Reconstruction Dbq

The Civil War was “a revolution, but only half accomplished” because it ended slavery and reunited the country; however, Reconstruction failed to rebuild the South and to promote democracy and political unity. Even though the Freedmen’s Bureau was created to provide support for newly freed African Americans, it did not change the Southerners mindset about slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, but the Solid South reacted by creating the Black Codes, “Compulsory Free Labor”, Jim Crow Laws, and the KKK. The Black Codes were laws that restricted African Americans’ freedom, imposing travel restrictions; preventing them from voting, serving on juries, and testifying against white people; and implementing vagrancy laws and limiting work opportunities to domestic/agricultural jobs, thus creating “Compulsory Free Labor.” In addition, the Jim Crow laws followed the principle of “separate but equal,” which enforced

segregation in school, parks, public buildings, hospitals, and transportation systems. Furthermore, Southern whites formed a secret organization, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), that used terror and intimidation in pursuit of their white supremacist agenda.

Carl Schurz, a German revolutionary and American Statesman and journalist said that until whites “cut loose from the past, it [would] be a dangerous experiment to put Southern society upon its own legs.” In addition to the failure to rebuild the South, the Reconstruction failed to promote democracy and political unity. Lincoln's Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction offered full pardon, restoring property and political rights; however, one of its weaknesses is that it was not inclusive, since a state could organize a new government and be readmitted into the Union after just 10% of its state’s voting population had taken an oath of allegiance. In other words, not all the population from the new states (Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee and Virginia) were looking forward the political part of the reconstruction. This plan was rejected by the Congress, which proposed the Wade-Davis

Bill. However, after Lincoln’s assassination, Andrew Johnson, a conservative Democrat in a charge of the Northern Republican Party, worked for a rapid restoration of the Union, since he needed Southern support. But once again, the Presidential plan for Reconstruction was not accepted by Congress, which imposed the Military Reconstruction. This plan divided the ten unreconstructed confederate states into five military districts that would only be accepted back into the Union once they had a new constitution approved by the US Congress and ratified the 14th Amendment. This conflict within the Federal Government and this pendulum movement between loose and tight Reconstruction Plans led to a poor political reunification. Moreover, the old elite resisted the changes and would form corrupt political machines, at both the state and federal levels, that tore down democracy during the Gilded Age. In conclusion, the Reconstruction was unsuccessful because it did not build the country back in the social and political perspective - it failed to rebuild the South, to manage the circumstances of freed African Americans, and to contribute to democracy and political reunification.