post assessment reconstruction essay

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• Unit 9.1: Global 1 Introduction
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• Unit 11.01: Colonial Foundations
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Unit 11.04: Reconstruction Era

• Unit 11.05: Gilded Age and Progressive Era
• Unit 11.6: Rise of American Power
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Reconstruction Era

KEY IDEA:  POST-CIVIL WAR ERA (1865 – 1900): Reconstruction resulted in political reunion and expanded constitutional rights. However, those rights were undermined, and issues of inequality continued for African Americans, women, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and Chinese immigrants.

CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING:  Federal policies regarding westward expansion had positive effects on the national economy but negative consequences for Native Americans.

CONTENT SPECIFICATION: Students will examine the effect of federal policies on Native Americans on the Great Plains, including reservation policies, the Dawes Act (1887), and forced acculturation efforts (Carlisle Indian School).

Following the U.S. Civil War, the United States entered a period of Reconstruction . Federal policies revolving around economic and political reform resulted in expansion of the economy, as well as an expansion of constitutional rights .  However, those rights were undermined, and issues of inequality continued for African Americans, women, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and Chinese immigrants. 

Unit Plan ( Preview - Copy )

Unit outline, a - unit intro & vocab see 4 items hide 4 items.

These curricular resources introduce students to the concepts and vocabulary they will encounter in the unit.

Global History I

Unit Introduction and Vocabulary: Vocabulary Opener

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U.S. History

A - Unit Intro & Vocab: Vocabulary Review Activity

A - Unit Intro & Vocab: Unit 4 Vocabulary Chart - Student Facing

Students can use this chart to review key terms in unit 4

A - Unit Intro & Vocab: Unti 4 Vocabulary Chart - Teacher

Teachers can use this chart to review relevant unit vocabulary prior to teaching the unit.

A - Unit Intro & Context See 2 items Hide 2 items

This curricular resource will help students chronologically analyze events from 1865 to 1900. 

A - Unit Intro & Context: Unit 4 Essential Questions Introduction

Students will review images to unpack themes and essential questions from unit 4. 

A - Unit Intro & Context: Timeline of American History: 1865 to 1900

Students will complete two timelines: Reconstruction (1865 - 1877) and Rise of Industrial America (1876 - 1900).  

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves) See 22 items Hide 22 items

This set of curricular resources was developed in collaboration with Facing History and Ourselves .  The resources are based on a unit developed by Facing History known as The Reconstruction Era and The Fragility of Democracy.  More information as well as a link to download a free PDF of the Facing History unit is available here.

An overview of these curricular resources can be found here . 

In order to access the curricular resources linked below, you must fill out this form:  https://goo.gl/yduhb8 .

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Timeline of Reconstruction Policies

What were the major legislative policies of Reconstruction? Students will analyze the causes and effects of major legislation. 

In order to access the curricular resource linked below, you must fill out this form:  https://goo.gl/YDuhB8 

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): End of Civil War

What can we learn by comparing and contrasting views from the Union and the Confederacy regarding the end of the Civil War? What do the differences suggest about the challenge of reuniting the country after the devastating war?  

This curricular resource asks students to compare and contrast points of view and perspective with regards to the end of the Civil War.  

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Devastation of War

What impact did the Civil War have on the United States? What needed to be rebuilt at the end of the war? Who is responsible for rebuilding after the Civil War? 

Students will compare and contrast images, as well as review a data table.  

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): New Names

What were some of the immediate effects of freedom and the end of the Civil War on formerly enslaved African Americans?

Students will examine primary and secondary sources.  

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Emancipation Legislation

How did federal legislation, including the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment, define freedom or equality for formerly enslaved African Americans at the end of the Civil War?

Students will analyze primary sources. 

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Defining Freedom: Document Analysis Jigsaw

What is freedom? What does it mean to be free? What did it mean to formerly enslaved African Americans to be free?  

Students will analyze different primary sources. 

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Freedmen's Bureau

How did the Freedmen’s Bureau define and provide for freedom and equality for African Americans?

Students will analyze what freedom meant from the perspective of the Freedmen's Bureau. 

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Plans for Reconstruction

After the Civil War, how could America simultaneously heal and provide justice to all its citizens?

Students will participate in a forced choice debate.  

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Healing vs Justice Document Analysis

After the Civil War, how can America simultaneously heal and provide justice to all its citizens?

In order to access the curricular resources linked below, you must fill out this form:  https://goo.gl/YDuhB8

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Whose land is it?

Students will analyze primary sources to examine closely land redistribution after the Civil War.  

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Sharecropping

Students will examine multiple perspectives on sharecropping. 

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Black Codes

Students will analyze the black codes. 

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Evolution of Reconstruction

This graphic organizer helps students compare Presidential Reconstruction to Radical Reconstruction.  

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Defining Citizenship

How did legislation define citizenship for newly freed men and women during Reconstruction?

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Debating Radical Reconstruction

Why did President Johnson oppose the Radical Reconstruction plan? Why did Radical Republicans support Radical Reconstruction? ​

Students will analyze primary source documents. 

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Interracial Democracy

What were the consequences of Radical Reconstruction? How did interracial democracy look for the United States during Radical Reconstruction?

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Carpetbaggers

Who were the carpetbaggers? How were they viewed and portrayed?

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Reactions to Interracial Democracy

What was the backlash against Radical Reconstruction? Why was there backlash against Radical Reconstruction?

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Ku Klux Klan and Backlash against Reconstruction

Students will analyze a video clip, and a mix of primary and secondary source documents to analyze the origins and activities the Ku Klux Klan in the 1860's.  

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Redemption Violence

Students will analyze primary and secondary sources to better understand Redemption Violence. 

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): Images of African Americans

Students will analyze images and text to better understand how leaders like Frederick Douglass used photography to combat the backlash against Reconstruction. 

B - Reconstruction (NVPS & Facing History and Ourselves): How do we remember Reconstruction?

Students will analyze a video clip, a Langston Hughes poem, and an excerpt of writing by W.E.B. DuBois to better understand the legacy of Reconstruction. 

C - Women's Rights Movement See 3 items Hide 3 items

This curricular resource explores the early Women's Suffrage Movement.  

C - Women's Rights Movement: United States v. Susan B. Anthony (1873)

Students will analyze primary sources and participate in a historical conversation.  

Students will engage in a historical conversation. 

C - Women's Rights Movement: Impact of Reconstruction on Women's Rights

Students will analyze three primary sources and create a timeline.  

D - Westward Expansion See 5 items Hide 5 items

These curricular resources explore the causes and effects of westward expansion. 

D - Westward Expansion: Causes and Effects of Westward Expansion

Students will be able to analyze documents to determine whether or not they represents causes or effects of Westward Expansion. 

D - Westward Expansion: Legislation for Westward Expansion

Students will examine an image and connect it to either the Pacific Railway Act and / or the Homestead Act 

D - Westward Expansion: American Progress - a painting by John Gast

Students will analyze John Gast's painting American Progress & analyze the effects of manifest destiny.

Students will examine primary source documents to analyze the causes and effects of the Dawes Act.  Students will complete a cloze reading paragraph.  

D - Westward Expansion: "Kill the Indian, Save the Man": Carlisle Indian Industrial School

Inquiry Question How did the US try to force Indigenous people to assimilate?

Learning Objective Students will be able to analyze the impact of US assimilationist policies by evaluating the reliability of different sources concerning the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. 

E - Immigration See 2 items Hide 2 items

These curricular resources explore the causes and effects of westward expansion on Chinese immigrants and Mexican Americans. 

E - Immigration: Chinese Exclusion Act

This curricular resource asks students to view the Chinese Exclusion Act from multiple viewpoints. 

E - Immigration: DBQ: Effects of Westward Expansion on Native Americans, Women, and Chinese Immigrants

Students will examine documents related to westward expansion and its impact on Native Americans, Women, and Chinese Immigrants. 

R - Unit Review & Assessment See 3 items Hide 3 items

Our units are developed through a backwards design process in which we start with the summative assessments and then create resources and formative assessments based on the content and skills students will need to be successful (See  Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe). We encourage teachers to start their planning by looking first at the end of unit assessments and then at specific resources.

R - Unit Review & Assessment: Unit 4 Synthesis Task

Students will analyze the reconstruction era from the perspectives of different groups including: industrialists, women, African Americans, Native Americans, and immigrants.

R - Unit Review & Assessment: End of Unit Assessment- NYS Framework Aligned

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R - Unit Review & Assessment: End of Unit Assessment- NYS Framework Aligned- Teacher Materials

R - Expanded Unit Assessment See 4 items Hide 4 items

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R - Expanded Unit Assessment: 11.4 Civic Literacy Document Based Essay Task

Understanding Reconstruction - A Historiography

As the United States entered the 20th century, Reconstruction slowly receded into popular memory. Historians began to debate its results. William Dunning and John W. Burgess led the first group to offer a coherent and structured argument. Along with their students at Columbia University, Dunning, Burgess, and their retinue created a historical school of thought known as the Dunning School. This interpretation of Reconstruction placed it firmly in the category of historical blunder.

Why did the Dunning School blame Radical Republicans and Freedmen for Reconstruction's failure?

While the Radical Republicans were the apparent villains, Dunning and his followers ascribed blame to President Johnson as well, saddling him with responsibility for Reconstruction’s failure. Freedmen were portrayed as animalistic or easily manipulated, therefore, lacking the kind of agency they indeed exhibited. While certainly influenced by the day's racial bias, the Dunning School at least formulated a coherent argument (although an incredibly inaccurate and distasteful one) that refused to fragment. This model of unity did prove somewhat valuable to historians following Dunning, even if their historical research opposed the Dunning School’s argument, “For all their faults, it is ironic that the best Dunning studies did, at least, attempt to synthesize the social, political, and economic aspects of the period.” In contrast, the Progressive historians that followed the Dunning School disagreed with some of its interpretations. President Johnson was not to blame, but rather, the Northern Radical Republicans were at fault. They cynically used freedmen's civil rights as a means to force capitalism and economic dependence on the South.

Why was W.E.B. Du Bois's reassessment of Reconstruction so important?

The revisionists of the 1960s viewed Reconstruction's heroes to be the Southern freedmen and the Radical Republicans. Instead of going too far, Reconstruction failed to be radical enough. According to revisionists, Reconstruction was tragic not because it went too far and handcuffed white southerners; it was tragic because it was unable to securely secure the rights of freedmen and failed to restructure Southern society through land reform and similar measures. Following on the heels of the Revisionist School were the Post-Revisionists who viewed Reconstruction as overly conservative. This conservatism failed to achieve any lasting influence; thus, once Reconstruction ended, the South returned to its old social and economic structures.

What is the Modern Interpretation of Reconstruction?

So, where has that left historians today? How do more recent historians interpret Reconstruction? Several leading historians (James McPherson, Eric Foner, Emory Thomas) have labeled either the Civil War or Reconstruction as a second American revolution. Eric Foner’s work Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution openly claims Reconstruction to be a break from traditional systems (social, political, economic) prevailing in the South.

In contrast, Emory Thomas’s The Confederacy as a Revolutionary Experience argues the South first underwent a “conservative revolution” in breaking away from the Union since it broke from the North not to redefine itself but to maintain the status quo of the South. Ironically, according to Thomas, this first “external” revolution was subsumed by a more radical “internal” revolution during the Civil War as the South attempted to urbanize, industrialize and modernize to compete with the North. Thus, whether consciously or not, the Confederacy's leaders looked to recreate the South in a way that mirrored the North in several ways. However, this brief example illustrates the differences among historians and the current scholarship on the Civil War and Reconstruction. Perhaps, the best place to start might be with conditions between the North and South before the outbreak of war in 1861.

Northern republicanism was opposed to the Southern belief in republicanism emphasizing limited government and property rights, not to mention Southern anti-manufacturing sensibilities. Additionally, the more capital intensive economy of the North relied on wage labor and immigration. Two economic and social variables absent from the South. The rise of wage labor placed wager earners in the North in opposition to the system of slavery in the South, and the rising population of the North (from immigration) increased tensions between the two regions. Along with these differences, the West of America was growing rapidly in the image of the North. Resulting from the influence and growth of railroads, trade relations were no longer centered on the North/South relationship but East to West.

However, this initial ‘conservative revolution’ inspired by radicals was overtaken by the moderates of the political south who recognized the need for change. If the Confederacy were to survive economically, politically, and socially, they would mount their internal revolution. Peter Kolchin’s work American Slavery 1619-1877 upholds much of McPherson’s and Thomas’ arguments concerning the South’s increasingly entrenched society. Kolchin’s work attempts to synthesize the prevailing studies of the day concerning slavery in America. Divided into three sections (colonial America and the American Revolution, antebellum South, and Civil War and Reconstruction)

How did the Civil War Change the South's Social Structure?

In general, Thomas points out three areas of change political, economic, and social. The economic reform was extreme. As the Civil War commenced, the south had neither a large industrial complex nor many large urban areas (New Orleans stands as the lone exception). Jefferson Davis and others saw the need for increased industry and urbanization, “A nation of farmers knew the frustration of going hungry, but Southern industry made great strides. And Southern cities swelled in size and importance. Cotton, once king, became a pawn in the Confederate South. The emphasis on manufacturing and urbanization came too little, too late. But compared to the antebellum South, the Confederate South underwent nothing short of an economic revolution.”

According to Thomas, such reorganization did not limit itself to the economic field. Southern women were no longer confined to the home, “Southern women climbed down from their pedestals and became refugees, went to work in factories, or assumed the responsibility for managing farms.” This hardly seems to be a radical premise since this cycle repeats itself nationally during both World Wars of the 20th century.

Therefore, would this not serve more aptly as an example of wartime necessities undertaken for war but not intended for permanence? One might respond that such cases begin the process of change since historically, once people are granted rights or freedoms, it proves to be quite difficult to reclaim such rights, mobility, or freedoms. However, one last point concerning social mobility must be made. Considering the conditions of trade for the South during the war, new ways of the trade needed to be located. Such avenues to wealth did provide many southerners previously excluded from the planter class to ascend the ladder of social mobility once new avenues or means to profit were established, “Those who were able to take advantage of new opportunities in trade and industry became wealthy and powerful men … Not only did exemplary men rise from commonplace to prominence in the Confederate period; statistical evidence tends to confirm that the Confederate leadership as a whole came from non-planters.”

Similarly, Thomas argues that the suspension of civil liberties in the South was a radical departure from Southern culture. Suspension of civil liberties is a common wartime tactic (WWI, WWII). Lincoln did the same in the North. Thomas cannot use this as truly viable evidence of revolutionary change.

Was Reconstruction a Revolution?

However, further complicating this portion of Foner’s argument is the non-linear nature of race relations in the South. Rather as Foner illustrates throughout the book, race relations were subject to local variables that greatly influenced interactions. Moreover, advances did not proceed linearly. Instead, through complex social, political, and economic interactions between races, race relations gradually evolved at times progressing, while in other moments, regressing. African American freedmen fought for their freedoms and liberties even when white resistance turned violent and exclusionary. Its this constant push and pull effect that produces the racial structure of the postwar South.

Foner’s work's major strength lies in its attempt to sketch for the reader a process that Foner argues begins in 1863 with Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. In reality, Lincoln’s command held minimal legitimacy since it did not free slaves in the border states. Thus, Lincoln’s lack of authority over the South left his abolition of slavery a mere symbol in the Southern states. Despite this fact, Foner argues that “emancipation meant more than the end of a labor system, more even than the uncompensated liquidation of the nation’s largest concentration of private property … The demise of slavery inevitably threw open the most basic questions of the polity, economy, and society. Begun to preserve the Union, the war now portended a far-reaching transformation in Southern life and a redefinition of the place of blacks in American society and of the very meaning of freedom in the American republic.”

Reconstruction argues similarly, “But in 1867, politics emerged as the principal focus of black aspirations. The meteoric rise of the Union League reflected and channeled this political mobilization. By the end of 1867, it seemed, virtually every black voter in the South had enrolled in the Union League. The league’s main function, however, was political education” However, this political awareness did not mean that all Southerners appreciated it, nor did it necessarily lead to a better understanding between white and black Southerners, “Now as freedmen poured into the league, ‘the negro question’ disrupted some upcountry branches, leading many white members to withdraw altogether or retreat into segregated branches.” Such political activism redrew racial relationships and reorganized institutions. For example, the Union League’s acceptance of freedmen resulted in white flight or segregation among other branches, despite the small white farmer and the freedmen's obvious class similarities. Still, the political activism by freedmen and freedwomen signifies a great change in Southern society.

Harold D. Woodman also notes similar manifestations. However, it must be noted; Woodman refuses to use the term “revolutionary” for the Civil War and Reconstruction period. According to Woodman, historians must assess the quality of this change, not the amount. Woodman notes the need for reform in the former slave society. However, the reform needed was never produced. Bourgeoisie free labor was the basis of the new southern economy since the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War had destroyed the previous one. New roles for both slave and the planter arose, along with the need for new lines of authority.

Why was Reconstruction was a Failure?

So, how successful was Reconstruction? Foner argues that Reconstruction proved revolutionary for a period but ultimately failed. “Here, however, we enter the realm of the purely speculative. What remains certain is that Reconstruction failed and that for blacks, its failure was a disaster whose magnitude cannot be obscured by the genuine accomplishments that did endure. For the nation as a whole, the collapse of Reconstruction was a tragedy that deeply affected the course of its future development.” Thomas views the final results of Reconstruction similarly but through a slightly different historical lens. According to Thomas, Reconstruction undid the revolutionary advances of the Confederacy, “Ironically, the internal revolution went to completion at the very time that the external revolution collapsed … The program of the radical Republicans may have failed to restructure Southern society. It may, in the end, have “sold out” the freedmen in the South. Reconstruction did succeed in frustrating the positive elements of the revolutionary Southern experience.”

Thus, Reconstruction allowed African Americans to more fully express agency while still oppressed. It gave blacks the chance to counter such oppression more freely. Networks, communities, and relationships were all redefined and recreated. Again, just as Foner maintained, Kolchin remarks, “And in the years after World War II, again with the help of white allies, they spearheaded a “second Reconstruction” – grounded on the legal foundation provided by the first — to create an interracial society that would finally overcome the persistent legacy of slavery.”

This article was originally published on Videri.org and is republished here with their permission.

Updated December 8, 2020

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The Reconstruction Era Primary Sources

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This collection features primary sources from our resources on the Reconstruction era and its legacies. We have organized them thematically, moving from an exploration of freedom after Emancipation through reflections on memory and legacy. We’ve also included a selection of secondary sources from leading historians of the Reconstruction Era. 

These sources, which detail the violent and racist history of Reconstruction, are both rich in educational value and carry great potential for harm. For these reasons, we believe strongly that this material needs to take into account students’ emotional and ethical responses to this history and be sequenced in a responsible way. See the "Preparing to Teach" section below for more information.

What’s Included

This collection is designed to be flexible. You can use all of the resources or choose a selection best suited to your classroom. It includes:

• 32 primary source documents, 19 available in Spanish 
• 9 secondary source documents
• 3 primary source images

Preparing to Teach

A note to teachers.

Before using these primary resources with students, please review the following information to help guide your preparation process.

Recommended Resources Before Teaching

For more information about how to approach teaching with the resources in this collection, we recommend exploring the Preparing to Teach section of our Reconstruction 3-Week Unit , which includes guidance on teaching emotionally challenging content, fostering classroom community, and addressing racist dehumanizing language. We also recommend  familiarizing yourself with this history by reading the context sections for each lesson from the unit.  

In addition, we recommend exploring Facing History’s pedagogical approach for information about how to attend to students’ social-emotional as well as academic needs in the classroom.

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Inside this collection, defining freedom, changing names, letter from jourdon anderson: a freedman writes his former master, savannah freedpeople express their aspirations for freedom, what the black man wants, a right to the land, improving education in south carolina, he was always right and you were always wrong, healing and justice after the civil war, speech by president lincoln: second inaugural address, statistics from the civil war, presidential reconstruction, freedpeople protest the loss of their land, sharecropping contract, radical reconstruction and interracial democracy, the fourteenth amendment, the first south carolina legislature, the civil rights act of 1866, congress debates the fourteenth amendment, the reconstruction acts of 1867, equality for all, speech by frances watkins harper: “we are all bound up together”, they fence their neighbors away, platform of the workingmen’s party of california, chinese immigrants write to president grant, is it a crime for women to vote, backlash and the fragility of democracy, klansmen broke my door open, “emancipation” (1865), "colored rule in a reconstructed () state" (1874), "he wants a change too" (1876), worse than slavery, louisiana white league platform (1874), "shall we call home our troops" (1875), "of course he votes the democratic ticket" (1876), speech by senator charles hays reaffirming the rights of african americans (1874), movie poster for "the birth of a nation", secondary sources, names and freedom, a nucleus of ordinary men, race and belonging in colonial america: the story of anthony johnson, "the birth of a nation" summarizes reconstruction, the influence of "the birth of a nation", w.e.b. du bois reflects on the purpose of history, the importance of getting history right, a lifeline for democracy, we need a new american founding, additional resources, related facing history resources & learning opportunities, the reconstruction era and the fragility of democracy, the reconstruction era 3-week unit, you might also be interested in…, the union as it was, radical reconstruction and the birth of civil rights, expanding democracy, the struggle over women’s rights, equality for all, enacting freedom, the power of names, the debate over reparations for racial injustice, the devastation of war, healing and justice, summative performance task & taking informed action, resources for civic education in california, unlimited access to learning. more added every month..

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The Opinion Pages

Successes and failures of reconstruction hold many lessons.

Eric Foner , the DeWitt Clinton professor of history at Columbia University, is the author of many works on American history, including " Reconstruction : America's Unfinished Revolution" and, most recently, " Gateway to Freedom : The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad."

Updated May 26, 2015, 6:47 AM

Reconstruction was an effort to reunite a nation shattered by civil war, build a new society in the South on the ashes of slavery, and bring into being for the first time in our history an interracial democracy. Yet this remarkable moment barely exists in Americans’ historical memory.

Reconstruction and its aftermath remind us that rights in the Constitution are not self-enforcing, and that our liberties can never be taken for granted.

The successes and failures of Reconstruction hold many lessons for our own time. The era reminds us that the liberation of four million people from bondage did not suddenly erase the deep racial prejudices born of slavery, nor assure lasting political or economic equality for the former slaves. Yet Reconstruction also points to the possibility of moving beyond racism toward a more just society. That white Republicans, many of whom shared their society’s racial prejudices, nonetheless rewrote the nation’s laws and Constitution to incorporate the ideal of equal citizenship should be inspiring in our own fraught times. And the mobilization of former slaves to demand their rights as Americans is an example of how ordinary people can help to change history.

Reconstruction poses a challenge to Americans’ historical understanding because we prefer stories with happy endings. Unfortunately, the overthrow of the South’s biracial governments, accomplished in part by terrorist violence, was followed by a long period of legally enforced white supremacy. Yet this itself offers a timely lesson – that there is nothing inevitable or predetermined in the onward march of freedom and equality. Reconstruction and its aftermath remind us that rights in the Constitution are not self-enforcing, and that our liberties can never be taken for granted.

Reconstruction has long been misrepresented, or simply neglected, in our schools, and unlike Confederate generals and founders of the Ku Klux Klan, few if any monuments exist to the black and white leaders of that era. Fortunately, the National Park Service has just announced an initiative to identify ways of bringing attention to Reconstruction in its historical sites. This is an important first step in making Reconstruction part of Americans’ historical self-consciousness.

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Topics: American Civil War , American history , Reconstruction , race , slavery

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The Successes and Failures of Reconstruction

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Reconstruction in the US: Failures and Successes Essay

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Introduction

Works cited.

Reconstruction refers to the period 1863-1877 after the civil War when US focused on abolishing slavery, forming a new Constitution and destroying all confederacy state. The civil wars resulted in the defeat of the southern states. As a result of the war, southern states were totally destroyed and the Federal army deployed in all those areas. Cities were destroyed, plantations uprooted, destruction of transportation system and subsequently life became miserable to the southerners and this is what necessitated the reconstruction. The reconstruction began in the era of Abraham Lincoln when the Federal troops were deployed to controlled most of the states. Reconstruction aimed at addressing issues such as legal status of the freed slave, constitution, and how southern states were to regain their self governance.

The Reconstruction occurred in three phases. The first phase was the Presidential reconstruction (1863-1865) under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. This phase was aimed at reuniting the country and restoring peace and harmony hence it began with emancipation proclamation. Second phase operated from 1866 and was referred to as Radical reconstruction or Black Reconstruction due to the influence of radicals at that time and also black dominated voters in the South. The third phase was Redemption which saw the collapse of three southern states after President Rutheford Hayes withdrew troops from all southern states. This was as a result of the defeat of Republican that saw southern conservatives regain power in the southern states hence marking the end of reconstruction. However, the major constraint to reconstruction began in early 1870’s as a result of eruption in panics whole over America. The Northern states halted there move to help the slaves in the southern region and instead concentrated in building their economy and financial well being. This was a big blow to Reconstruction since democrats took advantage of it to control the House of Representatives thereby halt the whole process.

The reconstruction was seen as a success in the sense that, once more after many years United States of America was reborn. All the southern states that were under confederacy drafted a new constitution and pledged loyalty to the Union. Federalism debate and states debate were also settled. It is worthy noting that these debates existed since the Kentucky and Virginia resolution of the 1790’s and the Nullification crisis of the 1830’s. The constitution that was adopted laid down basic right of all Americans irrespective of color or state. This constitution saw the participation of Africa America in the US politics. Therefore, as a result of Reconstruction, democratic space was created in the southern states that provided black people with same civil and political rights as their counter part whites. It also saw the provision of education to all whites and blacks in the southern region hence creating enlightenment among the population. Finally, Reconstruction provided support to rebuild southern state. That is, building of factories, railroad and the vanquished cities (Barney, p. 54).

However, though reconstruction was meant to usher in a new nation, it failed on a number of angles. First, the congress failed to persevere in its quest to urge the white southerners to act equitably towards freedmen. If they had continued to compel the southerners, they would have finally accepted the new values. The compulsion did not continue since the North had ulterior motives and the death of good leaders such as Thaddeus Steven and Charles Summer robbed the country leaders who had a vision for change. Also, the 1873 panic and later depression down played all the efforts for reconstruction (Barney, p. 54). Secondly, Federal government failed to address the land issue hence the distribution of land that was intended to give land to the freed slaves failed to materialize. It was only South Carolina that set up agencies to address the land issue. The deprivation of land to the ex-slave made them vulnerable to the southerner’s capitalist markets and as result, they paid very high prices for goods. Absence of land made them tenants and therefore forced to pay very high interest rates on supplies. Thirdly, Reconstruction failed to address the issue of class differences in South Carolina and Louisiana. African American were unable to exercise political power due to the distinction of Caste and class. Harris (1997) study concluded that Lincoln’s reconstruction policies were similar to his conservative approach and failed to address the self reconstruction in the South. Therefore, Reconstruction did little to change the southern society. The above therefore concludes that the ex-slave came out of Reconstruction the same way they were in that is, poor, landless and dependent on landlords who once again became their masters (Barney, p. 54).

Although many historians have argued that reconstruction was a total failure due to its failure to grant African Americans their basic right that time, it success totally outweigh the failures. Without the Reconstruction, a united state of America would not have existed alt this moment and civil wars among the Americans could have continued to unforeseen future. As a matter of fact slaver ism would not have come to an end if it were not for the emancipation proclamation.

Barney, William L. A Companion to 19th-century America . Blackwell Publishing, 2001, pp. 53-70

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Bibliography

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Intro Essay: The Lost Promise of Reconstruction

To what extent did founding principles of liberty, equality, and justice become a reality for african americans from reconstruction to the end of the nineteenth century.

• I can explain how the Reconstruction Amendments and federal laws sought to protect the rights of African Americans after the Civil War.
• I can identify examples of Jim Crow laws and explain how these laws undermined the rights of African Americans.
• I can explain how violence and intimidation were used to threaten African Americans from exercising their political and civil rights.
• I can analyze Reconstruction’s effectiveness in ensuring the faithful application of Founding principles of liberty, equality, and justice to African Americans.
• I can explain the various ways that African American leaders and intellectuals supported their communities and worked to end segregation and racism.

Essential Vocabulary

The Lost Promise of Reconstruction and Rise of Jim Crow, 1860-1896

After more than two centuries, race-based chattel slavery was abolished during the Civil War. The long struggle for emancipation finally ended thanks to constitutional reform and the joint efforts of Black and white Americans fighting for Black freedom. The next 30 years, however, were a constant struggle to preserve the freedom achieved through emancipation and to ensure for Blacks the equality and justice of U.S. citizens in the face of opposition, violence, and various forms of discrimination.

The Civil War created conditions for the demise of slavery. Early in the war, Congress passed two Confiscation Acts that allowed the federal government to seize and later free enslaved persons in conquered Confederate territory. On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln used his wartime executive powers to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Enslaved persons ran away from their owners and joined free Blacks enlisting in the Union Army to fight for freedom and human equality. The 54th Massachusetts Regiment was the most famous Black unit to fight in the war, but almost 200,000 Black soldiers fought for the Union. Black abolitionists joined the cause, with Harriet Tubman joining Union raids that helped liberate enslaved persons and Frederick Douglass recruiting Black troops. By the end of 1865, the requisite number of states had ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to confirm the end of slavery.

Slavery may have been banned, but Black Americans faced an uncertain future during the process of restoring the Union, called Reconstruction . The Civil Rights Act of 1866 protected basic rights of citizenship, and the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) provided for Black U.S. citizenship and equal protection under the law. Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau as a federal agency in order to give practical help to freed people in the form of immediate aid and economic and educational opportunities. The efforts of the Freedmen’s Bureau to grant Blacks confiscated land and open Black schools in the South were frustrated by President Andrew Johnson’s vetoes of the Bureau bill and by the opposition of white supremacists.

Storming Fort Wagner by Kurz & Allison, 1890

This print shows soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment attacking the walls of Fort Wagner on Morris Island, South Carolina. The Massachusetts 54th was one of the first African American Union regiments formed in the Civil War. The regiment fought valiantly during the attack on Fort Wagner while suffering nearly 40 percent casualties. The bravery and sacrifice of the 54th became one of the most famous and inspirational parts of the Civil War.

Johnson succeeded Lincoln, and while he supported the restoration of the national union, he impeded the protection of equal rights for Black Americans. He vetoed numerous laws intended to promote Black equality, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the extension of the Freedmen’s Bureau, the Reconstruction Acts, and the Tenure of Office Act, among several others. While Congress overrode most of his vetoes, Johnson proved himself a consistent opponent of Black rights. In his third annual message in December 1867, he asserted, “Negroes have shown less capacity for government than any other race of people. No independent government of any form has ever been successful in their hands.” When he fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton for resisting his policies, Congress impeached President Johnson, but the vote to remove him from office failed by one vote.

Initial protections for Blacks were also weakened by restrictions and opposition to equal civil rights. The new constitutions of former Confederate states did not protect Black citizenship or suffrage. Indeed, the states passed Black Codes that severely curtailed the legal and economic rights of Black citizens. Moreover, the codes penalized Blacks unfairly for committing the same crimes as whites.

The Union As It Was by Thomas Nast, 1874

Klan violence was documented in the press. “The Union as It Was,” an 1874 Harper’s Weekly cartoon by Thomas Nast, shows a Klan member and a White League member shaking hands over an African American family huddled together in fear. A schoolhouse burns and a man is lynched in the background.

Black Americans were also the victims of horrific violence perpetrated by white mobs and local authorities. White supremacists killed thousands of Blacks to intimidate them, prevent them from voting, and stop them from exercising their rights. The Ku Klux Klan and other groups such as the White League were organized to terrorize Blacks and keep them in a constant state of fear. The Colfax Massacre of 1873 and mass killings in places like Memphis and New Orleans were only a few examples of the wave of violence Black Americans suffered. Black and white leaders wrote to state and national officials about the violence in their communities. Congress, with the support of President Ulysses S. Grant, passed several acts aimed at protecting freed people from politically motivated violence. Such enforcement legislation was quickly challenged in the courts, and the withdrawal of all federal troops from the South in 1876 effectively ended federal intervention on behalf of the rights of freed people.

The first Black senator and representatives – in the 41st and 42nd Congress of the United States by Currier and Ives, 1872

This 1872 lithograph by Currier and Ives depicts several of the African American men who served in Congress.

Left to right: Senator Hiram Revels (MS), Representatives Benjamin Turner (AL), Robert DeLarge (SC), Josiah Walls (FL), Jefferson Long (GA), Joseph Rainey (SC), and Robert Elliott (SC).

In 1870, the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment protected the right of Black male suffrage when it banned states from denying voting rights on the basis of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Despite violence and intimidation, Blacks exercised their right to vote and served in local offices, state legislatures, and Congress. During Reconstruction, 14 African Americans served in the House of Representatives and 2 in the Senate. Nine of these leaders had been born enslaved. Local governments, however, increasingly found ways to subvert the exercise of the constitutional right to vote. Grandfather clauses , poll taxes , and literacy tests were applied to prevent Blacks from voting.

Many southern Blacks were farmers who lived under the crushing economic burdens of the sharecropping system, which forced them into a state of peonage in which they had little control over their economic destinies. In this system, white landowners rented land, tools, seed, livestock, and housing to laborers in exchange for a significant portion of the crop. As a result, Blacks barely earned a living and suffered perpetual debt that limited their economic prospects for the future.

In the later decades of the nineteenth century, Blacks also lived under confining social constraints that effectively made them second-class citizens. Segregation laws legally separated the races in public facilities, including trains, schools, churches, and hotels. These “ Jim Crow ” laws humiliated Blacks with a public badge of inferiority. Black members of Congress Robert B. Elliott and James T. Rapier made eloquent speeches in support of legislation to protect African Americans’ civil rights. Congress passed a Civil Rights Act in 1875 that protected equal access to public facilities, but the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in the Civil Rights Cases (1883), arguing that while states could not engage in discriminatory actions, the law incorrectly tried to regulate private acts. Frederick Douglass called the decision an “utter and flagrant disregard of the objects and intentions of the National legislature by which it was enacted, and of the rights plainly secured by the Constitution.” In 1896, however, the Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that segregation laws were constitutional if local and state governments provided Blacks with “separate but equal” facilities. Separate was never equal, particularly in the eyes of Black Americans.

Watch this BRI Homework Help video for a review of the Plessy v. Ferguson case.

Blacks endured escalating violence in the Jim Crow era of the 1890s. White mobs of the time lynched more than 100 Blacks a year. Lynching was summary execution by angry mobs in which the victim was tortured and killed and the body mutilated. Ida B. Wells was a courageous Black journalist who cataloged the horrors of almost 250 lynchings in two pamphlets, A Red Record: Lynchings in the United States and Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases . Despite her efforts, lynching of Black Americans continued into the twentieth century.

The shackle broken by the genius of freedom by E. Sachse & Co., 1874

This 1874 lithograph, “The shackle broken by the genius of freedom,” memorialized Congressional representative Robert B. Elliott’s famous speech in favor of the 1875 Civil Rights Act. Elliott is shown in the center of the image, while the banner at the top contains a quotation from his speech: “What you give to one class you must give to all. What you deny to one you deny to all.”

Black leaders and intellectuals like Wells, Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and W. E. B. Du Bois advocated for education as the means to achieve advancement and equality. Black newspapers and citizens’ groups supported their communities and fought back against segregation and racism. Though their strategies differed, their goal was the same: a fuller realization of the Founding principles of equality and justice for all.

W. E. B. Du Bois summed up the Black experience after the Civil War when he stated, “The slave went free, stood a brief moment in the sun; and then moved back again toward slavery.” Du Bois points to the fact that whatever constitutional amendments were intended to protect the natural and civil rights of Blacks, and however determined Blacks were to fight to preserve those rights, they struggled to overcome the numerous legal, political, economic, and social obstacles that white supremacists erected to keep them in a subordinate position. Slavery had distorted republicanism and American ideals before the Civil War, and segregation continued to undermine republican government and equal rights after the conflict had ended.

Black leaders such as Ida B. Wells, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and W. E. B. Du Bois worked for Black rights in a variety of ways.

Reading Comprehension Questions

• How did the Reconstruction Amendments and federal laws protect the natural and civil rights of African Americans during the Civil War and Reconstruction?
• Despite constitutional and legal protections, how were Blacks’ constitutional rights restricted during Reconstruction?
• Reflecting on Reconstruction, W. E. B. Du Bois stated: “The slave went free, stood a brief moment in the sun; and then moved back again toward slavery.” In what ways do you think this conclusion was accurate? In what ways might have Du Bois been wrong?

Home — Essay Samples — Life — Reconstruction — Was Reconstruction a Success or Failure

Was Reconstruction a Success Or Failure

• Categories: Civil War Reconstruction

About this sample

Words: 1452 |

Updated: 4 November, 2023

Words: 1452 | Pages: 4 | 8 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, downfalls of the reconstruction, works cited, video version, economic hardship, rights of the black community.

• Foner, E. (1988). Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. Harper & Row.
• Franklin, J. H. (1961). Reconstruction after the Civil War. The University of Chicago Press.
• Litwack, L. F. (2009). Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
• Perman, M. (2018). Reconstruction: A Short History. Oxford University Press.
• Rhodes, J. F. (1992). The Reconstruction of the South After the Civil War in United States History. Teaching History: A Journal of Methods, 17(1), 20-23.
• Richardson, H. (2001). The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Civil War North, 1865-1901. Harvard University Press.
• Simpson, B. (2015). The Reconstruction Presidents. University Press of Kansas.
• Stampp, K. M. (1990). The Era of Reconstruction, 1865-1877. Vintage.
• Trefousse, H. L. (1991). Reconstruction: America's First Effort at Racial Democracy. Taylor & Francis.
• Wilson, W. (2020). Reconstruction: A Concise History. Oxford University Press.

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Reconstruction: Inquiry High School Lesson Plan

Grades: High School

Approximate Length of Time: 3 hours excluding the final essay

Goal: Students will be able to discuss and cite the outcomes of the reconstruction period – 1863-1877.

Objectives:

• Students will be able to complete questions, finding key information within primary and secondary sources.
• Students will be able to address a question about a historic event, providing evidence from primary and secondary sources.
• Students will be able to identify ways in which historic events impact current events.

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.6-8.1 Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.6-8.2 Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/ experiments, or technical processes.

NCSS Standards for Social Studies:

1—Culture 2—Time, Continuity, and Change 3—People, Places, and Environment 5—Individuals, Groups, and Institutions 6—Power, Authority, and Governance 10—Civic Ideals and Practices

Description:

This is an inquiry lesson where students will do research to answer the inquiry question concerning the reconstruction period following the civil war. Students will develop a hypothesis, search for evidence in multiple primary and secondary sources, and complete a graphic organizer. Through this process students will develop a strong answer to the inquiry question posed at the beginning.

Inquiry Question:

What are the outcomes of the period known as Reconstruction?

• Primary Source Documents Packet
• Some of the secondary sources are links, be sure to allow access to the internet for these documents and videos
• Final Essay
• Highlighters
• The PowerPoint will act as a guide for the lesson. The PowerPoint is so detailed, it can even be done independently by students.
• There are videos within the PowerPoint that should be queued-up ahead of the lesson presentation.
• Documents within the Primary Source packet and Secondary Source packet will be referred to through-out the PowerPoint. Some of the documents are required reading, while others are noted in the PowerPoint as ‘provided,’ meaning the document has been provided but is not required reading. The provided documents might be useful for more in-depth understanding or for research purposes. Students may wish to look over and cite these documents for their essay.
• For each document guiding questions are provided, it is up to the teacher as to whether or not these need to be answered. The questions help focus students’ attention and guide in the formation of their own document related questions.
• Students should provide citations to documents as they complete the storyboard, this will act as an organizer/outline for their final essay.

Conclusion:

Students will answer the inquiry question either orally or in essay form (Essay is provided). They should use evidence from their primary and secondary sources. They can use the documents, their notes, the storyboard, and their answered questions. Students can do additional research to bolster their argument.

Assessment in this Lesson:

• Completed storyboard.
• A complete answer to the inquiry question with citations from the provided documents.

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Reconstruction

By: History.com Editors

Updated: January 24, 2024 | Original: October 29, 2009

Reconstruction (1865-1877), the turbulent era following the Civil War, was the effort to reintegrate Southern states from the Confederacy and 4 million newly-freed people into the United States. Under the administration of President Andrew Johnson in 1865 and 1866, new southern state legislatures passed restrictive “ Black Codes ” to control the labor and behavior of former enslaved people and other African Americans. 

Outrage in the North over these codes eroded support for the approach known as Presidential Reconstruction and led to the triumph of the more radical wing of the Republican Party. During Radical Reconstruction, which began with the passage of the Reconstruction Act of 1867, newly enfranchised Black people gained a voice in government for the first time in American history, winning election to southern state legislatures and even to the U.S. Congress. In less than a decade, however, reactionary forces—including the Ku Klux Klan —would reverse the changes wrought by Radical Reconstruction in a violent backlash that restored white supremacy in the South.

Emancipation and Reconstruction

At the outset of the Civil War , to the dismay of the more radical abolitionists in the North, President Abraham Lincoln did not make abolition of slavery a goal of the Union war effort. To do so, he feared, would drive the border slave states still loyal to the Union into the Confederacy and anger more conservative northerners. By the summer of 1862, however, enslaved people, themselves had pushed the issue, heading by the thousands to the Union lines as Lincoln’s troops marched through the South. 

Their actions debunked one of the strongest myths underlying Southern devotion to the “peculiar institution”—that many enslaved people were truly content in bondage—and convinced Lincoln that emancipation had become a political and military necessity. In response to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation , which freed more than 3 million enslaved people in the Confederate states by January 1, 1863, Black people enlisted in the Union Army in large numbers, reaching some 180,000 by war’s end.

Did you know? During Reconstruction, the Republican Party in the South represented a coalition of Black people (who made up the overwhelming majority of Republican voters in the region) along with "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags," as white Republicans from the North and South, respectively, were known.

Emancipation changed the stakes of the Civil War, ensuring that a Union victory would mean large-scale social revolution in the South. It was still very unclear, however, what form this revolution would take. Over the next several years, Lincoln considered ideas about how to welcome the devastated South back into the Union, but as the war drew to a close in early 1865, he still had no clear plan. 

In a speech delivered on April 11, while referring to plans for Reconstruction in Louisiana, Lincoln proposed that some Black people–including free Black people and those who had enlisted in the military –deserved the right to vote. He was assassinated three days later, however, and it would fall to his successor to put plans for Reconstruction in place.

Andrew Johnson and Presidential Reconstruction

At the end of May 1865, President Andrew Johnson announced his plans for Reconstruction, which reflected both his staunch Unionism and his firm belief in states’ rights. In Johnson’s view, the southern states had never given up their right to govern themselves, and the federal government had no right to determine voting requirements or other questions at the state level. 

Under Johnson’s Presidential Reconstruction, all land that had been confiscated by the Union Army and distributed to the formerly enslaved people by the army or the Freedmen’s Bureau (established by Congress in 1865) reverted to its prewar owners. Apart from being required to uphold the abolition of slavery (in compliance with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution ), swear loyalty to the Union and pay off war debt, southern state governments were given free rein to rebuild themselves.

As a result of Johnson’s leniency, many southern states in 1865 and 1866 successfully enacted a series of laws known as the “ black codes ,” which were designed to restrict freed Black peoples’ activity and ensure their availability as a labor force. These repressive codes enraged many in the North, including numerous members of Congress, which refused to seat congressmen and senators elected from the southern states. 

In early 1866, Congress passed the Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights Bills and sent them to Johnson for his signature. The first bill extended the life of the bureau, originally established as a temporary organization charged with assisting refugees and formerly enslaved people, while the second defined all persons born in the United States as national citizens who were to enjoy equality before the law. After Johnson vetoed the bills—causing a permanent rupture in his relationship with Congress that would culminate in his impeachment in 1868—the Civil Rights Act became the first major bill to become law over presidential veto.

Radical Reconstruction

After northern voters rejected Johnson’s policies in the congressional elections in late 1866, Radical Republicans in Congress took firm hold of Reconstruction in the South. The following March, again over Johnson’s veto, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which temporarily divided the South into five military districts and outlined how governments based on universal (male) suffrage were to be organized. The law also required southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment , which broadened the definition of citizenship, granting “equal protection” of the Constitution to formerly enslaved people, before they could rejoin the Union. In February 1869, Congress approved the 15th Amendment (adopted in 1870), which guaranteed that a citizen’s right to vote would not be denied “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

By 1870, all of the former Confederate states had been admitted to the Union, and the state constitutions during the years of Radical Reconstruction were the most progressive in the region’s history. The participation of African Americans in southern public life after 1867 would be by far the most radical development of Reconstruction, which was essentially a large-scale experiment in interracial democracy unlike that of any other society following the abolition of slavery. 

Southern Black people won election to southern state governments and even to the U.S. Congress during this period. Among the other achievements of Reconstruction were the South’s first state-funded public school systems, more equitable taxation legislation, laws against racial discrimination in public transport and accommodations and ambitious economic development programs (including aid to railroads and other enterprises).

Reconstruction Comes to an End

After 1867, an increasing number of southern whites turned to violence in response to the revolutionary changes of Radical Reconstruction. The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations targeted local Republican leaders, white and Black, and other African Americans who challenged white authority. Though federal legislation passed during the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant in 1871 took aim at the Klan and others who attempted to interfere with Black suffrage and other political rights, white supremacy gradually reasserted its hold on the South after the early 1870s as support for Reconstruction waned. 

Racism was still a potent force in both South and North, and Republicans became more conservative and less egalitarian as the decade continued. In 1874—after an economic depression plunged much of the South into poverty—the Democratic Party won control of the House of Representatives for the first time since the Civil War.

When Democrats waged a campaign of violence to take control of Mississippi in 1875, Grant refused to send federal troops, marking the end of federal support for Reconstruction-era state governments in the South. By 1876, only Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina were still in Republican hands. In the contested presidential election that year, Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes reached a compromise with Democrats in Congress: In exchange for certification of his election, he acknowledged Democratic control of the entire South. 

The Compromise of 1876 marked the end of Reconstruction as a distinct period, but the struggle to deal with the revolution ushered in by slavery’s eradication would continue in the South and elsewhere long after that date. 

A century later, the legacy of Reconstruction would be revived during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, as African Americans fought for the political, economic and social equality that had long been denied them.

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Reconstruction after the Civil War

This essay will examine the period of Reconstruction in the United States following the Civil War. It will discuss the political, social, and economic challenges of rebuilding the nation, especially in the Southern states. The piece will explore the major policies and events of the era, including the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, and the rise of Jim Crow laws. It will also assess the long-term impacts of Reconstruction on American society. On PapersOwl, there’s also a selection of free essay templates associated with Civil War.

How it works

Following the Union’s triumph in the American Civil War, the country faced some of the most pressing concerns shaping its future course; this period is known as the Reconstruction Period. One of these critical problems was how to restore America and the nation after the horrors of the Civil War. Approximately six million men died throughout the war due to sickness, starvation, accidents, and actual battle. During the war’s shock and fear, the United States also faced significant challenges in debt, racism, and slavery (Newton Gresham Library).

In light of these problems, the nation needed to devise a quick but effective strategy to bring the United States back on track following the world’s terrible conditions. Following the Union’s triumph in the American Civil War, the United States entered the Reconstruction period in ecstasy from 1865 to 1877. Conflicting political ideologies and outbreaks of violence between Northerners and Southerners over African American rights in the South raised severe problems such as racism and slavery.

Plans for Reconstruction were made in 1863 before the period started. Abraham Lincoln took the administrative decision to abolish slavery to facilitate the nation’s recovery after the war. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, resulting in the abolition of millions of slaves (Howard University). Slavery was a serious issue that needed to be addressed since all members of a community had the right to fair treatment. Congress reached an agreement in January 1865 on how to satisfy Abraham Lincoln’s request. On December 18, 1865, the United States Congress enacted the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery. After the American Civil War ended on April 9, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865. Andrew Johnson was president from 1865 to 1869, and Ulysses S. Grant was president from 1869 to 1877, governing the country during Reconstruction (Howard University). The increased migration of formerly enslaved African Americans established “black codes” in cities throughout the country. Enslaved persons “black codes” acted as a rule governing their work, conduct, and rights.

Northerners were outraged when they realized the regulations barred enslaved people from gaining their freedom. The public uproar triggered what is now known as the Presidential Reconstruction Initiative. President Johnson chose to return some of the rights lost during the war to the Southern states, which housed most enslaved people at the time. States mistreated blacks and impoverished whites, ushering the country into the period known as “Radical Reconstruction,” which Johnson had sought to avoid. Protests, constitutional revisions, and legislative measures were all the outcomes of Radical Reconstruction, and they helped mold the United States into what it is now (History.com, AE Television Network).

Because the Union won the American Civil War, the Reconstruction period began on a high note. After four years, Americans were relieved that the war was finally finished. In recognition of the end of slavery, a celebration of the 13th Amendment’s release of all enslaved people, which gave joy to African Americans, was celebrated. Even though his vice president was supposed to carry out Lincoln’s plan to provide all blacks, including those in the military, the right to vote, Lincoln only had a few days before he was assassinated to design a strategy to reunite the South. During Reconstruction, two further amendments were enacted in addition to the 13th Amendment. The 14th Amendment guaranteed equal protection to all formerly enslaved people (History.com, AE Television Network).

The 15th Amendment ensured that no American citizen would be denied the right to vote “on race, color, or former condition of servitude.” As a result of the amendments, the lives and identities of newly freed African Americans became the primary focus ofC. Elections to state legislatures in the South and the United States Congress expanded the number of strong black people across the globe. During the Reconstruction era, in addition to various other victories and accomplishments, fair taxation legislation, public education systems, and anti-discrimination laws were also implemented. (History.com, AE Television Network).

Tragedies blighted the Reconstruction phase. Black codes were an early warning sign that the United States was heading in the wrong direction in the immediate postwar period. The Union sought to reestablish trust in the South by offering debt relief and the opportunity to reconstruct the states after the war. The South took advantage of the Union’s generosity and utilized its newly obtained authority to impose severe “black codes” (Howard University). Northerners were perplexed and disgruntled by the choice to limit rights after the 13th Amendment and the Emancipation Proclamation had restored freedom. Due to strict politeness conventions, northern diplomats often avoided seating near their Southern colleagues. The Civil Rights Act and the establishment of the Freedmen’s Bureau were passed by Congress and forwarded to President Johnson for signature. Congress did not back Andrew Johnson’s vetoes of the two Acts. President Johnson was removed from office as a result of this incident.

The Reconstruction Act of 1867, which split the South and investigated the establishment of the government, began with a march against Johnson’s veto. As the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations grew worldwide, African Americans who defied white authority became a target (History.com, AE Television Network).

Reconstruction lasted from 1865 to 1877 and was marked by victory and failure. Racism and slavery shaped Congress’s choices throughout the period. Racial tensions persist today, so understanding what happened during Reconstruction is critical. The civil rights movement (1954-1968) indicates that a century after Reconstruction, African Americans are still battling for equality (Historical South Carolina Newspapers). Without a proposed solution to the 16th-century concerns of racism and slavery, the world society would not be as peaceful as it is now.

Works Cited

• Foner, Eric. “Reconstruction”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 29 Aug. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/event/Reconstruction-United-States-history. Accessed 23 October 2022.
• Newton Gresham Library. “U.S. History: Primary Source Collections Online.” (n.d.). https://shsulibraryguides.org/c.php?g=86715&p=558997
• Howard University. “Today in History.” Library of Congress. (n.d.). https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/november-20/

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