I believe the South is ultimately responsible for the end of reconstruction. They resisted the North’s control and manipulated the African Americans and all who opposed their beliefs. This along with the actions of Andrew Johnson, a southerner, kept the Reconstruction from continuing. The south was still running on their own agenda at this point and they didn't want the north imposing anything in them. In document C it is stated that John W. Stevens was murdered by the KKK. This is evidence of the lack of control the government had over the south. Groups like the KKK were very powerful and wanted the North out of the South. They proved their power from ruthless killings of innocents. Document E also shows the manipulation and violence used …show more content…
against people who wanted the North’s help. Even if people did want the North’s help most wouldn’t dare say it because they knew what was to come. Document F gives us an insight into what African Americans had to go through when trying to vote.
They were most of the time forced out of voting for fear of their life. The more powerful white southerners kept them from voting to make sure their guy would win the election. African Americans were almost certainly going to vote opposite of them and they couldn’t have that. Document G states how the North stopped caring about events in the South which led them to stop enforcing law and ultimately left the South on their own. One could say that this means it’s the North’s fault but, it was because of the South’s resistance that the North stopped trying to impose law. This was exactly what the South was going for. Finally, Document B really proves the manipulation of the African Americans by the white southerners. It shows how they can find a way to control the African Americans even if it's not slavery. By doing this they can control people’s lives and force them to do things because they are in “debt”. These white landowners always found a way to keep African Americans from getting an education and from living a healthy prosperous life. Without any education African Americans were left for dead and their only way of living was by working for
landowners. The South won the second civil war, the war over reconstruction. They shut out the North and forced them to give up and manipulated the African Americans into always working under them. They controlled all of what went on in the South and with help from the KKK they were able to maintain political power also. The North weren’t the only ones who could help with the reconstruction and keep it in order but the South didn’t want reconstruction. This is why the reconstruction attempt in the South ultimately failed.
Reconstruction was a nasty period in History. Reconstruction took place after the civil war. In the civil war there was lots of devastation. Buildings and houses were being destroyed so people needed something called Reconstruction. Reconstruction was something people really needed after the civil war because they needed to rebuild a community. Some people didn't want reconstruction because they liked destruction. Then also after the civil war slavery was abolished, as well some people don't like that either. South killed Reconstruction because South resistance had KKK, and South was murdering people.
“... the slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.” W.E.B. Dubois explains this in his essay North or South: Who Killed Reconstruction? Reconstruction occurred in the eleven states that seceded from the Union. Reconstruction began in 1865 to help bring the eleven states that left the Union this ended in 1877. How exactly did the North or the South make Reconstruction end? Reconstruction occurred in the 12 years after the civil war and was to help bring back the eleven states that seceded from the Union. Both Southern resistance and Northern neglect contributed to the death of Reconstruction. However, Southern resistance was the greater problem.
In this chapter of Davidson and Lytle’s After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection, the authors use the raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 and in particular the attack’s leader, John Brown, a radical abolitionist, to explain the massive increase in tension between the North and the South before the dawn of the American Civil War. After explaining the main premise of the raid and its immediate outcome, Davidson and Lytle use historical records and analyses made by historians from the 20th century to explore the possible reasons and motivations behind John Brown’s infamous attack that would define him as a martyr to some and an insane criminal to others. The attack goes down in history as the triggering event behind the American Civil War; Harpers
“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” George Santayana stated what happens if we do not learn from our past. After the Civil War the United States wanted to build itself back up. The nation was in rubble because half of the country was fighting the other. That left it in a sad and fallen state. The issue of slavery was a long debated topic. They thought they could get over this and start anew. Reconstruction means the actions or process of rebuilding what has been damaged or destroyed. Did the North or the South kill Reconstruction? That issue is still up for debate. In my opinion, the South killed Reconstruction and stopped it dead in its tracks. The South did not respect the African American’s right to vote and would terrorize
They passed the Reconstruction Act, which was the desperate act to establish newly freed slaves. The African Americans were only reconsidered for their voting right after the Republican majority congress implementing of radical Reconstruction plan. Despite the congress trying to provide equal rights among the freed slaves, southern states other hand was equally reluctant. Congress hardened on Confederate states to implement the mandatory including of the African American in the election process, guaranteeing their voting rights. “Congressional Reconstruction embodied the most sweeping peacetime legislation in American history to that point. It sought to ensure that freed slaves could participate in the creating of new state governments in the former Confederacy” (Shi and Tindall 591). Congress was desperate to provide political rights to freed slaves. As a result of that, they passed the military Reconstruction Act. The military Reconstruction Act guaranteed the right to vote for the African American make, encouraging them to participate in conventions. “The South Carolina constitutional convention -which included 58 men who were once enslaved” (Hillstrom 55). Many states have started eliminating discrimination against freed slaves, and providing equal rights as every white citizen. As more and more state law was more soft towards them, many African American populations were engaging in the election process electing their own people to represent them. “…every former Confederate state elected at least some black delegates, and most states elected African Americans in about the same proportion as their population. A few states even elected a majority if black delegates” (Hillstrom 55). Although, many states were electing African Americans, there were still wide discrimination against elected black officials, in which case Congress has to provide
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.
African Americans had an active participation during the Reconstruction era and worked hard to achieve rights that they deserved. African Americans acquired different roles, both as individuals and in groups to achieve their goals. One very important role of the African Americans was participation in voting during elections. After the 15Th amendment was passed in 1870 voting was not restricted by race. With this newfound voting power African Americans could control the future of their country. Thanks to this, other rights could now be gained through democratic election. Another role was the African American leaders that represented
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).
In conclusion, the evidence from the documents prove that the North was racist, negligent, and distracted, thus proving them guilty of killing Reconstruction. Therefore, if the North had not been racist, negligent, or distracted, the North would have been more enthusiastic about Reconstruction, been able to properly execute Reconstruction, and the North would have been able to focus on Reconstruction more. That is why the North killed Reconstruction.
... 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
The Civil War was one of the most infamous wars in American history, with a country divided in two, Southerners fighting Northerners. The North, or the Union, eventually defeated the Southern Confederacy, but the question of who was justified in their actions is still debated today. The South was clearly politically justified due to Northern provocation and support from the Constitution. Specifically, the North harbored slaves and caused violence, and the South had the constitutional right to respond to these threats.
Document C is Thomas Jefferson reflecting in his notes over religious tolerance. From 1659 into the early 17th century Virginia has been giving anti Quaker laws. Jefferson believes it was an accident that many of the Quakers were physically harmed and excepted for there religious beliefs. This ties down to how others weren't getting along with overs peopled religious beliefs and that it caused anger and disagreement during this period.