Reconstruction Dbq

The Reconstruction era began after the Civil War was won by the Union in 1865 with the main goal being to bring the two pieces of what used to be America, back together again without slavery. Problems quickly aroused after it became clear that how they were planning on reuniting the two sides were divided. Abraham Lincoln, president at the time, proposed a plan to pardon all Confederates if they swore allegiance to the North, except the former high-ranked officials and war criminals. If the state reached a goal of 10% newly sworn in persons they were allowed to form a government and have representatives unfortunately he was killed before his plan was able to take swing. Former vice president, Andrew Johnson, who then took Lincoln’s place, had

another plan similar to Lincoln’s but his plan was to exclude high-ranked and wealthy landowning southerners; 13,000 of these Confederated were eventually pardoned after the realized that without them the country would be led by former slaves. Almost the entire South agrees to his plan except Texas and they were allowed to appoint representatives of their state. However, when these representatives approached Congress they were turned back. This was because congress had former their own plan called the Freedman’s Bureau that was created specifically with the needs of the former slaves in mind. They encouraged plantation owners to rebuild their fields and hire former slaves to work in them once again but with different rules; they were to have employer-employee relationships rather than owner-slave bonds.
The Freedman’s Bureau and expansion of Civil Rights in 1866 gave former slaves even more freedom, at the time, by allowing them to vote and banning discriminatory laws.

The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments now stated that slavery was illegal and that any citizen of the U.S. was allowed life, liberty, the right to own property, and vote without racial stops. This meant that all former slaves were Americans regardless of color because this was their right and they were to be protected if problems arose; but this had to be enforced somehow if it was to make any difference. Leading up to the Enforcement Acts of 1870 that protected African-American rights like being able to hold office, vote, or get police protection because of groups like the KKK that tried their hardest to keep the Confederacy alive. Although all these laws were put in place to fight racism, it was still occurring through loopholes that were to be patched up by the Civil Rights Act of 1875. It stated that it was illegal to discriminate in public service places but the act was overruled by the Supreme Court due to private individual

rights.
Many African-Americans looked for hope in their newly elected president, Ulysses S. Grant; a Republican and war hero for the North; who was actually voted in by majority of the newly freed slaves. Republicans made up majority of the government and were supported by three categories given their names by former Confederates; the Scalawags who were southerners who changed sides, the Carpetbaggers who were Northerners that moved south for land, and the African-Americans.
At the time most African-Americans were illiterate and gained knowledge from the newly developed public schools specifically designed for them but not all were able to attend school, some needed to work.

This brought about the idea of sharecropping, where landowners would allow African- Americans to live and use their land with the exception of gaining some of their crop for rent. As time went on it became clear that these landowners were cheating the African-Americans by playing on the fact that they couldn’t read or write and soon had them in unplayable debt. Along with sharecropping the KKK began to form their goals of destroying the Republican Party and ending the Reconstruction period all together. They started in 1872 when the Amnesty act allowed 150,000 former Confederates to hold office and vote, once in office they allowed the Freedman’s Bureau to expire and created a 5 year depression in 1873. By 1876 a political deal had to be made to end the Reconstruction Era because the democrats were becoming too hard to handle and the Republic was losing its grip. The confederate democrats agreed to pull back on their places in office if the Union troops were withdrawn from their states; the deal was struck and the Reconstruction Era came to a

close.
All the amendments stayed in tack but any laws enforcing them were no longer followed meaning that although African-Americans were told they were free and had on limitations on paper, in reality they had many. Instead of the Reconstruction Era making their lives better it made everything worse. They had debts that were never ending, groups like the KKK hunting, torturing, and killing them without motive, discrimination laws made legal again. Loopholes were found in order to keep them separated from the white Americans as much as possible. All in all the Reconstruction Era failed because it made us take two steps forward and three steps back, it did reunite America into a whole but there was no progress made to free the African-Americans.