Reconstruction Failure

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After the Civil War, the South was left in ruins, leaving many jobless and homeless. However, President Lincoln, at the time, was determined to help rebuild the South and allow them to come back into the Union under certain requirements. Unfortunately, Lincoln was assassinated on April 14th, 1865 by John Wilkes Booth, and was unable to follow through with his plans on Reconstruction. (Boyer. “Presidential Reconstruction”). This death of the beloved president left the nation heartbroken and filled with distrust. Southerner John Wilkes Booth had just assassinated a man who was the South’s best hope in rebuilding themselves economically, politically and socially. Throughout the attempts of Reconstruction the South ultimately kept turning the clock …show more content…
Under his Presidential Reconstruction, land that had been taken by the Union Army and given to to the freed slaves by the Freedmen’s Bureau was given back to the original owners. (“Reconstruction”). Southern state governments were given the power of free reign to rebuild themselves. This is a failure because the South was very unstable at this time and would not be able to rebuild themselves alone; they need guidance and help. This shows that Andrew Johnson was a very lenient and merciful president. Because of this quality, the South took matter into their own hands and created “the black codes”. (“Reconstruction”). These limited freedom on former slaves and were basically the slave codes rewritten. This was another failure since it brought back the ways African Americans lived before and during the Civil War. The South seemed to keep turning the clock back because they did not want to accept the new social reform being brought upon the nation as a whole, accepting African Americans into society. Northerners were outraged because of these codes, so Congress passed the Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights Bills in 1866. The Freedmen’s Bureau gave aid to the South to those who were homeless and freed slaves. The bill was to extend the bill’s life. The Civil Rights Bill stated that everyone born in the United States is a citizen. These two bills in act of Reconstruction were then vetoed by Johnson. However, the Civil Rights Act became a law because of Congress’s override of the President’s veto. Congress, infuriated, called for an impeachment on Johnson in 1868.
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