Was Reconstruction A Success Or Failure Essay
Pauline Abadoya AMH 2020 Professor Miro September 1, 2024 Reconstruction Shortly following the Civil War, attempts to restore the southern states to the Union and securing the rights for newly freed African American Americans was defined as Reconstruction. While there were some significant progresses made, Reconstruction, in the long run, failed to completely reach its goal. One of the major reasons for the failure of reconstruction was inability to protect the freedmen from the racism they faced in the South. Despite the ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments which abolished slavery, giving citizenship, equal protection of the law, and the right to vote to Black Americans, they still faced frequent torment from white supremacists. Black Americans
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Before the Civil War, the Southern States maintained a great amount of wealth producing cotton crops, while in the North they boasted about being a land of free labor and having a strong market economy. Just like any other war, the Civil War left both areas in ruins, destroying both their lives, property, and economy. Land was to be given to formerly enslaved people during the Reconstruction era to provide them a place to build a home for their family but due to not having enough authority to confiscate and distribute the land, General William T. Sherman was not able to give them this opportunity. The Freedmen’s Bureau gave Black Americans land but short-lived, the land was eventually given back to ex-Confederates who had left them behind. Southern governments were left in debt to fund the war, black families turned to sharecropping, which would sometimes lead them into “cycles of debt that kept families bound to land.” The North was met with inflation and its troops demanding higher wages to pay for rent and businesses needed money to pay for the taxes that were recently put up by
Before the Civil War, the Southern States maintained a great amount of wealth producing cotton crops, while in the North they boasted about being a land of free labor and having a strong market economy. Just like any other war, the Civil War left both areas in ruins, destroying both their lives, property, and economy. Land was to be given to formerly enslaved people during the Reconstruction era to provide them a place to build a home for their family but due to not having enough authority to confiscate and distribute the land, General William T. Sherman was not able to give them this opportunity. The Freedmen’s Bureau gave Black Americans land but short-lived, the land was eventually given back to ex-Confederates who had left them behind. Southern governments were left in debt to fund the war, black families turned to sharecropping, which would sometimes lead them into “cycles of debt that kept families bound to land.” The North was met with inflation and its troops demanding higher wages to pay for rent and businesses needed money to pay for the taxes that were recently put up by