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Why the Reconstruction Stopped After the Civil War Essay

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Reconstruction has been brutally murdered! For a little over a decade after the Civil War, the victorious North launched a campaign of social, economic, and political recovery in the former Confederacy and to readmit the land in the former Confederacy back into the United States as states. Reconstruction yielded many benefits for African Americans. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments freed African Americans, made them citizens, and gave them the right to vote respectively. The Freedmen’s Bureau also provided African Americans and poor whites with education, jobs, and supplies. Despite this, Reconstruction was cut short in 1877. The North killed Reconstruction because of racism, negligence, and distractions. One reason the North killed …show more content…

Obviously, this was a foolhardy move by the North. The amnesty of Southerners gave racist Southerners another chance to dominate the South with racism and hate. The North also had failed to stop black codes. These laws restricted African Americans’ rights such as congregating, bearing arms, working for other African Americans, and coming within town limits (Black Codes). Finally, the North was oblivious to the antics of the Ku Klux Klan, a white nationalist hate group. After the murder of John W. Stephens, Albion Tourgee claimed that he had “very little doubt that I (sic) shall be one of the next victims” (Tourgee, 1870). If Albion Tourgee had so little doubt that he would be a victim of the Ku Klux Klan, then it was probably not safe for Republicans, scalawags, and carpetbaggers in the South during Reconstruction. The North was responsible for providing safety in the South for Republicans, carpetbaggers, scalawags, and African Americans. This would have proved that the North was negligent. Therefore, if the North had not been negligent, the African Americans, scalawags, and carpetbaggers would have been safe during and after Reconstruction even if the South had intentions to harm them. During the course of Reconstruction, the North was distracted and needed to shift their focus from Reconstruction to other affairs. The Panic of 1873 created an atmosphere where people began to oppose Reconstruction (Danzer, 1998). The Grant

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