In 1865 The Civil War, a war which lasted four years, completely destroyed the South, and freed about 4 million slaves had finally ended. The period of Reconstruction was when the South rebuilt what had been destroyed and the South and North joined back together. The Nation also had to solve many problems including how the recently freed slaves would fit into society. Reconstruction was a failure for the Freedmen because Freedmen got to peruse their rights and not live in fear for minimal time, until President Grant did not run again for president and Rutherford Hayes became president leading to the former groups who terrorized the Freedmen to reorganize. In addition, a start to segregation began due to troops being removed from the South …show more content…
One illustration of the rights of Freedmen being limited is the act of the Jim Crows laws, which were created during Reconstruction. These laws according to Jim Crow & Plessy Vs. Ferguson, “discriminated against African-Americans and Immigrants” President Grant had chosen not to run for president again and people believed that the election of 1876 was rigged. so Rutherford Hayes was chosen to be president with the condition of the Compromise of 1877. The Compromise of 1877 had intended to help the South more than the North which caused the South to gain power in the government, which ultimately affected Freedmen's rights. This is because Jim Crow laws, laws on voting intending to discriminate against freedmen were ratified. These laws included Poll Taxes which were taxes that were charged when a person went to go vote but since sharecropping was unsuccessful for freedmen they could not afford to pay the poll taxes thus not allowing them to vote. To insure that this law would not affect the poor white people, more Jim Crow laws were introduced. These included the Grandfather Clause and Literacy tests. The Grandfather clause states that if your grandfather or father could vote before the year of 1867, then you could vote. However, slaves gained the right to vote through the 15th Amendment in 1869 which meant this law would not apply to them. The literacy tests were tests that …show more content…
Freedmen were further left out of an important part of their society due to their abilities, which meant they Reconstruction did not have a positive impact on the way the were treated and integrated into the newly developed society. Another example of freedmen's rights being extremely limited was the segregation they faced. During Reconstruction the public started to feel frustration with the Grant Administration because of many events that occurred such as the Amnesty Act. The Amnesty Act disappointed many Republicans because it allowed Ex-Confederate Southerners to vote and allowed Democrats from the South to join the government. Grant did not run again and Rutherford Hayes was chosen to be president causing the Compromise of 1877. This Compromise benefited the South and with the increasing participation in the government, they set a goal to harm the Freedmen. According to the American Journey, “By the 1890s, segregation, or the separation of the races had become a common feature of the South...The facilities were separate but in no way equal. Southern states spent much more money on schools and other facilities for whites than for African Americans” As seen in the quote above, The South did
Who killed reconstruction? An increase of freedom for slaves took place during the Reconstruction era which occurred twelve years after the Civil War. There was attempt to reconstruct the South which was ended in 1877 by the South. The South was filled with white supremacist, known as the Klu Klux Klan, that opposed Reconstruction and rights toward Freedmen.
The victory of the Civil War in 1865 may have given slaves their freedom, but the progression of rebuilding the South during the Reconstruction period introduced a new set of substantial challenges for America. The death of President Abraham Lincoln took American by surprise. President Lincoln was not clear of his plan of Reconstruction, therefore when Andrew Johnson took over presidency he had to improvise. Under the administration of President Andrew Johnson, new southern state legislatures passed restrictive “black codes” to control the labor and the behavior of former slaves and other African Americans. After President Johnson enforced that rule, an outrage in the North over the “Black Codes” eroded support for the approach, which was
The reconstruction era of the United Sates was from 1865 to 1877 following the civil war, during this period attempts were made to solve the political, social and economic problems arising from the readmission to the union of the confederate states. After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, President Andrew Johnson further alienated congress by continuing Lincoln’s moderate policies but the radical republicans had different plans and ideas of how everything was to be executed. The Union, mainly congress felt that it was necessary to punish the former confederacy before those states were allowed to rejoin the nation and have all their rights reinstated. The confederacy attempted to appease many of the requirements set by congress to become
The Wade-Davis Bill was pocket vetoed by Lincoln but they were able to create the Freedman’s Bureau which was designed to help African Americans. While there were failures, there were triumphs which included Civil Rights Act of 1866, 13th, and 14th Amendment. This was a step forward for African American freedoms but Southerners unhappy with these changes formed the Ku Klux Klan committing mass murders and race riots to intimidate African Americans. The tone of Reconstruction changed in 1867 with Radical Reconstruction and pass the First Reconstruction Act.
In response to the minimalist expansion of freedoms and equality during the Presidential Reconstruction period, the Republican controlled Congress exerted its own controls in a progressive attempt to protect and expand rights. Legislatively, Congress expanded federal oversight and protections, and passed a series of revolutionary rights laws to guarantee the rights of the recently freed slaves who faced oppression by reactionary forces. Through the passage and ratification of the 14th Amendment, Congress defined citizenship, established equal protections before the law for all people, and expanded the individual protections of the Constitution to the states. Additionally, the Republican Congress consistently overrode Presidential vetoes to
Respectively, it is through the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments that slaves were guaranteed freedom. Some of the freedoms include: the right to vote, receive an education, have their own property, get married and even hold a political office. By the 1868, the progression in civil liberties offered to the black community yielded fruit as the voter turnaround was much greater since many of them were able to register as
The reconstruction was a period during US history, which took place after the Civil War when the South restructured into the Union from 1865 to 1877. The end of reconstruction was a justification that freed all African Americans from slavery. Although they had set this decision and law, African Americans still suffered from social, economic and political barriers, which caused major tension between blacks and whites. The civil rights act of 1875, racial discrimination was banned from public facilities, such as schools or public transportations. The fourteenth amendment protected people against violations of their civil rights b states, not by the actions of the individuals.
The nation’s mindset revolved around white supremacy, so African Americans were never viewed as human beings, rather, they were viewed as property and white people despised them. White males did not have any respect towards African Americans because they were considered property, so they were put to work as slaves. Once slavery was abolished and president Andrew Johnson heard that congress was planning to grant formerly enslaved people to be viewed as citizens through the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, he immediately vetoed the bill. Johnson was a racist and former slave owner who said, “this is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am president, it shall be a government for white men.” The president was the person that
The Reconstruction Era lasted from 1865-1877 and the United states was experiencing massive transformation. President Lincoln had been planing for Reconstruction but was Assassinated one week after the War ended. Lincoln’s Vice President, Andrew Johnson took over presidency and shortly continued Lincoln 's ideas. Johnson then announced his own plan for Reconstruction in May of 1865. Reconstruction was a challenging and lengthy time period dealing with Lincoln’s plan, Johnson 's plan, and the Ku Klux Klan.
The Republican nominee, Ulysses S. Grant, was elected president by a very slim margin in 1868 which led to Congress ratifying the Fifteenth Amendment only a year later. The third and final amendment of the era prohibited the state and federal governments from refusing any citizen the right to vote based on their race or prior condition of servitude. Although the law stated that any citizen had the right to vote, it failed to include women. Female rights advocates saw the Reconstruction Era as a time to claim their own emancipation, as the African-Americans were doing at the time. Women took advantage of the time and started to demand liberty for divorce laws, the recognition that they had control over their own bodies, and birth control.
However, much of their effort was met by opposition from President Andrew Johnson whose appointment was the result of Lincoln’s assassination. The President had been a major advocate for the North and what it represented during the war though his ultimate, goal was to empower the South’s white middle class and end the reign of wealthy planters. Consequently, because of his blatant bias Congress had overridden the President’s veto on both the Civil Rights Bill and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which defined rights for all individuals born in the United States (extending to African Americans). Also, establishing the Freedmen’s Bureau which was an agency that provided aid to newly freed
Since the Compromise ended Reconstruction, it harmed the former slaves. During Reconstruction, the North had imposed true democracy on the South. It had protected African Americans and their political and social rights. But the Southern whites, as a group overall, hated Reconstruction. They also hated the fact that the freed slaves had political rights.
That is something only around 20% of blacks can do. If some day, every black man and women were able to vote, then that would mean that we would have more power in the world, maybe even policial power! Literacy tests and poll taxes helped forward the civil rights of people by making blacks stand up for themselves and whites realizing how they were being treated unfairly. Literacy Tests and Poll taxes were rules that people needed to follow in order to register to vote. Literacy Tests were tests that people needed to take, but they were very hard and had multiple answers.
It took years for the United States government to allow any other individual except a white man to vote. Black men weren’t granted the right tot vote until the 15th amendment and woman till the 19th amendment, both happened within the last 150
Blacks were denied the right to vote by grandfather clauses (laws that restricted the right to vote to people whose ancestors had voted before the Civil War), poll taxes (fees charged to poor Blacks), white primaries (only Democrats could vote, only Whites could be Democrats), and literacy tests ("Name all the Vice Presidents and Supreme Court Justices throughout America's history"). Plessy sent this message to southern and border states: Discrimination against Blacks is acceptable. The Jim Crow laws and system of etiquette were undergirded by violence, real and threatened. Blacks who violated Jim Crow norms, for example, drinking from the White water fountain or trying to vote, risked their homes, their