Social Reconstruction Ideology

In “Reconstruction Revisited”, Eric Foner reexamines the political, social, and economic experiences of black and white Americans in the aftermath of the Civil War. With the help of many historian works, Foner gives equal representation to both sides of the Reconstruction argument.

The Reconstruction Era lasted up to 1877 from the time just after the Civil War. The Reconstruction failed to bring about social and economic equality to the former slaves due to the southern whites’ resentful and bitter outlook on the matter, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Jim Crow laws.

At the end of the Civil War, the nation’s government was tasked with sewing back together a nation so divided that they were willing to kill each other and split in two. While those that started the war may not have been rational, those that ended the war were. Among the most pressing issues the Reconstruction drafters faced like compensating northerners and not alienating the South, providing justice to African Americans—especially freed slaves—stood forward as the primary moral goal. After all, by the end of the war, the North’s endgame became less about state defiance and more about the moral obligation of emancipation. The North first employed a strategy of appeasement to save the dignity of the South but after a recalcitrant South refused

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

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.

The reconstruction era was a time that then affected America in positive facets and negative aspects as well, and still affects America today. Thanks to the reconstruction era, there are several implementations that geared the world on the path in which it is today. Had it not been for some of the laws that were set in place African Americans may have not had many of the opportunities that were presented during the reconstruction period, therefore the years of oppression and cruelty might still be present.

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.

America was in disarray following the events of the Civil War. Southern economy was in shambles while congress was struggling to find a middle ground between the radical republicans and Lincoln’s lenient policies. Many Southerners faced the aftermath of uprooting their society and their way of life while thousands of newly freed slaves struggled to find a way to support themselves. The country needed a strong leader, however on the 14th of April, 1865 President Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in the Ford Theatre in Washington (Farmer). Without the man that had once held the nation together, the country now faced an enormous obstacle; reconstructing American economics, politics and social life.

Post-civil war the torn nation juggles wide ranges of emotions as they attempt to piece together the shattered unity but didn’t know how to go about doing so. President Lincoln had great plans for the reconstruction but was killed before he could put them into action. He was murdered by John Booth at Ford Theater and passed the next morning. Lincoln’s Vice-president, Andrew Johnson, took over and became the new president. Johnson and Congress argued about how to go about the reconstruction and in the end Congress enacted their own laws and amendments that strengthened the federal government. Freedmen weren’t truly free after the Civil war ended, free in name only. Ex-Confederates were less than the Northerners and didn’t get the rights

why was did the destruction of the reconstruction happen and who's fault was it north or the south. The process of rebuilding the south after the civil war. The reconstruction happened after the civil war and after the slaves were freed they were trying to rebuild the south and almost everyone wanted that except the KKK and the south gave up on them because of their resistance. Who from the nation destroyed the process of reconstruction. The south resistance destroyed reconstruction of the United States by the resistance from the KKK and the north's neglect of the south's problems.

As a country, America has gone though many political changes throughout its lifetime. Leaders have come and gone, and all of them have had their own objectives and plans for the future. As history has taken its course, though, almost all of these “revolutionary movements” have come to an end. One such movement was Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a violent period that defined the defeated South’s status in the Union and the meaning of freedom for ex-slaves. Though, like many things in life, it did come to an end, and the resulting outcome has been labeled both a success and a failure.

After the Civil war ended, the United States had to reintegrate both a formerly slave population and a formerly rebellious population back into the country. After Lincoln was assassinated, Andrew Johnson was guiding Reconstruction. He was a Southerner, he resented all the elites in the south who had snubbed him, and he was also a racist who didn’t think that blacks should have any role in Reconstruction. Between 1865 and 1867, Johnson appointed provisional governors and ordered them to all state conventions to establish new all-white governments. Those governments looks suspiciously like the old confederate governments they had replaced. Many schools were established at that time. Johnson ordered all land

To begin I would like to say I agree with your point that Reconstruction was both a success and failure depending on one’s perspective. We share many similar ideas in our responses. However, you state, “They were solving problems that had essentially been put off due to the war” and I do concur with this statement. Although, you only provide one example for the “problems” which is “letting the slaves go.” I do agree the freeing of slaves was a major aspect of the success of the Reconstruction, but to assist the readers in comprehending your overall message you could add more factual information supporting the success of Reconstruction, such as stating the previous confederate states developed new constructions acknowledging of the thirteenth,

The purpose and goals of reconstruction was for the restoration of the Union, transformation of southern society, and enactment of progressive legislation favoring the rights of freed slaves. Reconstruction was a mixed success. By the end of the era, all southern state legislatures had abolished slavery in their constitutions. Reconstruction also laid to a rest the debate of states’ rights vs. federalism. But Reconstruction failed in many other ways. When President Rutherford B. Hayes ordered federal troops to leave the South in 1877, former Confederate officials and slave owners gradually returned to power. Southern state legislatures quickly passed “black codes,” imposed voter qualifications, and allowed the sharecropping system to thrive,

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