Question

What were some of the successes and failures of Reconstruction and what is the Legacy of Reconstruction? In your essay, address the political, social, and economic changes in the United States brought about by Presidential and Congressional Reconstruction and why they succeeded or failed.

Answer 1

The Reconstruction successes and failures hold many lessons for our time. The era reminds us that the emancipation of four million people from bondage did not immediately wash out the deep racial inequalities born of slavery, nor guarantee the former slaves of permanent political or economic equality. Yet Reconstruction also points to the possibility of moving toward a more just society beyond racism. The white Republicans, many of whom shared the racial biases of their culture, nevertheless rewrote the laws and Constitution of the country to introduce the principle of equal citizenship should be motivating in our own troubled times.

The original goal of President Lincoln in the Civil War was to hold the country united. And War and Restoration have been a success in this. The Confederacy was destroyed for good, and all seceding states were readmitted to the Union. In fact, in terms of public opinion the Civil War went one step further. American historian Shelby Foote noted, 'The United States is said before the war, it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent States. And after the war it was always, as we say today, 'the United States is' without being self-conscious at all. And that sums up what was done during the battle.

In the 13th Amendment, the federal government abolished slavery, defined citizenship and protected all Americans under the law with the 14th Amendment, and in the 15th Amendment expanded suffrage to all men. Federal laws, like the Freedman's Bureau and the Civil Rights Act, aimed to get African Americans back on their feet and to be fully involved in government, culture and economy. Black people were elected to all levels of government, including senators and governors.

Despite so many successes, Reconstruction faced enormous obstacles, many due to white opposition.
The new state governments have had many competent but inexperienced leaders in the early years of Reconstruction. Some of them were carpet dredgers driven by greed and corruption. Southern whites were frequently uncooperative with the blacks or yankees passing new laws. The vigilante groups, like the Ku Klux Klan, have emerged to preserve white supremacy and intimidate black voters or white people who have supported them.And while industrialization had occurred, the area remained committed to an agricultural economy and used sharecropping as a legal means to ensure that blacks would still work the land whites still owned.