Was Reconstruction A Success Or Failure Essay

RECONSTRUCTION WAS AN IMPORTANT EPISODE IN U.S HISTORY.
INTRODUCTION
Reconstruction was the time period after the Civil War of rebuilding the United States. Many questions ran through the citizens minds, “Would Confederacy be allowed back into the union? Were the terms to be established by the President or the Congress? What would happen to the freed blacks in the South? Would black men enjoy the same status as the whites?”
My goal in this paper is to shed light on the reconstruction struggle which was waged by radical northerners who wanted to punish the South people who wanted to preserve their way of life.
To achieve this goal, I have organized my paper into four main sections. In the first section, I provide an account of the policies and

state constitutions that have influenced the United States. In the second section, I have discussed the Democratic Party, social class and the Republican Party in the South. The third section focuses on the New Deal and my personal position on it. I end my paper with a conclusion restating my position.
POLICIES AND STATE CONSTITUTIONS
After the civil war, Radical Republicans in the Congress brought forth new laws and constitutional amendments which would secure civil and political rights for black people. After 1867, African American men were given the right to vote but they were still denied this basic right by a majority of Northern States. Since the Republican leaders feared loss of control of Congress to the Democrats, they sought to include the black man’s vote in all the Northern states. They assumed that the black voters would vote for the Republicans but this was not to be so.
THE NEW DEAL
This program ran form 1933-1939 and was broken down into three main goals; recovery, relief, and reform.

It all started with what became known as the first 100 days during which congress passed an unprecedented amount of legislation. First up was a banking holiday, for two days, every bank across the country was shut down and investigated. The well behaved banks were allowed to be reopened while the rest were put under government control. The government then put some broad restrictions over the banks while also creating the (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) FDIC which would act as insurance for banking deposits. These extreme measures were designed to restore American’s confidence in the banking system as well as restoring economic growth and

stability.
RECONSTRUCTION
On April 14th 1865, President Abraham Lincoln met with his cabinet for what turned out to be his last time. He reportedly told the assembled group, “enough lives have been sacrificed; we must extinguish our resentment if we expect harmony and union.” That very same night, he was assassinated. The war was over, the president was dead and the people still had resentment in their hearts. The nation had to figure out what it could do to rebuild itself.
Reconstruction occurred in two main periods.

The first one was led by President Andrew Johnson and lasted up to about 1867 while the second was led by Republicans in congress and lasted until 1877. Andrew Johnson was a white supremacist who really wanted to leave the racial order as it was and not change the constitution in any way. He pardoned nearly every confederate who took the oath of allegiance. By December 1865, all former confederate states except Texas had been readmitted to the union and with Johnson’s encouragement; they enacted discriminatory legislation and blocked any organization that was trying to help the freed people. In March 1867, the Reconstruction Act was passed which placed the south under temporary military rule and required that new state governments recognize black man’s right to vote but still congress remained on a coalition course with the president. They passed the Tenure of Office Act which required that the president get approval from the senate before moving or transferring an appointed office holder. The president ignored this Act and went ahead to remove the secretary of war for being too radical. The House of Representatives thereafter moved to impeach the president. He appeared before the senate to answer to charges of high crimes and misdemeanors. He remained in office by a margin of one vote. Fourteenth Amendment July 9, 1868, declared that anyone border nationalized in the United States and living within its jurisdiction was a citizen

of the United States and it forbids states from denying these citizens due process of law or any other rights and privileges associated with citizenship. The Fifteenth Amendment passed on February 3 1870 specifically forbade states from denying any man the right to vote based on race. Republicans and Congress managed to push through the Civil Right Act 1875 which forbade discrimination in places of public accommodation before being replaced by their democratic opponents. It was clear that federal commitment to reconstruct the south was over. Democrats in the south ceased control of the local and state governments through force and intimidation. Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University widely known as one of the most prominent historians
REPUBLICAN PARTY IN THE SOUTH
Today’s Republican Party opposes big government, it’s culturally conservative and its demographic support is strongest among white voters and it usually dominates elections along the south.
Over the past 160 years or so the Republican Party has undergone quite remarkable transformation from the party of Abraham Lincoln to the party of Donald trump. In 1854, 7 years before the civil war, there were two parties; the WHIGS and the Democrats. America was quickly expanding westwards and there was an intense debate on whether slavery should be permitted in the new state.
The Democratic Party with strong support in the south became increasingly pro slavery but the WHIGS were divided on the issues. They were afraid that the growing number of the slave states would have too much political influence which they feared could really hurt free white workers economically. In 1854, the country debated whether the territories of Kansas and Nebraska should allow slavery. The WHIGS couldn’t agree and the party ended up collapsing.
The former WHIGS in the north formed a new party that would fight against letting slavery expand any further, they called it the Republican Party. It became very popular in 1860 and Abraham Lincoln won the presidency. Even though he had promised he wouldn’t interfere with slavery in states that already had it, he was too anti slavery to tolerate it. 11 southern states succeeded from the union forming the confederate states of America. The northern states decided to fight to keep the union together and the civil war ensued, the result was abolition of slavery nationwide as the north won.
CONCLUSION
Max Weber in 1919 in one of his essays Politics as a vocation stated that, “what is possible would never be achieved if some people didn’t ask for the impossible.” The Democratic Party has been the longest existing political party in the US. It was originally a strong radical supporter of Southern Slavery but now it wins the support of other races apart from the whites. Blacks in politics, spearheaded by Barack Obama holding the highest political office from 2008-2016 is an advance to the slow and steady progress made by the blacks in recent years. Abolition of slavery created a new revolution where equality is upheld, the rule of law and black politicians are now on the forefront.