Reconstruction's Failure Essay Example

Throughout the history of the world, there have been many failures. Examples of failures in history would be the Articles of Confederation, post-Civil War Reconstruction, and the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. However, with each different failure in history, there are different reasons for why these failures occurred. Following the Civil War, there are many different reasons why Congress' Reconstruction efforts to ensure equal rights to the freedmen failed. The main reason why Reconstruction failed was because of the discriminatory feelings toward the African Americans. Two examples that support this reason are the corruption within the government and the different actions taken by various rebellion groups. Between the years of 1865 and 1877, Congress' efforts to end slavery and to ensure that equal rights were provided for everyone showed that it ultimately failed. One reason why Reconstruction after the Civil War failed was because there was corruption within the government. Boyer, a Pennsylvanian Congressman who despised blacks, said that he believes that the reason why black people should be denied the right to vote is because African Americans are not equal to white Americans and that they do not have the mental capacity to vote. This statement by Boyer suggests that racism towards African Americans was abundant in both the South and the North (Doc 1). Because of this feeling of resentment towards African Americans, especially in the

government, there was a lot of corruption within it. An example of this was the effects of the Freedman's Bureau. The main purpose of the Freedmen's Bureau was to provide the freed slaves with a home and give them proper education. Unfortunately, the Freedman's Bureau ultimately failed because of Southern legislatures passing Black Codes. These Black Codes were essentially designed to keep African Americans in submission and take a slave like role. They prevented African Americans from serving on a jury,