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Failure Of Reconstruction Essay

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The Union victory after the Civil War in 1865 may had given roughly 4 million slaves their freedom, however the process of rebuilding the South during the Reconstruction period introduced a new set of significant challenges. In order to reconstruct the country following the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the federal government and Republican-controlled state governments in the southern regions made efforts to rebuild the Southern economy and advance conditions of freedom. Following the Civil War, majority of white Southerners opposed Reconstruction and the Republican Party's support of black civil and political rights. However, Reconstruction ultimately failed due to violence against African Americans, the Compromise of 1877 and the …show more content…

During the period of Reconstruction, lasting from 1865 to 1877, the United States Congress of the United States enacted several amendments the promoted civil and political rights for African Americans in the south. The most prominent amendments passed including the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The Fourteenth Amendment addressed to whomever is born or naturalized in the United States are considered to be citizens. Lastly, the Fifteenth Amendment protects the rights of Americans to vote in elections to elect their leaders. However, originating from the late 1860’s, the Ku Klux Klan, or KKK, was a secret society created by white southerners in 1866 that used terror and violence to keep african americans from obtaining their civil rights. In 1871, the United States Congress authorized an act that resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of Klan leaders and members. Though the Ku Klux Klan retreated their acts of violence slowly, the federal government's military presence was withdrawn from various Southern states. The Compromise of 1877 ordered remaining troops to extract themselves from remaining Southern states. With no troops to enforce the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, Reconstruction came to an

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