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Reconstruction Dbq Essay

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The North’s victory after four years of fighting in the Civil War in 1865 allowed the 13th amendment to pass, and eventually added the 14th and 15th amendment to the constitution. These abolished slavery and attempted to create equal rights among all people. The Reconstruction Act divided the South into separate military districts and formed governments based on male suffrage. The South and North had extremely different views on how to rebuild the South and how former slaves should be incorporated into the country as freed people. The process of the Reconstruction period of rebuilding the South proposed many new challenges. The efforts to ensure equal rights to the freedmen failed because of the acts that were passed to control the labor and …show more content…

In Document two, it explains the act passed called the “black codes” which were meant to preserve public order and keep the former slaves to have “comfortable and correct” behavior. It continued white supremacy and hierarchy following the 13th amendment and since the president at the time, Andrew Johnson, didn’t stop this, it was legal. The audience of this document is the South because these codes allowed people to have control over freedmen which benefited them since they didn’t have to pay them to do labor and could keep tight restrictions on them at all times. Document four is two photos showing whites having authority over African Americans. Under the photo it states, “Everything falls to democratic victory this fall.” This photo was in 1874 which was during Grant’s presidency which fuelled the growth of Democratic strength. It was also during the financial decline and global panic of the Republican party since there was a major decline of jobs and production in most parts of the country. Document seven portrays headlines and excerpts from front page news stories in November 1874 that are called “Democratic Victory” and “The Republican Defeat.” This shows the decline in the Republican party and the increase in the Democratic Party means there were …show more content…

In Document one, Congressman Benjamin Boyer, a Democrat who opposed the bill to allow African Americans the right to vote in the District of Columbia, said that blacks are not inferior to whites because of the color of their skin, but because they aren’t mentally equal to whites. Not only were African Americans not supported to participate in the Government, but women were not as well. The 15th amendment was supposed to grant universal manhood suffrage but since it was intentionally written very vaguely, there were many loopholes left that discluded the poor, women, and African Americans from voting and/or participating in the Government. Document five was a petition written to the United States Congress on March 25, 1871 from the colored citizens of Frankfort. In this petition, the people of Frankfort politely explain how even though they are law-abiding citizens that pay their taxes, they are not treated in this way. The purpose of this document is to tell Congress that as citizens of this country; they have the right to their life, liberty, and property being protected but the government has failed to do so. They simply asked for laws that would protect them and allow them to exercise the rights of citizens without experiencing terror and violence against their race. Document eight is a cartoon of a

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