Causes Of Reconstruction Dbq

The period following the Civil War is called Reconstruction. The goals of the Reconstruction were to abolish slavery, allow former slaves to be citizens and have rights, integrate blacks into society, destabilize the Southern government (Confederacy), and reunited the country. Although the North won the war, the South did not win Reconstruction. Both Democrats and the Ku Klux Klan caused Reconstruction to slow down, especially in the South. Following the Civil War, Democrats tried to put a stop to Reconstruction. After the Thirteenth Amendment was passed, “radical Republicans in Congress began arguing that freedmen should be allowed to vote on equal terms with whites… Most Democrats… opposed this bill” (Document G). This is an example of how Democrats wanted to stop Reconstruction. For example, they didn’t want blacks to have equal rights of whites. Additionally, they didn’t want blacks to integrate back into society, which was one of the
goals of Reconstruction. The Democrat’s opposition to an amendment that would allow blacks to be citizens and to vote caused the ratification of the amendment to be greatly postponed. Henceforth, the Democrats not only tried to stop reconstruction, but their actions became a reality when they slowed the process down. Similarly, a white-supremacist group named the Ku Klux Klan formed during Reconstruction, and they majorly opposed it.
A former slave, who served in the Georgia State Legislature recalls, “[the Klansmen] broke my door open, took me out of bed, took me into the woods and whipped me three hours or more and left me for dead. They said to me, ‘Do you think you will ever vote another damned Radical ticket?’” (Document C). In order words, the KKK greatly opposed Reconstruction, which Radicals favored. This is why they didn’t want people to vote in favor of the Radicals. As a result, the KKK did everything in their power to try and stop Reconstruction, which included beating and killing people. These “Radical ticket[s]” were pro-integration and pro-voting rights for blacks, and when the KKK opposed these tickets, they opposed the goals of Reconstruction. Additionally, the members of the KKK were Democrats. This is not only an example of how the KKK tried to stop Reconstruction, but another example of how Democrats tried to stop it
too. Another example of how the KKK tried to put a stop to Reconstruction is by killing white Republican politicians. Albion Tourgee, a Radical Republican writes about how a State Senator from North Carolina was murdered by the KKK, “He was foully murdered by the Ku-Klux in the Grand Jury room of the Court House… Another brave, honest Republican citizen has met his fate at the hands of these fiends” (Document B).” In other words, the KKK went to the source of Reconstruction, the government, in order to try and stop it. The KKK targeted Republicans; the people who were pushing Reconstruction so that it could be stopped. This further proves that the KKK were instrumental in the outcome of Reconstruction.