preview

Essay On Reconstruction Dbq

Decent Essays

After the Civil War the people of the nation especially the government wanted to help the newly freed African-Americans however something caused the ever-growing wave of equality to cave in on itself and retract. In the beginning many people were supportive of reconstruction. Laws like the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were passed ensuring African-American citizenship and their civil rights. Schools and churches were quickly built for them and the former slaves were even gaining positions in the government. It all seemed great until the election of 1876 when Ruther B. Hayes a republican and Samuel J. Tilden a democrat ran for the presidency. The votes were so close that the winner was unclear, so Hayes struck a deal for the presidency in return he would remove the last soldiers from the south. It almost guaranteed that all white governments would rise to power again. But even with …show more content…

During reconstruction KKK were bribing voters and if that didn't work then they would threaten and sometimes even kill if their victim does not change their vote(Doc B). On top of that attention to national problems were put aside for things such as the “Panic of 1873 and the corruption of Grants administration” Doc C. This forced political figures to pay less attention to the south with in turn caused the south to run itself free from interference by the government. I'm sure that even in the 1800s people were still taught integrity yet the South's government seems to have had none. For they quickly filled government positions to pro-all-white politicians while doing everything they could get away with to eliminate all people in positions of authority who opposed them. Though this may have been a very large contributor to reconstruction’s failure it wasn’t the only reason that reconstruction wasn't able to succeed in its role to protect, and help the newly freed

Get Access