Reconstruction Failure

After the Civil War, the Southern United States was in ruins from all the battles that had taken place. Damage had been done, and repairs had to be made. This repairing process was dubbed “Reconstruction,” and it managed to last for 12 years along with having attained a diverse amount of political opinions regarding the concept. Overall, Reconstruction was a failure because of the South’s lack of obedience towards the North’s plan and the North giving up on the process too soon, when the correct time to stop would be years after the South was feeling they were being accepted back in the Union.
One of the main reasons Reconstruction did not work out is that the South disobeyed the North’s plan for their regrowth back into society. The former
Rather than keeping the pressure up until a solid agreement was made, they grew fatigued and let chaos erupt much too early. An example of this adds on to the false guilt already held by Americans over the war. It was a legal act, the Amnesty Act of 1872, that brought former Confederates back into politics as stated here, “Amnesty Act gives former Confederates their right to vote back.” (Timeline, 2) By having genuinely felt sorry for limiting the rights of former men who were rebelling against the government, the North was not doing themselves any favors by having let them back into the equation, especially considering how much harm the South created. This was like a second ending to Reconstruction in that the same amount of sympathy was being enacted upon. At first, the South is being told they are de facto independent and have freedom to do what they want. Then, the men who created such an imbalance are re-included into politics out of a letdown of Congress’s character. Neither of the events made proper sense, and as a result of their sequence Reconstruction diminished completely. Next, a Senator explained to Robert Smalls in the final act of the Robert Smalls play, contextually in the late 1870’s, that many Northerners are glad the slaves are free, however they aren't ready for equality. And obviously, Southerners feel negative about anything related to equality. (Play, 21) Upon realizing what the result of a successful Reconstruction would require, near total equality between all races, the North ultimately decided that it was too much to tolerate and soon after the government officially gave up. This was done by then President Rutherford Hayes, who made the decision in 1877 as covered in this quote, “Once in office, President Hayes withdrew all remaining federal troops from the South. After that, Democrats quickly took control of the last southern states.”