Reconstruction: Success or Failure for Civil Rights? - Research Paper

Introduction

Reconstruction was an important part of the development of civil rights in the United States, although many people have created different arguments to show it to be a failure. The arguments of failure of this reconstruction process and the policies that were created a state that the South parts of America were stricken by poverty and they were left with the main source of income being agriculture. The mass blacks who lived in the South faced a lot of difficulty due to the people who lived in the North being in more control over the people who lived in the South most of whom were black slaves. Reconstruction policies after the Civil War incorporated different factors that revolved around social, legal and economic issues and they affected the African Americans in ways that affected their actions and how they were perceived in both the North and the South.

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The reconstruction was implemented by Congress, and it lasted from 1866 to 1877 with the aim of reorganizing different states in the South after the conclusion of the Civil Warfare. The reconstruction's aim was to provide a way through which most of the Southern states would be accommodated into the Union (Spiller 38). The many hostile whites that surrounded the black people created a need for a non-slave society to be formed thus created the reconstruction.

After the Civil War, the reconstruction policies that were created from various constitution amendments and the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 led to almost four million slaves being freed from captivity and slavery jobs. African Americans were able to enjoy freedom where they were able to vote and participate in the process of politics of America (Spiller 38). The process also gave them an ability to acquire land from previous owners, seek employment and use other accommodations of the public that were availed to them. The freedom, however, did not last for long as opponents of the reconstruction policies rallied against the freedom of the slaves and searched for means to erode the gains that had been fought for by many.

Legal Factors

Many radical abolitionists in the North were dismayed by the reactions of the then-president Abraham Lincoln because he did not make slavery abolition one of the goals of the effort by the Union war. He feared that if he made that decision, he would drive the states of the border slaves that were loyal to the Union into confederacy and make the conservative northerners angrier for the lack of slaves to serve them (Spiller 38). Many slaves contended in their bondage states, and this convinced Abraham Lincoln that emancipation was a necessity for both the political and military system in the country.

The reconstruction plans proposed that some blacks deserved the right to vote, and this led to the assassination of President Lincoln. The nation found it hard to deal with the issue of acquisition of full citizenship for the freed black people (Spiller 38). Most of the African American troops that had been used in war before the reconstruction policies were created were forced to get involved in the wars of the South where many white people who depended on black slaves for the accomplishment of their daily activities were discontented with the freedom that the black people had received.

The South saw it as a humiliation to them and considered it to be a vengeful step which marked the beginning of the opposition of the set policies (Du Bois 1860). The South continually ignored the new reconstruction provisions that were implemented in the Constitution and searched for effective ways to oppose the amendments that were placed in the constitution.

The reconstruction processes enabled African Americans to wield political power for the first time in the Southern States. Black leaders emerged in the form of clergymen, teachers and lawyers who had received education from the North and fought for different top seats in the political world of the Americans and the African Americans in the country (Du Bois 1860). Several blacks gained access to government seats for the first time in history where they won different elections both in the United States Congress and the legislatures of the Southern States. The political power held by the African Americans was, however, minimized due to politicians from the North increasing their conciliatory on the white South.

All Confederacy leaders were pardoned to vote for different positions in the office, and this created a huge competition for positions between the African Americans and whites. The economic pressure that faced the African Americans, as well as different activities of terrorism by groups that opposed the blacks such as Ku Klux Klan, made it impossible for many African Americans to go to the polls making them excluded from getting any power in the government (Du Bois 1860). This strategy acted as a way to keep the opposition from the African Americans at its lowest levels so that they would be able to rule the blacks better regardless of the reconstruction policies set in place in the American constitution.

Although the blacks were granted the rights to marry, own different types of property and appear in court to sue them for different prejudices, it was illegal for them to serve on juries, state militias or testify against the whites in the country for any reason be it political, economic or social reasons (Du Bois 1860). The sharecroppers were forced to pay rent for the land they owned through contributing some of their crops to landowners.

The few slaves who had been able to seize portions of land from different whites who owned them before the civil war faced a hard time after the reconstruction as federal troops acted to restore the land to the whites who had owned the land before it was taken from them. Republicans tried to provide land to the former slaves, but the move was unsuccessful due to different oppositions from the democrats (Franklin 5). The former slaves tried to seek compensation for being enslaved for years, but they never received any compensation from either the white people who owned them or the government.

Seven hundred African Americans served in the public office during the reconstruction period with two of them being senators in the United States and fourteen of them being members of the House of Representatives in the United States. 1300 other African Americans, both men and women, held high jobs in the government (Franklin 5).

Economic Factors

In 1865, General Sherman attempted to redistribute over 400,000 acres of the plantation of rice to the African Americans. The progress of the economic development of the blacks was slow, considering that the largest export of the United States was cotton (Franklin 5). Availability of huge plantations of cotton in the plantations called for a need for the blacks to remain in the fields and toil for them to be able to survive and earn in their newly found freedom from slavery.

After the civil war was over, and the reconstruction policies were formed in the United States, the free black men were forced to live on their own little resources. Most of them did not have any land because they had spent most of their years as slaves and had no one to inherit from (Franklin 5). They also lacked adequate shelter, clothing and food, which made it easier for the states in the State to create and enact black codes.

The black codes were laws that were the same as the slave codes, but they restricted any movements of all former slaves. This move by the Southern states was a means to ensure that they forced the former black slaves to work in their plantations as laborers (Walters 35). Most of the African American former slaves were forced to be laborers in the plantations of their former masters at extremely low salaries.

The years that followed after the reconstruction saw to it that African Americans rarely received any jobs from industries in the Southern States. Those who got employed in the industries worked as low stooping employees who received meagre earnings from their employees (Walters 35). A few African Americans owned farms in the South, and most of them owed considerable debts to their white landlords who made them poor with the only opportunity remaining to be to stay as poor sharecroppers to other African Americans or whites. The African Americans in the Northern States were forced to migrate Westwards because most of the jobs they were capable of acquiring were given to immigrants from Europe.

Social Factors

A lot of racial separation occurred in the South with many states from this area reenacting laws that prohibited any marriages between African Americans and the whites. Jim Crow laws were also enacted, and they served the purpose of segregating the freed African Americans from interacting with the whites in any public areas (Walters 35). By the year 1885, most Southern states had already segregated most of their public schools, and the African Americans could not attend school with the whites. A decade later, a law from Louisiana was created to segregate different passengers from railroad cars.

The reconstruction policies that were implemented after the civil war led to the first public schools that were funded by the states in the South. The taxation laws that were in the legislation also played a major role in creating laws of taxation that were more equitable and laws that fought racial discrimination in different transport systems and accommodations for different programs of economic development (Walters 35). Racism did not come to an end, and it was reported in many areas across the United States. The Republicans never stopped being conservatives which created an egalitarian mode to the African Americans as time passed.

An economic depression was reported in the country, and most of the states in the South were affected by high levels of poverty. The era through which autonomy quests were constructed saw to it that extensive mobilization of the blacks was done with meetings and parades calling for different petitions that would fight for political and legal rights (Rosen 67). The first years of reconstruction saw the blacks organize leagues of equal rights in the South and local conventions. The different treatments and suffrages avoided discriminatory styles for African Americans.

The lives of the African Americans were mainly determined by the black church and the education systems that played major roles in the development of ways of life for the blacks. The end of slavery meant the world was transformed into a better world where brutalities and sexual assaults, as well as trading of the African Americans, came to an end (Rosen 67). Family, school and churches became the centers where the blacks majored most of their lives after the end of slavery.

The black women preferred to make homes, but the poverty that faced them pushed a lot of them to work for the whites to earn a living. The church was also a major solace place for most of the freed African Americans because it helped in the communal worshipping and spiritual renewal while acting as centers for socializing and learning (Rosen 67). African Americans also had a great desire for education which made the Freedmen's Bureau create over 3,000 schools in the South and established hospitals and facilities for healthcare, and this helped to improve their welfare.

Conclusion

Reconstruction policies after the Civil War incorporated different factors that revolved around social, legal and economic issues and they affected the African Americans in ways that affected their actions and how they were perceived in both the North and the South. The union victory of 1865 after the Civil War was over gave many slaves their freedom, but this move was not taken positively by the Southern states, which created new challenges for the African Americans. Th...