...After the American Civil War in 1865, the South and the country had to be rebuilt. Reconstruction is the period of time when the government helped rebuild the South after the American Civil War. However, Reconstruction was a complete failure because it lead to the Jim Crow laws and racial segregation in the South, and the Southern rural economy got worse. African American rights were suppressed and denied after Reconstruction. The Ku Klux Klan developed during Reconstruction; they murdered African Americans to prevent them from voting. After Reconstruction ended, the terrorist group assisted white Democrats in their rise to power by threatening African Americans so they would not vote. Also, African American rights were trampled and suppressed with poll taxes, literacy tests, and the grandfather clause. Poll taxes forced a voter to pay a tax in order to vote while literacy...
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...Reconstruction is the period that follows the civil war and is known as the rebuilding of the United States. It was a time full of great pain. Even after the military conflict ended reconstruction was still a war in many different ways. The struggle was waged by radical northerners who wanted to punish the Southerners who greatly wanted to preserve their way of life. Was reconstruction a success or a failure? In many ways, it was both. Reconstruction was a success because it restored the United States. Reconstruction also settled the states’ rights vs. federalism debate that was an issue since the 1970s. (Reconstruction, UShistory.org) In other ways Reconstruction was known as a failure. Radical Republican legislation initially failed to defend former slaves from white discrimination and failed to create changes to the South. The sharecropping system, which was a legal form of slavery that kept African Americans secured to land owned by wealthy white farmers, became common in the South. With minute economic power, African Americans had to fight for their rights by themselves,...
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...The Success and Failures of Reconstruction In the aftermath of the Civil War an arduous task of reconstruction lay ahead for the United States. Subsequently, the North and the South faced the many changes that were instituted. Mainly, it was the friction between the North and the South that prohibited success. Furthermore, Andrew Johnson's presidency evoked havoc on the then vulnerable country. Despite all, the addition of amendments resulted in some progress to the era; yet, states showed oppositions and formed groups and acts to disregard the amendments. In all, the Reconstruction era was deemed partly successful and partial failure; yet it did nullify slavery, granted voting rights to all males and ended segregation. After Abraham Lincoln's...
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...However, Reconstruction also failed in other areas, for instance Radical Reconstruction. This legislation was set up to protect former slaves from being persecuted by whites, and failed to produce rudimentary changes to the social fabric of the south. In 1877 president Rutherford B. Hayes removed troops from the south. Which resulted in former confederate officials and slave owners immediately regaining power. The newly empowered white politicians passed black codes with the help of a conservative Supreme Court. These anti-progressive legislations were to reverse the rights that blacks had gained during reconstruction. Sharecropping one of the many unfair civil rights against blacks after reconstruction , lead to them fighting for their...
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...One way that Reconstruction was a success was the Transcontinental Railroad. One way that Reconstruction was a failure was that the Black Codes came out of them. I think that it was more of a failure because after a while people didn’t care to try to continue Reconstruction. The Transcontinental Railroad was a success because it helped to connect the east to the west. This was an important idea for Reconstruction because the railroad would help to promote nationalism. The idea of promoting nationalism again is important because the country needed to be united again. This was a success for Reconstruction because the country was broken and needed to be connected again, this idea was going to mend the wounds. On the other hand, the Black Codes...
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...The Undefined Reconstruction When thinking about the era of Reconstruction after the Civil War what comes to mind? It is known as a period of rebuilding and piecing together broken parts. In this case, America was broken into two parts and needed fixing. The question is did Reconstruction succeed in doing so? Some may say that the Reconstruction was a failure and didn't actually put an end to slavery and still left the country divided. Others may say that it still took a step towards the right direction and fixed issues. When we assess the outcomes, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment would now take a step towards ending slavery and giving African American the rights they deserved. However many groups like the KKK arose because of this and White...
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...Reconstruction in post –Civil war America, is perhaps one of the most educational periods in American history. As the first attempt at interracial democracy, it is natural for it to be deemed as a success or a failure. However, this decision is rather controversial. Success can be defined as the accomplishment of a person or people’s aim or purpose. The aim of reconstruction was to reunite the nation after the Civil war. In doing so, it would also aim to forge a fair system of labor that would replace slavery entirely as well as grant newly freed slaves rights with which they could seek to forge the equality of all citizens regardless of race. While it is clear that Reconstruction did not accomplish all it had set out to do, it did house several...
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...On April 9, 1865, the Civil War officially ended with both the North and South in debt, and with most of the South in ruins. The condition of the South was in a poorer condition than the North, attributable to the fact that the South was agrarian-base, most battles took place on their soil, and the North used total war in order to completely destroy the South. As a result of the post-Civil War condition of the United States, the Reconstruction became necessary to patch the country up and reunite the nation as one again. However, because of the death of Abraham Lincoln, the Reconstruction had only few successes with considerable failures. In the Reconstruction, there were only a few parts and aspects that were successful. For one, the Reconstruction...
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...Major damage was done to the South during the Civil War, so Reconstruction was done to mend the war devastation. While repairs were being done for the ruined South, Reconstruction has even met some opposition; those obstacles served to have as much long-term effects on Reconstruction as the support. Because of the events that affected Reconstruction, there has been debate on whether Reconstruction was a success or failure. Reconstruction in the South after the Civil War was, despite some of its successes, was a failure in history, because of Andrew Johnson’s Presidency, interference by the white people who were against Reconstruction, the Democrat party, and what happened with the rights of the Afro-Americans. To begin with, Andrew Johnson...
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...Reconstruction And The New South Sandra Michelli HIS 125 June 23, 2013 Paul Sunderman Reconstruction and The New South 1. Columbian historian Eric Foner (1983) quotes W. E. B. DuBois in calling Reconstruction a “splendid failure (p. 16).” After studying the events of the late 19th century, defend whether or not you agree with his position. What are the long-term implication? “A Splendid Failure”, a statement made by the African American Historian. W.E.B. Du Bois has been used to describe what some see as the best way to describe the results of the Reconstruction Era. So the question one has to ask is if this remark is actually true. Was Reconstruction a 100% failure or where there some success that came out of this time period in American History? I would say that it was neither, that in fact there were some success and there were some failures. The best way to describe my point is to use what the Military calls and After Action Report and see what these success and failures were. In looking at success of the Radical Reconstruction period the first one that stands out is in fact some say the reason the United States split and ended up in the bloody Civil War. That being the fact that Slavery was abolished. It was now once and for all illegal for a person to own another person as property. Schools for blacks were being created that had not existed before. Schools such as Salem University which was founded in Mississippi in 1872 would not have existed had access...
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... so does all of their “Radical Movements”. One such movement was reconstruction. Reconstruction was a period in our nations time some of us would like to forget. Can it really be said, though, that reconstruction was a complete failure? That all it did was make times hard for freed slaves in the U.S. I for one think that Reconstruction was both a success and a failure. When reconstruction first began in 1865, the people of America had just gotten over the brutal and destructive Civil War. In actually, reconstruction...
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...After the Civil War ended in 1865, a series of “repair” started. Reconstruction, happened between 1865 to 1877. It attempted to rebuild the broken nation politically, economically, and socially. Also, it was meant to rejoin the South and the North together. The Union congress felt the south should be punished before they rejoin the nation and have all their rights reinstated. However, it had made some success during the Civil War, but there were more failures at some degrees brought by the South. The Confederacy attempted to appease many of the conditions to become states again; they still didn’t want to give the former slaves actual rights. In many ways the Reconstruction era can be considered both a failure and a success. But it ended the...
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...Within the hostile environment of the south the Freedmen’s Bureau was created to reintegrate back into society after slavery. Historians have long debated the question of the failure and successfulness of the freedman’s Bureau. Some have come to agree that the Bureau was both shorthanded and underfunded. Historians biggest criticism of the Bureau is that it failed to secure land for most freedmen, this intern made the freedmen vulnerable to Southern white manipulations and contributed to the loss of their newly won civil rights. However, by using these scholarly I will be able to prove the argument that the freedman’s Bureau was more of an unpredictable and a fail attempt by the U. S government. These scholarly sources will help look at...
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...After the Civil War, the South entered an era of unbalanced happiness. Houses and business buildings that once stood now laid on the floor, either after having been burned or collapsed from the state they were in. About 2.5 billion dollars in human property had been lost.Railroads and Factories had been destroyed. Cities such as Atlanta and Columbia had been nearly burnt to the ground. Reconstruction was necessary indeed. Since newly freed slaves had no home, along with the rest of the population in the South, it was necessary to reconstruct the south. That way citizens wouldn't have to live in harmful unhealthy conditions. Probably the biggest...
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...to an end. One such movement was Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a time period in America consisting of many leaders, goals and accomplishments. Though, like all things in life, it did come to an end, the resulting outcome has been labeled both a success and a failure. When Reconstruction began in 1865, a broken America had just finished fighting the Civil War. In all respects, Reconstruction was mainly just that. It was a time period of “putting back the pieces”, as people say. It was the point where America attempted to become a full running country once more. This, though, was not an easy task. The memory of massive death was still in the front of everyone’s mind, hardening into resentment and sometimes even hatred. The south was virtually non-existent politically or economically, and searching desperately for a way back in. Along with these things, now living amongst the population were almost four million former slaves, who had no idea how to make a living on their own. They had been freed by the 13th amendment in 1865, and in the future became a great concern to many political leaders. Still, it was no secret that something had to be done. So, as usually happens, political leaders appeared on the stage, each holding their own plan of Reconstruction, each certain their ideas were the correct ones. One of the first people who came up with a blueprint for Reconstruction was the president at the time, Abraham Lincoln. The “Lincoln Plan” was a very open one, stating that...
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