Attempts to Mends the Nation During the Reconstruction Era

To the Radical Republicans, Johnson's plan seemed no better than Lincoln's because it failed to address the needs of former slaves in three prominent areas: land, voting rights, and protection under the law. Confederates states, however, readily committed to the conditions put forth in the Presidential Reconstruction plan, and were readmitted to the Union. A few years later, the Reconstruction Act of 1867 was passed, which did not recognize the governments formed under Lincoln and Johnson's plans. Through the Reconstruction Act, Tennessee was the only former Confederate State recognized as having been readmitted to the Union because it had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. In order for the rest of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union through the Reconstruction Act, each state had to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, also. The Republicans introduced the Fifteenth Amendment after the election of 1868 because they feared that Pro-Confederate Southern whites might try to place limits on black suffrage. In order to prevent this, the Fifteenth Amendment states that no one can be kept from voting because of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Through the different plans that were proposed by the three different Presidents in office during the Reconstruction period, the Thirteenth,

Presidential reconstruction, alongside Lincoln and Johnson had a political goal of re-entering the south into the Union. Politically, the south needed to swear loyalty oaths to the Union before being allowed to participate and hold any offices. Johnson’s plan specifically did not offer a role to blacks in the political world. Socially, those in the north did not want to see these southerners rejoin so quickly with ease, and made sure others knew. The plan was to rejoin the south to the Union, regardless of their crimes. Economically, they wanted to see the Union together again to repair the country and thrive as a whole. Congressional reconstruction had different goals. First off, politically, those who supported congressional or radical reconstruction believed that blacks should have just as many rights politically and such as those who were white. Socially, they wanted to punish the south for the things they had done as a Confederacy and they also wanted to help and protect the African Americans. Economically, they did not approve of Lincoln’s plan, finding it too lenient and therefore taking action to benefit them and destruct the

Reconstruction is the period of rebuilding the south that succeeded the Civil War (1861-1865). This period of time is set by the question now what? The Union won the war and most of the south was destroyed. Devastation, buildings turned into crumbles and lost crops. The South was drowning in poverty. To worsen the situation there were thousands of ex-slaves that were set free by the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13 Amendment. "All these ex-slaves", Dr. Susan Walens commented, "and no place to put them," The ex-slaves weren't just homeless but they had no rights, unlike white man. The government and congress had to solve the issues present in the south and the whole nation

Johnson issued thirteen though sand five hundred Presidential pardons to those he earlier hoped to keep out. There were many ex-Confederates who were elected to Congress. Also the state legislatures in the south demoted blacks to a second class status, and this was known as the Black Codes. These codes states blacks were not allowed to vote, be on juries, testify against whites, could not interracially marry, and it was most unfair in Mississippi and South Carolina. Johnson like Lincoln wanted to restore the Union in as little time as possible.

Reconstruction was a period of time after the Civil War (1865-1877) that was supposed to be the rebuilding of America. It was also the process used to readmit all the Confederate states back into the Union. There was controversy, however, on how to go about rebuilding the nation. Abraham Lincoln proposed a lenient plan. After he was assassinated, Andrew Johnson proposed a very similar plan. The Radical Republicans, a group of legislators that were in favor of freedmen’s rights, were opposed to both plans under “Presidential Reconstruction”. They initiated “Congressional Reconstruction”. Because of the conflicting views, there was little cooperation between the Executive and Legislative branches. This lead to many unsuccessful

The South being readmitted into the Union was one main goal of Reconstruction. Another main goal was for the American society to define the status of freedom. Establishing order, securing the rights of each man, and readmit America into a nation again are tasks of Reconstruction. There were three main Reconstruction Plans: Lincoln’s, Johnson’s and Congress, which applied a plan to unify the nation.

As soon as President Andrew Johnson signed a Proclamation which promised order and peace to the United States on August 20th, 1865, the Civil War was formally ended. Though the Confederates had been dominated, there was still a battle to preserve the Southern lifestyle against the impeding Northern republican ideals. President Lincoln had plans to peacefully restore the country to the Union it was prior to the war, but his assassination created set-backs to his plan. While both the North and the South were working toward reconciliation in the nation, the north was more interested in creating a controlling, centralized government while the south was concerned with protecting and preserving their southern customs and ideals. While there were many attempts at reconstructing, the Reconstruction era ultimately failed at unifying the Union under agreed terms due to the constant disagreements between the north and the south.

After the Civil War, the United States had many problems to solve. The country had to figure out how to integrate newly freed slaves into society and bring the former Confederate states back into the Union. Reconstruction was period of time after the civil war in which the United States addressed these problems. Reconstruction had two different phases: Presidential Reconstruction took place from 1865 to 1867, and Congressional Reconstruction took place from 1867 to 1877. Presidential Reconstruction began with Abraham Lincoln, who proposed the Proclamation of Amnesty and the ten percent oath plan. Lincoln was focused on leniency and forgiveness; under his plan southerners would take an oath of loyalty to the Union, and after only ten percent of a state’s voters had taken this oath, the state could be readmitted. After Lincoln’s assassination, Andrew Johnson took over Reconstruction. Johnson wanted to punish landowners, but liberally handed out pardons, as he greatly enjoyed the power that he had over southerners. Under Johnson, former confederates were re-elected, and southern states discriminated blacks. Eventually, Congress took over Reconstruction. During Congressional Reconstruction, the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments were passed, and the freedman’s bureau was created. Overall, the failures of Reconstruction outweighed the failures because it took a very long time for it to achieve its goals, and the South was still able to

The original purpose of Reconstruction was to restore the buildings and the economy of the south the best they could, but without the immoral element of slavery. But, reconstruction under the Johnson Presidency was a failure for a few reasons: 1) Convict Leasing, 2) Sharecropping, 3) the Ku Klux Klan, 4) Segregation in schools, even in the North, 5) Carpetbaggers/Scalawags, 6) misleading statistics, and 7) racism.

His stance on reconstruction was similar to Lincoln’s, in that he was not as harsh on the South as the Radical Republicans in Congress wanted. In May 1865, Johnson issued his Amnesty Proclamation, which required an oath of loyalty from former confederates, who would then be pardoned and have their property restored (except slaves) that had be confiscated by Federal officials during the war. The only people not included in this proclamation were high-ranking military and civilian Confederate officials and those who resigned their positions in the Federal government to serve the in the Confederacy. Johnson issued a second proclamation outlining his plan for how the states should go about getting themselves back into the Union. Under this plan, the President would appoint a governor to each state under reconstruction.

Reconstruction began early in 1865 after the end of the civil war when the South was undergoing political, social and economic upheavals (Foner 15). The South embraced Union methods of total wars that led to damage to their land and crops. As a result, many people died while others were captured as slaves due to the huge drought and inflation facing their state, while their masters fled oncoming unions. From these losses, policymakers by 1865 in Washington had no other choice rather than reconstruction. Reconstruction involved several initiatives including abolishment and transformation of the Southern society, recovering the Southern Unions and most importantly the enactment of an assimilation legislation program that would aid in favoring the freed blacks into the American social and economic system. President Lincoln had pardoned reconstruction of the South long before in1863 two years before the war ended (Kennedy and Cohen 44). This was known as the ten percent plan that supported one of the initiatives. This plan allowed the Southern state to be assimilated to the union after every ten percent of the population. Later in the year 1865 president Lincoln got assassinated and Andrew Johnson succeeded him. President Johnson carried on with the ten percent plan. Both presidents shared a similar interest during their reign which was to abolish slavery before joining the union.

Reconstruction efforts were complicated. After Lincoln's assassination, President Andrew Johnson favored legislation placating the South and the former Confederacy and returning property to prewar owners (History.com Staff, "Carpetbaggers & Scalawags"). Using his pardoning powers, Johnson restored virtually all political rights to most Confederates. Southern states balked when forced to repeal

When Johnson let the South back into the Union he helped to make all the people who had died for the right to equality for all worthless. President Johnson was from the south originally. He had been a poor white living in Kentucky, and so had learned to hate the rich, white Plantation owners. But he always felt above the slaves which later influenced his decision to let the very people he had grown up hating back in to the Union. When congress passed the 13th Amendment banning slavery many of the people in the south feared what would happen to them. Johnson, who related to the poor white folk, knew that they needed someone who they could say "at least I'm better than you" about. The only way he saw to do that was by letting the South have their lands and rights back so that they could do something about their former slaves. So the pardons started rolling out of the Round Office like a printing press. The Radical Republicans weren't happy about it but at that point they couldn't stop him. The south began to return to the way it was.

After the Civil War, there were two major paths of reconstruction–presidential reconstruction and radical reconstruction. Presidential reconstruction was headed by President Andrew Johnson, who believed that the southern states had never given up their rights to govern themselves, and failed to institute any sort of voting requirements. Aside from having to take an oath of allegiance to the Union and pay off war debt, the South was free to do what they like. This leniency led to the instillation of Black Codes and the continuation of wrongful treatment of African Americans. This caused the Republicans in Congress to take control of Reconstruction in the South after Johnson’s

After the American Civil War in which attempts were made to solve the political, social, and economic factors arising from the readmission to the Union of the Confederate States that had seceded at or before the outbreak of war. President Abraham Lincoln planned to readmit states with a criterion in which 10% of the voters had pledged loyalty to the Union. This lenient approach was opposed by the Radical Republicans, who favored the measures passed in the Wade-Davis Bill. Andrew Johnson became the President after Lincoln’s assassination in 1865. He wanted to keep it simple and easy to restore the local rule. So, he took over and continued with the moderate policies of Lincoln, but due to the enactment in the South of the black codes and the demand for stricter legislation in the North resulted in victories of Radical Republicans