Political Goals Of Reconstruction

Presidential Reconstruction, to many was thought to be a freeing of slaves. An ending to the cycle of slavery and introduction of former slaves and Black Americans to a newly found freedom. The idea of freedom was nothing more than that and idea. Economic and political challenges had only just begun for the three million slaves who faced this new freedom. Their goals of political and economic freedom were met by counter measures from ex-Confederates and even by those who sought the votes of these newly liberated blacks.
A victory for the north in 1965 gave the Republican Party the ability to take control of the southern states. With this victory came the Thirteenth Amendment, which set into place a standard for labor for all the states not …show more content…
The right to vote was a highly sought after right during the Reconstruction Era. Many blacks equated their citizenship with the right to vote. Voting was a powerful tool that if used correctly could give Blacks much more of the freedom they sought. Ex-Confederates seen this as a threat and tried to prohibit black voting all together. African-American voters were often threatened at the polls, somewhere physically attacked and beaten in attempts to curb their votes. With much of the power to enforce these voting rights still in the hands of the state government states like North Carolina created “a clever form of disenfranchisement” when it adopted the “Eight Box Law” which divided election ballots into separate voting boxes, for local, state and national elections. These boxes served as a “confusing literacy test” and if the ballots were not in the proper box the vote was not counted. ( Organization of American Historians 2007) Some ex-Confederate states continued to force disenfranchisement through “secret ballots” and” poll taxes.” Along with literacy testing that not only prohibited blacks from voting but also “poor illiterate whites” ( Organization of American Historians