Reconstruction Dbq

“…the slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery” (W.E.B. Dubois). Reconstruction was an era, from 1863 to 1877, used to rebuilt the damage done in the South by the Civil War. Many people resisted in the South, so it was difficult to carry out the new ideas of Reconstruction. Rebuilding the United States was not an easy task, only lasted 12 years ending in 1877. The Compromise of 1877 settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election, which was pulled federal troops out of state in the South, and ended the Reconstruction Era. The United State come up with three Amendment to help the African Americans there are the 13th Amendment: ended slavery, 14th Amendment: gave blacks Americans citizenship and civil rights and the last one was the 15th Amendment: right to vote. Was the North or South to be blamed for ending the period of rebuilding in the United State after the Civil War? Reconstruction is the process of rebuilding or reorganizing

During the 19th and 20th centuries America as we know was going thorugh the biggest changes imaginable. Their were several changes both locally and globally that contributed to this matter. Ranging from matters that plague every nation to some known specifically to the United States. Examples we as a class and growing nation have come to understand are Population growth, Industrialization, and immigration. Still a young nation, on the ending time of Reconstruction how could a nation learn to adapt to these things with such a “hostile takeover” in the foreseeable future cooperate?

After the Civil War, between 1865 and 1877, was a period known as Reconstruction which was a time of rebuilding the United States. Reconstruction was a failure for three main reasons, segregation became more prominent, slaves were still unprotected, and economical obstacles became a substantial problem. Reconstruction was meant to be a time period of rebuilding and unifying the North and South into one undivided nation of compromise. There were many goals of this period such as reorganizing the Southern states, readmitting them into the Union, and setting rules against slavery so blacks and whites could live in an equal society.

After the Civil War, reconstruction was considered unsuccessful because it did not help the ethnic tensions between black and white people. Although, black people were free from slavery with the help of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendment; they still were being treated unfairly against white people. When Andrew Johnson was elected president after the assassination of Lincoln, he vetoed bills that would help black people; he made it easy for the Confederate states to come back into the Union without guaranteeing the equal rights to blacks. Andrew Johnson allowed the returning southern states to enact “black codes”, which made the freed slaves like serfs, working on plantations and forced with hard labor. For instance, Mississippi

The United States was a very divided country between the North and the South in the 19th century. “Reconstruction was a vicious and destructive experience, a period where when vindictive Northerners inflicted humiliation and revenge on the divided south” (Brinkley 351). During the time of reconstruction, President Lincoln and Andrew Johnson had large plans for the country but shortly took a sharp turn of the unexpected, radicals put in the Black Codes and amendments into the law, and the south had “redeemed” itself and began to rebuild.

Reconstruction is often thought of as something that happened in the South. But events there were part of a much broader transformation. Far beyond the ex-Confederacy, the United States embarked on an ambitious process of nation building. (A. 446) The U.S. Constitution does not address the question of how to restore rebellious states. After the Civil War, the nation had to determine whether the Confederate states, upon seceding, had legally left the Union. If so, then their reentry required action by Congress. If not — if even during secession they had retained their constitutional status — then restoring these states might be an administrative matter, best left to the president. Lack of clarity on this fundamental question made for explosive politics. In the early years of Reconstruction, the president and Congress struggled over who was in charge. Only by winning this fight did Republicans in Congress open the way for the sweeping achievements of radical Reconstruction. (A. 447) As of 1877, all of the Confederate states had drafted new constitutions, recognized the new Amendments set forth (the 13th, 14th, and 15th), and had fully pledged their loyalty to the United States government. This allowed for the settling of states’ rights vs. federalism debate that had been ongoing since the mid1790s. While Reconstruction was a success on many fronts, there

The Civil War is known most commonly as the war that freed the slaves, but when the war ended and all was said and done, were the slaves really all that free? The war sent the United States into ‘Reconstruction’, a period of around eleven years where the war’s aftershock, the new laws on slavery, and the backlash that came with these laws was dealt with. After the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were passed and slavery was officially illegalized, things took a pretty big change of course. The previous slave-owners were at a loss for what to do, and in a way so were the newly freed African Americans. Both parties had grown to rely on each other in order to support themselves and survive, and that relationship would continue to

The Reconstruction, the rebuilding after the civil war. Who destroyed it? The North. After the Civil War, the North and the South had tried to rebuild. While they were rebuilding, certain groups of people started to form, there were the Freedmen, the Radical Republicans, the Carpetbaggers, the Scalawags, and the Ku Klux Klan or rather, the KKK.

After the Civil War, there was a lot of rebuilding and reconstruction to be done but, nothing ever got accomplished. Personally, I think the North is at fault for the failure of reconstruction in the South because, they were concerned about blacks being a part of the government. Also, they were concerned the problems going on in their own government. Northerner’s were supposed to support the reconstruction of the South. And, they didn’t follow through with what they said they were going to do to help. So, here’s why the North is at fault.

After the war Republicans had considerable power and the Democratic party was in shambles, which led to them having their own objectives and visions of Reconstruction. (Nash, et al., 2007., p. 468) Congressional Republicans feared losing their power and attempted to set the tone of Reconstruction by passing a civil rights bill in 1866, refused to seat members from the former Confederacy, and investigated conditions in the South, which led to the passage of the Reconstruction acts that divided the South into five districts. (Nash, et al., 2007., pp. 472-473, 476) Republicans also moved against President Johnson as they reduced the expanded power of the executive branch and eventually impeached him. (Nash, et al., 2007., p. 476) Democrats also had a vested interest in Reconstruction as after the war the party was in shambles and had to grapple for the power to push their interests over the Congressional Republicans. This power contest led to unsavory tactics in the South such as the Mississippi Plan, which was devised as an intimidation tactic to force people to vote Democratic. (Nash,

For Section 1, it will be the answer response of yes. My thesis for this section is “Yes, the Reconstruction Era was a success because it amalgamated the nation.” President Lincoln intentions wasn’t to punish the South but to restore them back to the country. It was a success because it destroyed the idea of Confederacy for good. One key point I’m using in order to back up this statement is the passing of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendment. The Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery in the United States, the Fourteenth defines citizenship, protects all Americans, and grants birthright citizenship to freed slaves, and finally the Fifteenth gave the African Americans the opportunity to participate equally in government by giving

It was interesting to read the different perspectives from people who lived during the reconstruction in the mid to late 1800s. Although these documents were written by people of diverse race, status, and political stance, there were some common observations.

2. Thesis: Even though African Americans were given many freedoms and rights due to laws, amendments, and acts of congress during Reconstruction, the rise of white supremacy groups, the passing of the Amnesty Act and end of the Freedmen’s Bureau, and Supreme Court decisions that undermined the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments caused Reconstruction to collapse and fail in giving African American the rights intended for them.

In reviewing this week’s reading assignment and the attend section; it appears that the Reconstruction was not as successful as it should have been. I believe it was due to the assassination of Lincoln and with Andrew Johnson taking over as President, he did not want a lot of what Lincoln put in place due to his own stubbornness, beliefs, as well as his racist convictions, which

" If the Reconstruction of the Southern states...had been conceived as a major national program of America, whose accomplishments at any price was well worth the effort, we should be living today in a different world... The attempts to make black men American citizens was in a certain sense all a failure, but a splendid failure." _ W.E.B Du Bios