Reconstruction Dbq

The fundamental point of reconstruction failed to be reached due to underfunding, laws and restrictions such as the Black codes and, lack of political follow through. After the Union victory, the government had to find a quick and efficient way of bringing the south back into the country, while also fixing its failing economy. The Lincoln administration was quick to come up with the 10% plan. Which meant that a southern state could be readmitted into the Union once 10 percent of its voters swore an oath of allegiance to the Union. This worked well until Lincoln’s assassination. Which put, Lincoln’s V.P., Andrew Johnson into office. Johnson a former slave owner himself quickly put into effect his own plan for reconstruction. Johnson’s plan although similar went further than Lincoln’s and pardoned the Confederates who owned taxable property in excess of $20,000.in 1865 alone he issued about 13,000 pardons. This angered the Radical Republicans of the time, because it once again handed all the power over to the rich planters of the south.
The U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, commonly known as the Freedmen’s Bureau was established by congress in 1865, to help salves and …show more content…
The Reconstruction Act of 1867 required southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment–which granted the equal protection of the Constitution of the United States to the former slaves and establish universal male suffrage before they could reunite with the Union. The 15th Amendment, approved and endorsed in 1870, guaranteed that a citizen’s right to vote could not be denied on account of the person’s race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Amid this period of Reconstruction, the next ten years, blacks won election to southern state governments and even to the U.S.