Reconstruction Dbq

Southern resistance plays a major role on the end of reconstruction. Tourgee Was a white, Northern Soldier who wrote a letter about the KKK actions in the south. The Ku-Klux-Klan Stabbed John W. Stephens six times, Then after that they hanged on a hook in the grand jury room.(Doc A). The KKK were a terrorist group made up from farmers, doctors, lawyers, first class towns

In the first place, the North had many faults for helping the South kill reconstruction. The North

Wanted the rebuild relations with the south and believed the faster this happened the quicker the country could heal. Lincoln was assassinated , only days after Robert E. Lee’s surrender and didn’t have the chance to carry out his plans and vision for reconstruction. Lincolns plans for Reconstruction were taken over by his vice president, Johnson, who became president after Lincoln’s death and applied the reconstruction policies. President Johnson believed the sooner relationship between the north and south could be mended the sooner the country could move forward and grow. Radical republicans managed to gain extensive votes in the fall election.

The Civil War is one of the United State’s most bloodshed wars. With the North and South against each other, many American’s lives were lost in battle as well as simply being affected by illness. After the North’s triumph, the South was in great destruction. The war was fought on Southern turf, so with the Civil War being 4 years long, one can imagine what the outcome of the war would look like. The South relied on agriculture as their way of making it economically, so this left the South in debt, with many poor freed African Americans, along with a high percentage of poor whites. All this destruction and remaining division between the Union led the Reconstruction to begin.

As a Representative and a Senator from Ohio I John Sherman convicted Andrew Johnson. "Instead of cooperating with Congress, by execution of laws passed by it, he has thwarted and delayed their execution, and sought to bring the laws and the legislative power into contempt. Armed by the Constitution and the laws, with vast powers, he has neglected to protect loyal people in the rebel States, so that assassination is organized all over those States, as a political power to murder, banish and maltreat loyal people, and to destroy their property. All these he might have ascribed to alleged want of power, or to difference of opinion in questions of policy, and for these reasons no such charges were exhibited against him, though they affected the peace and safety of the nation. When he adds to those political offenses the willful violations of of

The North was not the main reason that Reconstruction ended, but the North’s attitude was slightly racist and distracted which helped in the end of Reconstruction. Reconstruction was not the only problem in America: national issues became a huge

Beginning in 1865 and ending in 1877 the Reconstruction Era was an Era that caused many changes in America. Reconstruction was a plan that Abraham Lincoln mentioned in 1863 for the aftermath of the Civil War. Before Lincoln could accomplish his plan of Reconstruction he was assassinated allowing the Reconstruction idea to be pass to his successor Andrew Johnson. One main reason for the Reconstruction Era was to establish rights for all freedmen. During the start of the Reconstruction Era the South was in political, social, and economic turmoil; however, the Union was responding to the South in a very unpleasant way by planning to regain Confederate states and change the way of the southern government operates to make it easier for many freedmen to live.

Many people had this opinion about African Americans. Many groups and organizations were established due to racism and the reconstruction efforts. One organization known for their mysterious operations was the “KluKlux Klan.” The KluKlux Klan (KKK) used terror and violence against African Americans and their white supporters. Their chief goal of the Klan attacks was to keep African Americans from voting. General George Thomas stated that “its grand purpose being to establish a nucleus around “the adherents of the late rebellion might safely rally.”” (Doc. two) The KKK influenced other white people to dislike the freemen and blacks so they won’t have any power, or so that they won’t vote. Also, in an editorial in the Atlanta News (doc. 4) it states how people want to form White Leagues to form together to work against radical Republicans and African Americans.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “By these recent successes the re-inauguration of the national authority – reconstruction – which has had a large share of thought from the first, is pressed much more closely upon our attention. It is fraught with great difficulty.” (Fitzgerald 4) Abraham Lincoln was right, Reconstruction was full of hardships. The Civil War ended in 1865 and created a split in the North and South. The South had to rejoin the Union. Lincoln, Johnson, and Congress all wanted a different plan for Reconstruction. Although Reconstruction ended in 1877, its legacy lived on to present day.

The American Civil War occurred from 1861 to 1865, with the North and South unable to reconcile their differences peacefully, it turned to violence and bloodshed. It tested American principles and fundamentals, spurring from sectionalism, or the allegiance to one's region as opposed to the whole country. Due to the distinct political, economic, and social systems of the North and South, each was unable to obtain its objectives, leading to a war which resulted in conservation of the Union and an end to slavery.

With the Freedmen, Reconstruction may have helped them gain freedom and protection under the constitution, but these protections were flawed and loopholes were found. To spite the radical republicans, the south created Black Codes that had rules like, “Every Negro is required to be in the regular service of some white person, or former owner, who shall be held responsible for the conduct of said Negro” (Louisiana). These laws were in effect before the 14th amendment came and was in laymen’s terms slavery. Freedmen were known to vote Republican in the south because they gained freedom because of the Republicans. However, the South wanted no one to vote for Republicans because in their eyes it was the Republicans that ruined them. So, to ensure that Freedmen did not vote for Republicans, they invented the KKK. The KKK was a political group that wanted to stop votes for Republicans in the south. By any and all means necessary. One example is Adam Colby, who was a Freedmen and a republican. The KKK tried to bribe him to get him to stop his Radical Republican activities. When Adam didn’t rise to the bribe, they broke into his home on the 29th of October and took him to the woods where they whipped him and left him for dead (“Testimony”). Not only this, but Freedmen had a very hard time finding places to live. Many places had a “whites only” mindset and would not sell to Freedmen. An example of this type of situation is when a young Freedwoman was looking for a home with her husband. An agent told her and her husband he had just the place they were looking for but could not give it to them because “all the white people in the neighbourhood would be down on me” (“The”). Reconstruction brought an even uglier side of the

As the Civil War came to a close, the United States Government, realized that they had to put this torn Country back together. The Government needed to make America even greater than it was before, thus Reconstruction was born. Reconstruction was off to a rocky start, the North and South were still at each other's throats. As this period of time went on new laws were passed, some, we still have today and others were abolished for their cruelty. Both sides, North and South had disrupted Reconstruction, but the South bears greater responsibility for the end of the reconstruction because they discriminated against, intimidated, and harmed African Americans as well as anyone who opposed them.

The American Civil War, fought between 1860 and 1865 was one of the bloodiest conflicts in the history of warfare. At the end of the war, more than 600,000 soldiers were dead or wounded. The institution of slavery was ended and the United States was changed forever. Several causes have been suggested for the conflict, including the disagreement over the institution of slavery, economic differences between the north and south and a difference in how the Constitution was to be interpreted. Slavery, however, is the key issue that lies at the heart of the conflict.

In the 1866 in Tennessee, an organization known as the Invisible Empire of the South, or Ku Klux Klan, sprouted. This organization consisted of racist Whites who hated the Black and so it wan an organization that scared Blacks from not voting or seeking any jobs. Document F shows that the “KKK” organization often used terror and violence to scare the blacks. The members of this organization were known as Klansman and these Klansman burned churches and schools, hanged teachers and educated blacks. Blacks were often whipped for refusing to work for whites, for having intimate relations with whites, for arguing with whites, or for having jobs whites wanted. Or else, these blacks were brutally beaten, as shown in Document F, just for being an African American.

When a war occurs, it takes years for the society or societies involved to return to a more normal, calm state. In the case of the American Civil War, many aspects of the country were disrupted after the war ended in 1865. Relations were strained, land had been destroyed, families torn apart, and much more. The economy struggled, and many Southerners did not want to accept a loss. The death count for the American Civil War was also an amazing number, and made a large dent into families, businesses, and towns across the nation.