What Are The Effects Of Reconstruction By Eric Foner

1449 Words6 Pages

The Reconstruction Era “witnessed a profound experiment in reshaping the social and political institutions [of the United States]” wrote Eric Foner, a historian specializing in the Civil War and Reconstruction. Foner’s expertise is shown is his novel, Forever Free the African American’s story of their history in the Civil War, an American war fought between the North’s Union and the South’s Confederate States of America in the mid-19th century that stemmed from the sectional issue of slavery, and the Reconstruction, the period following this war as the government reshaped and the United States acknowledged the rights of freed slaves. Foner discussed how a low number of people could identify the Reconstruction and its effect on history, and …show more content…

A main issue stemming from the results of the Civil War was the formation of white terrorist and supremacist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan. They resorted to ferocity and harassment to try to prevent the freed people from living the rights they deserved. For instance, “black political leaders faced the constant threat of violence, an endemic feature of post-Civil War southern society” confirmed the white supremacists’ goal of turning away African Americans (Foner 134). Simultaneously, the Compromise of 1877 brought the overall end to the Reconstruction efforts. In an attempt to reunite the government, a compromise was made to satisfy both sides of the government. The final agreement stated that if the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, “became president, he would recognize Democratic control of the entire South and refrain from further intervention in southern affairs” (Foner 198). Unfortunately, without the northern intervention, the Democrats governed the South with the idea that African Americans were not equal to them, causing negative effects while leaving the Reconstruction Era. Therefore, these arising issues began to nullify the work completed in the earlier part of the

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