Synthesis Of Reconstruction

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“Longing hearts could only stand so much longing.” Margaret Mitchell

In a period of time after the tragic Civil War, America entered a time of rebuilding, known as the Reconstruction. During this time, the northerners had created a movement to create equal rights for former slaves, fighting to get them all the rights that white Americans had. For a while, it seemed as if things were going in favor of Reconstruction; Three amendments were made giving black Americans more rights, a Military Reconstruction Act was founded, black churches and schools were built, and African Americans were even elected to congress. For a moment it looked like after not too long black Americans would have all the same advantages that most other Americans had,
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Hayes and democrat Samuel J. Tilden. In reality, Tilden should have won via popular vote by a landslide, but due to rumors of a new Civil War arising, The Compromise of 1877 was created, giving the presidency to Hayes. He then decreed that he would remove all northern Federal soldiers from the South, guaranteeing that all-white governments there would come to power. This was the final push that officially ended Reconstruction for good. Before this final straw, however, Reconstruction as a whole was already starting to weaken and fall apart. Of course this leaves one question: which side, north or south, ceased the progression of freedom for former slaves? Though both sides had contributed to the fall of reconstruction, the South was the main blame here. The main things that brought this movement to an end were white supremacy …show more content…
The south, to nobody’s surprise, firmly believed that all former slaves were unfit for political duties and would never be qualified for the job. The north, on the other hand, believed in a similar notion, but their reasoning held some truth. They believed that before former slaves are fit for political duties, they must enter a period of education to learn the ways of an honorable politician (D). It would be ridiculous to send someone to serve in a political job without formerly knowing anything relating to the subject, therefore an education period would be more that necessary. You would think that this statement shows that the north is 100% ready to accept black Americans into groups such as congress, but in that notion you would be mistaken. According to a political comic drawn by a northern artist, black Americans are seen as primal, almost monkey like to everyone around them (D). They are portrayed as people without reason, which only know violence. With the north thinking this way, it would be more than safe to assume that the south felt the same, if not more so, about these portrayals. Had these ideals and prejudices had not existed, the end result of Reconstruction might have been different. Though the north still had racist prejudices, at the very least they were open to giving former slaves a chance to become educated, something

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