The African-American during the Reconstruction Era probably felt victorious as well as discomfited. Prior to the Civil war, slaves hoped freedom would give them the right of equal status in American society, but their dream of an egalitarian America was impeded after Lincoln’s assassination. To add to former slave woes, the southern economy lay destitute. Many southerners felt the added wage earners (former slaves) would destroy the cotton business’s productivity. Stated thus, many African-Americans were subjugated by White Elitists. Nevertheless, black Floridians advocated for economic, social, and even political equality, despite the hostile environment. This is interesting because it goes against the popular misconception of Florida’s history. During my secondary school education, I was taught that Florida was moderate compared to other southern states -- supposedly, the state gave former slaves more rights than any other state (in the south). After researching the impact African-Americans had on society, I can irrevocably state that the situation was far more complicated than initially perceived. Consequently, many history books understate the roles African-Americans played during Florida’s Reconstruction. It is undeniable that since before Florida became part of America, it was an asylum of freedom and liberation for the black man. Slaves would run from their plantations across Florida’s border. Many integrated into the indigenous Native tribes that called the territory their home; others took refuge with the Spanish. After Florida became part of America upon victory in the Seminole Wars of the 19th century, slaves could no longer seek safety with the Natives, thus many were repossessed or flew the state seeking asylum. ... ... middle of paper ... ...ction of 1920. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Andrew Johnson. 1865. Amnesty Proclamation. “Restoration to Rights of Property Except in Slaves. An Oath of Loyalty as a Condition Precedent. Legality of Confiscation Proceedings Recognized. Exception of Certain Offenders from this Amnesty. By These Special Applications for Pardon May be Made. Reorganization in North Carolina. Appointment of a Provisional Governor. A State Covention to be Chosen by Loyal Citizens. The Machinery of the Federal Government to be Putin Operation. AMNESTY PROCLAMATION.” Accessed February 2 2014.http//:http://www.nytimes.com/1865/05/30/news/president-johnson-s-amnesty-proclamation-restoration-rights-property-except.html Lincoln, Abraham. Abraham Lincoln Great Speeches: Unabridged “Last Public Address: April 11 1865.” edited by John Grafton. New York: Dover Publication 1991.
Even when the Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, and the black people embraced education, built their own churches, reunited with their broken families and worked very hard in the sharecropping system, nothing was enough for the Reconstruction to succeed. Whites never gave total freedom to African Americans. Blacks were forced to endure curfews, passes, and living on rented land, which put them in a similar situation as slaves. In
With the end of the Civil war, many blacks felt that they would start reaping the benefits that had been denied from them for years. Being able to vote, own land, have a voice in political affairs were all goals that they felt were reachable. The era of Reconstruction was the “miracle” they had been searching for. But the South wasn’t going down without a fight and blacks would have to wait at least 100 years for Freedom Summer to arrive to receive the “miracle” they wanted. 100 years it took for equality to become more than just a word but a way of life for blacks. But they did enjoy some privileges that weren’t available to them.
Following Lincoln’s tragic assassination, President Andrew Johnson took on the accountability of making Reconstruction a reality. Andrew Johnson wanted to use Lincoln’s ideas of reconstruction but in a modified form. Since Congress would be in recess for eight more months Johnson decided to go ahead with his plan. Johnson's goal in reconstruction was to grant amnesty to all former Confederates (except high officials), the ordinances of secession were to be revoked, Confederate debts would repudiate, and the states had to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. Once the states swore to a loyalty oath to abide by the conditions they would be allowed to return to the Union. After swearing to the oath Confederate States would be allowed to govern themselves. With this power the states implemented the creation of a system of black codes that restricted the actions of freed slaves in much the same way, if not exactly the same way, that slaves were restricted under the old law. The end result of his plan was a hopeless conflict with the Radical Republicans who dominated Congress, passed measures over Johnson's vetoes, and attempted to limit the power of the executive concerning appointments and removals.
As President, Johnson decided to follow Lincolns plans by granting amnesty to almost all former confederates; establishing a Provisional government; and ratifying the thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery. However, Johnson was not the same man as Lincoln for he was quite unpopular, especially with Congress. As the south was in a transitional period, its politics were changing as well. First, the Reconstruction Act allowed blacks to v...
... 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.
During the Reconstruction Period, many Southern states passed laws that productively disenfranchised African Americans. The Civil Rights Acts of 1875 should have protected blacks against discrimination in public places when Reconstruction ended in 1877. Segregation lived throughout the South. The Democrats wanted to stop the blacks from voting so they could take away all the rights blacks had achieved. African Americans were so furious because all of their hard work was crumbling right before their eyes. There were many laws passed to keep African Americans separated from the public such as the Jim Crow Laws. They also imposed a poll tax, a literacy test, proof of residency, and other requirements for voting. They knew this would have a huge effect on African Americans because they could not afford to pay the poll tax, and it was illegal to teach African Americans so most of them were illiterate. Everyone started to see what the lawmakers were doing and how far they were willing to go to disfranchise black voters. Many Northern legislatures were enraged with how the South was taking ...
Slavery was an intrinsic part of North American history from the founding of the Jamestown colony in 1607 to the legal abolition of servitude in 1865. But our nation continues to grapple with the economic, political, social, and cultural impact of that peculiar institution to this day. Over seventy years after the end of the Civil War, the WPA Federal Writer’s Project sought to understand the impact which slavery had on the lives of African Americans who once lived under its yoke. In 1936-38, the Writer’s Project sent out-of-work writers to seventeen states to record the personal narratives of former slaves; the result was an outpouring of nearly 3,000 stories from men and women who were born into bondage and released into uncertain freedom early in their lives. The relatively small collection of 26 narratives gathered in Mississippi in these years reveals the complexities of African American life before and after emancipation. While this sample should not be read as indicative of the memory and experience of former slaves at large, it does raise important questions about the meaning of freedom, the failures of Reconstruction, and the perceived quality of life for blacks during and after slavery. A careful reading of the Mississippi narratives reveals nostalgia for the security and stability of slavery and an overwhelming dissatisfaction with the failed promises of freedom: “turned … loose, … lak a passel o’ cattle,” former slaves struggled to realize the concrete benefits of an abstract freedom and longed for better days;[1] This weary nostalgia must be recognized not as a rejection of freedom, but as a denunciation of the powers, which declared them fr...
On one hand the slaves were free, and on the other hand they were not given equal rights, and they were discriminated for the color of their skin tone. In other words, Reconstruction was a mixed success, which combined both positive and negative impacts. By the end of the era, the North and South were once again reunited, and all southern state legislatures had abolished slavery in their constitutions. However, it some sense, Reconstruction was a failure because blacks were not provided equal rights and opportunities. Racism and segregation did not end at all. On the other hand, there was a huge change to the country as the US was completely in a chaos stage during the civil war. Despite some obstructions, it can be concluded that the Reconstruction was somewhat beneficial for African American. As time passes, many schools and colleges were founded for blacks, and many other doors were opened to uplift their life. Overall, all these outcomes can be considered as a huge
During this period, African Americans were free but to them "land was essential to the meaning of freedom" (Foner 562). When President Andrew Johnson suceeded Lincoln he "ordered nearly all land in federal hands return to its former owners" (Foner 562). This caused "rural freed-people [to remain] poor and without property during Reconstruction" (Foner 563). Then President Andrew Johnson offered a pardon (which restored political and property rights, except for slaves) to nearly all white southerners who took an oath of allegiance" (Foner 569). The exemption turned most of the Republican North against the president and returned most white voters to Confederates (Foner 569). As the Reconstruction had success towards giving equal rights to all, it did not give equal rights to women. "Women tried to use the rewritten legal code and Constitution to claim equal rights [but] they found the courts unreceptitive" (Foner 578). Which "left the gender boundary largely intact" (Foner 578). The north was opposite of the souths support for Reconstruction. The northern states retreated from Reconstruction based on their racism towards the equal rights given to African American and the economic depression (Foner 587). Although the Reconstruction period had its share of failures, it also had its share of success. Without the good results of the Reconstruction,
Post-war Southerners were faced with daily dilemmas that prolonged the reconstruction period. “The Valley Virginian”, a local post-war southern newspaper, complains in 1866 that Northern radicals are forcing them out of office and are not concerned with the rebuilding period needed for the south to survive (Torget and Ayers, Two Communities in the Civil War, 217). This is in direct opposition to President Johnson’s Amnesty Proclamation, which gave an official pardon to Southerners that took part in the war. Furthermore, the proposed 14th Amendment disputed by ex-confederates, as argued in the “Vindicator”, was also in opposition to Johnson’s Amnesty Proclamation, and was also stopping Southerners to get proper representation in congress which would further delay reconstruction in Augusta County (Two Communities in the Civil War, 219). The limited government support was not helped by the fact that Union Soldiers war tactics devastated the previously flourishing farmland. William T. Sherman, a Union general, commanded troops to not only burn fields in a March from Atlanta to Savannah, but also destroy food supplies saved by Southerners during the winter months (Bailey, Sherman’s March to the Sea). The South, especially Augusta County, was extremely dependent on these fields and excess food
The reconstruction period which is the period of rebuilding the United States after the civil war is said to be a time of great pain, and endless questions to the United States (Gienapp, 2012). The Civil War led to the end of slavery, and three constitutional amendments which altered the nature of the African-American rights. The Thirteenth Amendment facilitated the abolishment of slavery in all territories, and states. What is more, the Fourteenth Amendment proscribed the US from depriving male citizens’ equal rights, and protection under the law, in spite of their race or color. Likewise, the Fifteenth Amendment granted all African-American males, the right to vote. All these changes and their ratification was a vital requirement for the Southerners to be re-admitted to the Union. As much as these changes were positive steps towards racial segregation, their enforcement proved difficult as the Southerners were against them, terming them as revenge, from the Northerners. The Southerners could not hold onto the idea that, black men could enjoy the same status as white men by being allowed to vote, and hold office (Reconstruction: American’s Unfinished Revolution, 2010).
Out of all the documents signed throughout history in attempt to benefit our country, Abraham Lincoln felt that his document, Emancipation Proclamation, was most important. On January 1, 1763, approaching the third year of the very bloody civil war, President Abraham Lincoln released the Proclamation which declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states, “ are, and henceforward shall be free”(U.S National Archives & Records Administration). However, this only applied to the states that had been labeled as being rebellion, not to the slaveholding border states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and the areas that the Confederacy had already come under the Union Control. Abraham Lincoln released the document at the right time to ensure that it would make a positive impact and change completely, the aim of the war. To this day, the Emancipation Proclamation shows an example of equality and cognizance (Weider History Group, n.p).
Andrew Johnson, who became President of the U.S. in 1865, had his own Reconstruction plan, but it turned out to be unsuccessful largely because of the unfair ways in which blacks were treated. According to his plan, pardons would be offered to all southern whites except wealthy Confederate supporters and the main Confederate leaders. Conventions were to be held by the defeated southern states and new state governments were to be formed. These new governments had to make a vow of loyalty to the nation and abolish slavery in order to rejoin the Union. However, this plan did not offer the blacks a role in this process; he left the responsibility of determining the black people’s roles to the southern states. Under his plan, new state governments were organized throughout the South during the summer and fall of 1865. These states governments passed a series of laws known as the Black Codes. These codes allowed employees to whip black workers, allowed states to jail unemployed blacks and to hire out their children, and forced blacks to sign labor contracts that required them to work a job for a full year. The Republicans in Congress believed that Johnson’s plan was a failure, not only because of the Black Codes that were passed, but because when Congress reassembled in December of 1865, numerous newly ele...
Abraham Lincoln, Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863), in Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil war, Ed. Michael P. Johnson (Boston: Bedford Books, 2011)
On March 4th, 1865, the Civil War was drawing to an end and Abraham Lincoln gave his Second Inaugural Address to become the President of the United States for the second time. At this point it was clear that the North was to win the war. Instead of boasting and bragging about his victory, Lincoln took a different route in his speech. He focused instead on putting the war behind the nation and reunifying the country. In this famous speech, he used various forms of rhetoric and literary devices to achieve this goal. He first employs the use of God to appeal to the pathos in the people of the North and South. The overall tone of the speech is also one of unification rather than that of celebration. Going with this is his word choice or diction; he continuously addresses the country as one instead of two split parts. These literary devices are crucial to the success of his core purpose of speech.