Failure Of Reconstruction

The end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery within the United States brought on substantial change for all black people living in the country. The period called “reconstruction” that took place immediately after the war involved efforts to integrate the newly free population of black people into society with certain rights, and forced the acceptance of the 13th amendment in all states in the Union. Individuals who only days before were slaves and were owned indefinitely suddenly owned themselves and were allowed to answer only to themselves. Unfortunately, reconstruction proved to be a great failure for the blacks and only offered a glimpse of freedom before condemning them back toward slavery through the Black Codes, Johnson’s Presidential …show more content…
The ten percent plan was already in place set under Lincoln, saying that all states that were conquered by the Union could begin to reconstruct and establish a new government as soon as they had ten percent of voters to swear to uphold the Constitution which now included the 13th amendment ending slavery. In 1864, land at Davis Bend, Mississippi was confiscated and given to newly free blacks to establish a settlement of their own where they could produce cotton and other crops. One year later in 1865, general William Tecumseh Sherman promised the “40 acres and a mule” through Special Field Order No. 15 to freed slaves who had been working land in the region for years. This began to establish some forms of equality for blacks in the South that had been enslaved for generations. Additionally, in 1865 the Radical Republicans passed the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill through Congress, the idea behind it to help freed blacks in the country. The Bureau was intended to help blacks organize and establish forms of education as well as to reconnect families that had been torn apart by …show more content…
President Johnson and his view of the countries reconstruction began working against the efforts of the Freedmen’s bureau. According to Eric Foner “...New southern governments were established, elected by whites alone, and Johnson ordered lands on which the army and Freedmen’s Bureau had settled former slaves returned to their former owners.” (109) Johnson took a very soft position when it came to the southern confederates after the war and even pardoned many of them. His view of the southern governments after did not include blacks and he abetted them in the creation of the Black Codes and many other things down the road like the Jim Crow Laws and even the creation of hate