Reconstruction After Civil War

The Reconstruction happened in period following the end of the American Civil and the main goal was to reintegrate the Southern Confederate States back into the Union after they had been defeated by the Union (Northern States). As would be expected, the process was met with many challenges as the interests of both groups had to be addressed. There was debate over the terms under which the Confederate States would be allowed back into the Union, and whether it was the president or congress to set these terms. There was also the question about what rights freed slaves had and their role in the new American society. Even though the war had ended, the reconstruction presented a new battlefront for a political struggle between the North and the South. This paper analyses what reconstruction sought to achieve, and why it failed with dire long-term consequences.

The Union Victory in the Civil War gave freedom towards slaves, however, the process of rebuilding the south introduced significant challenges. Attempts were made to rectify the inequities of slavery and to solve the problems that arose from the readmission to the union of the 11 states that have seceded. Reconstruction has been viewed more as a commendable experiment in interracial democracy, being the era of “repair” after he Civil War. Reconstruction was an era of total failure in the government’s attempt to create and reconstruct a society that was truly democratic. Although there were political and social changes during the Reconstruction Era that granted passages of freedom for the African Americans, policies such as the Black Codes and the actions of the white southerners restricted their rights and opportunities.

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

Reconstruction was a time period of major change in the United States of America for both African Americans and White citizens. After the Civil War, the reconstruction process started out as a failure, but over the years turned into a huge success because of how African Americans were able to live normal lives. Overall, Reconstruction was a success because freedom and growth of equality for African Americans was increased greatly.

In the beginning of 1865, the Civil War came to a close, abandoning over 620,000 dead and a destructive path of devastating all over the south. The North now was confronted with the task of reconstructing the destroyed and aggrieved Confederate states.

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

At the end of the Civil War slavery was outlawed by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and the blacks was finally free. In the South there was a sense of anger and shame in losing the war. The Reconstruction era was put into effect by Congress in 1866 and lasted until 1877. Reconstruction was aimed at reorganizing the Southern states after the Civil War. The reconstruction plan granted the means for readmitting the southern states into the Union, and tried to come up with the methods by which whites and blacks could live together in a non-slave society. However during reconstruction the United States government took actions to protect freedman and with each action the south countered with actions that would try to eradicate the laws put in place by the winning northern forces for example, the infamous Jim Crow Laws. The law segregated the whites and the blacks, thus can be commonly heard as “separate is not equal.” The Reconstruction was still seen as a success towards the United States as a whole in many ways as it unified the nations.

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.

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.

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.

Reconstruction was the period following the Civil War in which the national government attempted to reintegrate the Southern states that had formed the Confederacy back into the United States. During this time the US faced many social, political, and economic challenges. The national government worked to establish order in the South. In the process, the nation passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution that ended slavery, defined citizenship, and protected the right to vote. As a result, most Southern states, where former slave owners needed workers, adopted Black Codes, allowing them to still treat African Americans as if they were beneath them. After Reconstruction many were extremely poor, and created a poverty system known as Sharecropping. This was when the poor grew crops on another’s land in return for money paid after the harvest. With recently been freed with no financial resources, African Americans had to accept credit each year to pay for seeds, tools and other supplies. In the end, most sharecroppers remained in debt.

Rebuilding after the war was not just their homes but also the economic lives of planters and former slaves. Farmers found it hard to adjust to the end of slavery because they were able to control their labor force and wanted to restore the old discipline but were meant with opposition from the freed people, who equated freedom with economic autonomy. Many freed slaves believed that their years of labor should give them a claim to land; their rally cry became, "forty acres and a mule" became their rallying cry. Whites didn’t want to sell to blacks, and the federal government decision not to sell land in the South, meant that only a small amount of the freed people became landowners. During Reconstruction, some small white farmers, were thrown

The Reconstruction era was put into effect by Congress in 1866 and lasted until 1877. Reconstruction was aimed at reorganizing the Southern states after the Civil War. The reconstruction plan granted the means for readmitting the southern states into the Union, and tried to come up with the methods by which whites and blacks could live together in a non-slave society. America's position as a country was established on principles of freedom but those beliefs were weakened by slavery. At the end of the Civil War, many blacks felt that they were entitled to start collecting the benefits that had been denied for so many years. Being able to vote, own land and have a voice in political affairs were all goals that they believed were reachable.

The reconstruction of America would decide how the south would rejoin the Union, what was to become of the nearly 3 million black slaves freed, how America was going to recover from such a devastating internal war. There appears to be phases that the Reconstruction Era went through, roughly three of them. The first is that of the Presidential Reconstruction, it lead to a more radical Republican party. After such we find ourselves in what was to be known as the Radical Reconstruction. A period where the blacks found their voices being heard. Finally we lead up to the end of the Reconstruction-era. It is said that the reconstruction lasted from 1865 to 1877, however it can be said that, to this very day, some reconstruction is still ongoing.

The Reconstruction Era was a time of incorporation between the northern and southern states in the United States after the Civil War. Since the northern states won the Civil War, they sought freedom for the blacks from slavery; although the northern states sought freedom for the blacks, the blacks were still oppressed by special laws for them and they lacked many living necessities. During the Reconstruction Era, blacks were free by law, but no resources and racism kept blacks in slavery.