Essy on Reconstruction college essay help los angeles Public Relations online class help

Period America’s gone through many political changes throughout it’slifetime. Leaders and their ideas for the future have come and gone, all of them leaving their own mark on the country. History takes it course, though, and with it comes the beginnings and ends of revolutionary movements. One of these movements was Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a time period in America consisting of many leaders, goals, failures and accomplishments. Though, like all things in life, it came to an end.

The outcome of Reconstruction has been labeled a success and a failure both. When Reconstruction started in 1865, we had Just finished fghting in the Civil War. Reconstruction was a time period of trying to put the pieces of a broken America back together. It was a point in time that America tried to become a full running country once again. It wasn’t easy, though. Death was a recent memory still burned into everybodys minds, turning into resentment. The South was almost non-existent, both politically and economically, trying to find a way back in.

Amongst all this, there were almost four million former slaves who didn’t have a clue how to make a living on their wn. They were freed by the thirteenth Amendment in 1865, and soon became a concern to political leaders. Something had to be done, and nobody made a secret about it. A few leaders came forward with their own ideas for Reconstruction, and each of them were sure that their idea was the right one. Abraham Lincoln, the Reconstruction. “The Lincoln Plan” was an open one, and it stated that if a certain criteria were met a Confederate state could return to the union.

The state had to have ten percent of voters accept emancipation of slaves, swear loyalty to the union, nd high ranking officers of state could not carry out voting rights unless the president said so. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated before he could test his plan. After his death the Republican Party, who called themselves The Radical Republicans, emerged with their own idea about Reconstruction. They had two main objectives. First, they were mad at the South and blamed them for the Civil War and wanted to punish them. Second, they wanted to help the four million freed slaves.

They felt that the slaves needed protection and wanted to do that. There were three main Radical Republican leaders. They were Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner and President Andrew Johnson. Thaddeus was a political man who held a place in the House of Representatives. His main concern was the economic opportunity for slaves. He wanted them to know how to make a living on their own. Charles Sumner was a senator who mostly fought for African American political rights and their citizenship. He thought that the “All men are created equal” part of the Constitution should be for everybody.

For men, that is. Most likely due to the fact that Johnson was Lincolns Vice President, he had a Reconstruction plan that Just about mirrored the former Presidents. Many Radicals did not approve, though. They felt he went over the limit with 13,000 pardons, and he wasn’t paying attention to the major issue, the rights of slaves. In 1868 Johnson was impeached. Congress stepped in with their own plan for Reconstruction and it was passed. They had two main objectives to it, though. First, the troops were to move in and reside in the confederate states in the South.

Second, any state that wanted back into the Union was only allowed to do so if they changed their 14th amendment. They also had to agree that everybody born in the U. S were citizens and they were to be treated fairly and as equals by the law. In 1870, black men were granted the vote as well. The fourteenth amendment (Doc 2) guarantees that everybody born in the U. S are entitled equal protection of the law, and that no state could deprive a person of life, property, or liberty without due process of law. It also stated that all male citizens are allowed to vote.

If they were prevented from voting, that state would lose the same amount of congressional seats as the percentage of people kept from voting. Congress took to the fourteenth amendment nd attempted to have the states to approve it. Every state but Tennessee rejected it, and it wasn’t ratified until 1868. The fifteenth amendment (Doc 3) states that “The rights of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the U. S or any State based on race, color, or previous servitude”. This amendment guarantees that everybody can vote no matter what.

It was mostly focusing on the slaves, though, since nobody wanted blacks to have the same rights as regular people. The amendment was ratified by the states in 1870, and was an important victory for the Radicals. Some governments refused to enforce the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments and some white Southerners used violence to prevent African Americans from voting. Since they did that, Congress passed the Enforcement Act of 1870, which gave the Federal Government more power to punish those who tried to stop African Americans from using their rights.

The Ku Klux Klan (Doc 6) is a group of Tennessee in 1866. By 1868, the Ku Klux Klan was in every Southern state. They wanted to restore white supremacy in everybody, that way African Americans couldn’t exercise their political rights. The Klan was very violent; they killed thousands of men, women, and children. They burned schools, churches, and peoples property. They didn’t do all of that by themselves, though, there were other groups that helped. Their purpose was to enforce the fourth amendment to the Constitution.

They were also convinced that Reconstruction was antagonistic and regressive toward the White Americans. I consider the Ku Klux Klan a failure of Reconstruction. The KKK still exist today in several places across the country. , The excerpt from Susie Taylor Kings memoir (Doc 9) shows that black Americans are still not free in 1870. A lot of them are, but depending on where they live, the whites still treat them like theyre pieces of meat. It says, “In the “land of the free” we are burned, tortured, and denied a fair trial, murdered for any imaginary wrong conceived in the brain of the negro-hating white man.

There is no redress for us from a government which promised to protect all under its flag. It seems a mystery to me. They say, “One flag, one nation, one country indivisible” She claims that all of the Southland laws are on the side of the whites, and that the song “America, the beautiful” is Just hollow mockery. I agree, though. Since they were still being punished for things they did not do, and it really is not the “land of the free” since some of the African Americans were not free. And it can’t be the land of the free if half of the people living on the land are not.

In todays society, the white people’s actions toward blacks aren’t as bad. But there are still some people who are totally and completely unnecessarily rude towards them and don’t think they are as good as a white person. This, I consider a failure of Reconstruction as well. The Reconstruction Act looked good on paper, but like always in politics, somebody had to rock the boat. During the presidential election of 1876, Democrat Samuel Tilden was running up against Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. A group called a “commission” was set up to figure out the outcome.

The result was the Compromise of 1877. In the compromise the winner was Hayes, and both parties agreed. Hayes won even though Tilden had the popular vote. There was something else that was really important, though. The Military occupation in the Southern states was stopped.. Without military forces to back up the freed slaves, there was nothing to keep the Southerners from taking advantage of them. And that’s exactly what they did. Since the Southerners knew they couldn’t directly disobey the law, they set up their own laws which they called Black Codes.

The Black Codes put hard restrictions on the African Americans. So even though the protection laws were in place, they didn’t do much good with nobody there to enforce them. They also passed something called Voter Qualifications and other anti-progressive legislation in attempt to reverse the rights the blacks had gained. This is when Reconstruction ended. The U. S. S. C supported this movement with decisions in the Slaughterhouse Cases, Civil Rights Cases, and United Stated vs. Cruikshank. It effectively repealed the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

I feel like the successes of Reconstruction outweigh the failures, but a couple of the failures outweigh all of the successes. It was a success in that the Union unified by 1877, the laws passed helped protect the freedmen’s right to vote and speak, and they made a Bureau Just for the The Compromise of 1877 made sure that Hayes won, and then the South was set free. The Enforcement Act banned the use of bribery, terror, and force to prevent anybody from voting because of their race. It reinforced the Thirteenth Amendment which ave slaves freedom. The Enforcement Act seemed to be passed because of the Ku Klux Klan, which is a failure.

The Ku Klux Klan used a lot of violence and terror and heartlessly killed the innocent people who were Just learning how to survive on their own. The KKK was Just afraid that the former slaves would get too comfortable with their freedom and start to do better than the whites, and they were afraid of change. The whole point of Reconstruction was to unify the states and free the slaves. The slaves were freed, but it didn’t feel like it to them. Some whites still used violence and ere against the idea of them voting and having normal human rights.