Was Reconstruction A Success Or Failure Essay

It is generally assumed that the Reconstruction period of the United States failed. This era, which lasted from the end of the Civil War to the election of Rutherford B. Hayes, saw three amendments to the Constitution, two Civil Rights Acts, and the “enfranchisement of the black man”. (Frederick Douglass, 1865) Reconstruction was necessary to rebuild the South’s economy, and welcome states back into the Union. While it succeeded in legally uniting all the states, civil matters were not so easily influenced. Slavery, for example, was abolished during the Civil War due to Abraham Lincoln’s war powers. Over the next decade, three amendments were passed through Congress to protect the rights of these freedmen. Congress, at this time, was held

strongly by the radical Republicans of the North, meaning that the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were ratified primarily by northern states. The North promised the ex-slaves freedom, citizenship, and suffrage in the United States during the Reconstruction period, but the southern citizens could not accept this. The North made guarantees to the freedmen that the South refused to uphold.
Several things were promised to the freedmen in the last months of the civil war, including the continuity of their freedom.

After the war between the states came to a close, the ex-slaves started searching for jobs on plantations. They sought out these jobs because it was work the African Americans knew how to do. Unfortunately, workers were soon required to enter annual labor contracts that they weren’t allowed to terminate without good reason, and were often beaten just like they had been in the past. Though the Freedmen’s Bureau was helpful in situations of abused labor, the fact that these circumstances even existed proves that the freedmen were not truly allowed to exercise their citizenship, which was given to them by the 14th amendment. As previously stated, this amendment was passed primarily by radical republicans of the North, and the South did not endeavor to see the amendment

succeed.
Beyond citizenship, African Americans were given the right to pursue an education. It was perfectly legal for a negro of any age to attend a public school, designated for negroes, in the daylight hours. The Freedmen’s Bureau even built more than 1,000 schools for these eager scholars by 1870. However, to support a family, an ex-slave had to maintain a twelve hour day job, which made getting an education significantly harder. This issue quickly became less of a legal matter, and became one of pure, cold hearted racism. Communities did not support the education of ex-slaves, and individuals often shunned the teachers of these negro schoolhouses. Night school, too, was frowned upon by officers of the law and townsfolk alike. Though the Northern states established schooling for negroes, employers and communities of the South made it exceedingly impossible for African Americans to actually attend such an institution.
The fifteenth, and the last amendment of the Reconstruction period, gave all male citizens of age the right to vote.

Once more, the southern states found a way around another seemingly airtight amendment passed by the radical republicans. Ex-confederate states placed an apparently harmless poll tax on their citizens, and required each and every voter to pass a literacy test before approaching a ballot. African Americans were uneducated and dirt poor, making the large majority of eligible colored voters unable to complete the literacy test nor pay the tax. Helpless against the South’s tyranny, the average African American man was disenfranchised, not by the law, but by his surrounding

leaders.
The freedmen were promised a great number of liberties by Northern politicians. In a lawful sense, these newly freed African Americans received all that they were assured. Citizenship was granted to the newly freed negroes by the fourteenth amendment, but lessened by southern plantation owners that required annual labor contracts from their African American workers. Next, every free negro wanted an education, come rain or shine. Time and again, southern preachers, officers, and general townsfolk insult the school teachers, or keep the scholars in the fields all day to the point that the negroes are unable to attend class. Additionally, under the 15th Amendment, African Americans were given the right to vote. Had the South not set poll taxes for their states, and required all citizens to pass a literacy test before voting, ex-slaves might have retained this privilege. As it were, the slaves retained nothing of the guarantees the North had set out to give them. Ex-Confederate states denied African Americans the rights that the North had ensured them, which resulted in the failure of the Reconstruction.