Characteristics Of Attempts At Reconstruction : Civil War

By March 1863, Union forces had taken control of the sugar-planting region and reported that all the slaves had come within their lines. Fellow sugar planter Andrew McCollam reported that he had only a few hands left and he doubted he would be able to do more than manage the seed cane. Viguerie, along with hundreds of Louisiana soldiers, including William A. Bisland of Terrebonne, surrendered on May 26, 1865 in New Orleans. Viguerie was paroled to New Iberia, Louisiana on June 6, 1865. He was released shortly after.

During the times of reconstruction, Lincoln wished to reunite the country both physically and metaphorically. By this, he intended to have certain hoops the southern states had to jump through before they could regain their statehood. However, due to his death this did not come to complete fruition. Johnson technically made the southern states do certain things before they could rejoin the union, but basically the terms could be met simply by a few individuals telling pretty lies. Also with Johnson, Black Codes were created that returned slavery to the country. Reconstruction itself was a major failure in what it actually accomplished in that time, but the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments that were passed made it possible for future civil rights

In hindsight it is sometimes claimed that Reconstruction was a failure. Although there was some good that came out of the Reconstruction it was mostly just a relentless uphill battle against Southerners and immoral politicians that were here to delay change and keep racism alive. Reconstruction brought the Ku Klux Klan who displayed great resistance, and poverty that swept the South once the blacks were freed. The freedom of these black slaves led to discriminatory legislatures such as the Black Codes and the Jim Crow laws to keep the blacks constrained from actually being free. The South was then encountered with corruption and high property taxes, as a rebuild was in order to reestablish the war torn part of the nation.

After the Civil War ended in 1865, questions of power and reconstruction gripped the union. Power shifted from Lincoln and Johnson’s lenient plans – pardoning many and allowing states to reenter with 10% – to congress’s more stringent military reconstruction, which divided the south into five districts. Ultimately, however, this movement ended with the compromise of 1877, which gave the Republican Hayes the presidency and ended reconstruction. This Reconstruction effort did in fact give the South an inspiration for industry and freed men a brief glimpse of equality and progress as they received emancipation, citizenship, voting rights, and public education in the form of constitutional amendments and movements such as the Freedman’s Borough. However, the failures of reconstruction outweighed these gains since, despite the concrete amendments, Southerners regained their gross superiority over African-Americans with intimidation, political loopholes, and Supreme Court rulings. Therefore, Reconstruction was in fact a failure.

After four years of fighting between the Union and the Confederacy in the American Civil War, it was finally decided in 1864 that the 11 southern states that seceded from the nation would be restored into the Union once again. However, the problems of reconstructing the Union were just as difficult as the war itself had been. Because most of the war was fought on Southern ground, the South had been devastated both physically and economically. Helping former slaves and making state governments loyal to the Union also presented various problems that would take years to resolve.

Many historians argue about the result of the reconstruction. By reading the sources I concluded that the American reconstruction after the war was somewhat successful. According to Frances after the civil war, the north sent many generals to the south to control territories until the land was settling. According to her augments the claims that the generals would force the people to bow down to them. People in the south considered them as tyrants. Another thing that many people in the south were angry about was the fact that most black in the south had more right to vote that some of the whites themselves. She mentions that if blacks in the north could not vote why the blacks in the south should (366). This clearly shows the high disapproval

America: “The land of the free, and the home of the brave” (Key 7-8). When our forefathers overcame the colonial reign of the British Empire, they formed the United States of America based on the premise of enlightened ideals promoting life, ownership of land, and liberty. But after the revolution, the country’s problems were far from solved. The country’s post-revolution issues sparked a Civil War, which was followed by a reconstruction. In some ways, the Civil War and Reconstruction helped the United States accomplish its original goals, but in many ways, that was not the case.

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.

The Civil war could very easily be known as one of the greatest tragedies in United States history. After the Civil War, the people of The United States had so much anger and hatred towards each other and the government that 11 Southern states seceded from the Nation and parted into two pieces. The Nation split into either the Northern abolitionist or the Southern planation farmers. The Reconstruction era was meant to be exactly how the name announces it to be. It was a time for the United States to fix the broken pieces the war had caused allowing the country to mend together and unite once again. The point of Reconstruction was to establish unity between the states and to also create and protect the civil rights of the former slaves.

The period after the Civil War was a very difficult time in the United States' history. This time was known as the Reconstruction period and it was a very controversial time. There were many issues that had to be addressed such as what to do with the free blacks in the south and how states would be readmitted to the Union. This era saw the rise of the Radical Republicans. The government was going through changes, southerners were going through changes, and blacks were going through changes. Whites in the south were left without people to work their plantations. Slavery was indeed a very important topic during this time. Many of the reconstruction plans that were proposed required states to prohibit slavery in order to be readmitted to

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

While the civil war was still going on, both President Lincoln and then his successor President Andrew Johnson struggled with the challenge of how to re-integrate southern states back into the Union. Ultimately, both presidents pursued the plan that would mend the nation back together fast. In December of 1863 Lincoln came up with a program called Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. This

The Civil War left a country divided not only by property lines and borders but by beliefs as well. Not just religious beliefs, moral beliefs also. It left both sides, north and south struggling, trying to figure out what their next move towards reuniting the divided America was going to be. The period following the end of the Civil War would become known as the “Reconstruction Era.” An era that raised just as many questions as it did answers. A reconstruction of America that seems to carry on many decades later.

1. The war in 1862 was only more than a year old and the people in both the Union and Confederate sides didn’t anticipate it would last that long, but it is going to go on. Close to the end of the summer in this same year, the Union has made huge progress in claiming confederate lands, winning some major battles. They have put the confederacy in the defensive. They have taken over New Orleans, with even black troops major on the ground of New Orleans. They have taken Missouri and are working hard to take over the Mississippi Valley and maybe even Richmond itself. Bruce Catton puts it this way in The Civil War, “Except for guerrilla activity, Kentucky and Missouri has been swept clear of armed confederates, Western Tennessee had been reclaimed, there was a Yankee army in Cumberland Gap, another one was approaching chattanooga, and a third was sprawled out from Memphis to Corinth, preparing to splice down through Mississippi and touch hands with the Union occupation forces in Baton Rouge and New Orleans” (85) So not only that they Union had taken over regions, they are advancing as well, but they did not win the way this year for some reason. Firstly, because they did not have generals and army heads capable of taking them to victory. General Halleck, chief of the Union Armies and Pope in charge of one of the Union armies in Virginia, were major examples of this.

and in reality it was a demonstration of the failure to make a dependable political