction. Even though slavery was abolished with the passing of the 13th Amendment, it still existed in the South in the forms of “Black Codes” and cults like the Ku Klux Klan. In conclusion, Lincoln won the war for the North, but President Johnson won Reconstruction for the South by allowing them to create their own laws to keep the former slaves down and keeping their Southern lifestyles.
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 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 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).
America has gone through many hardships and struggles since coming together as a nation involving war and changes in the political system. Many highly regarded leaders in America have come bestowing their own ideas and foundation to provide a better life for “Americans”, but no other war or political change is more infamous than the civil war and reconstruction. Reconstruction started in 1865 and ended in 1877 and still to date one of the most debated issues in American history on whether reconstruction was a failure or success as well as a contest over the memory, meaning, and ending of the war. According to, “Major Problems in American History” David W. Blight of Yale University and Steven Hahn of the University of Pennsylvania take different stances on the meaning of reconstruction, and what caused its demise. David W. Blight argues that reconstruction was a conflict between two solely significant, but incompatible objectives that “vied” for attention both reconciliation and emancipation. On the other hand Steven Hahn argues that former slaves and confederates were willing and prepared to fight for what they believed in “reflecting a long tradition of southern violence that had previously undergirded slavery” Hahn also believes that reconstruction ended when the North grew tired of the 16 year freedom conflict. Although many people are unsure, Hahn’s arguments presents a more favorable appeal from support from his argument oppose to Blight. The inevitable end of reconstruction was the North pulling federal troops from the south allowing white rule to reign again and proving time travel exist as freed Africans in the south again had their civil, political, and economical position oppressed.
As a country, America has gone through many political changes throughout her lifetime. Leaders have come and gone, all of them having different objectives and plans for the future. As history takes its course, though, most all of these “revolutionary movements” come to an end. One such movement was Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a time period in America consisting of many leaders, goals and accomplishments. Though, like all things in life, it did come to an end, the resulting outcome has been labeled both a success and a failure. When Reconstruction began in 1865, a broken America had just finished fighting the Civil War. In all respects, Reconstruction was mainly just that. It was a time period of “putting back the pieces”, as people
The North’s negligence also contributed to the end of Reconstruction. The North had failed to notice the many racially motivated atrocities that occurred in the South durin...
... 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.
William Mason Grosvenor believes that Reconstruction should be harsh. Grosvenor has two main arguments to support this belief, manifest destiny and the potential for the reoccurrence of a similar event to the war if Reconstruction was carried out in a lenient manner. Grosvenor argues that the country, pre-Civil War, was never truly a single unified country, but rather a group of peoples with vastly different values held together by a constitution which they had outgrown, saying, “[n]o chemical union had ever taken place; for that the white-hot crucible of civil war was found necessary.” Furthermore, Grosvenor believes that the succession of the South demonstrated this divide while simultaneously violating the doctrine of manifest destiny through
Even Hinton Helper, a political writer from the South, acknowledged that the North was necessary for the economic and industrial aspects of the South. “It is a fact well known to every intelligent Southerner that we are compelled to go to the North for almost every article of utility and adornment...”(Document C). If the opposing side even admitted to the hardships they were facing then it must have been a serious problem. Hinton truly believed that the North was essential to the well-being of the entire nation. In contrast, most Southerners thought that they could rely on their cotton production, and that the North’s industrial success wouldn’t affect them. In contrast, Senator James Hammond believed that the South was very crucial to the North’s economic success. He believed that the South provided the North with much of their exports such as tobacco and cotton. “There is no doubt that we sent to the North $40,000,000... If I am right in my calculations, ...there is no nation on earth, with any numerous population, that can compete with us on produce per capita.” (Document
With the end of the Civil war in 1865, the new nation of the United States now faced challenges on restoring peace within the Union. The North, having won the civil war, now faced the task to implement reconstruction of the South. They came in contact with the questions of: What should happen to the freed slaves, should the freed slaves have rights, what should be done to the Confederate leaders, and how should the South be reconstructed? There were many different ideas and views on how Reconstruction should be handled, but only one succeeded more successfully than the other. Although they bear some superficial similarities, the difference between presidential and congressional reconstruction are clear. The president believed that Confederate
This time after the civil war was when the nation’s laws and constitutions were altered to give former slaves basic human rights, or so it was intended to. Unfortunately, segregation and black disenfranchisement was a product of reconstruction that forever haunts our nations history. The actual ideas behind reconstruction were not at all regrettable, but more so the production of discrimination that derived from this time period, after Lincoln’s assassination. President Andrew Johnson, being considered one of the worst presidents in history, attempted to veto acts such as The Civil Rights Act of 1866, an essential law passed by congress in which everyone born in the US is granted citizenship. Although his veto was a failed attempt, Jim Crow Laws, white supremacy segregation, and violation of basic human rights, were all products of his