preview

Essay On Reconstruction Dbq

Decent Essays

The reconstruction was a great success educationally and a minor success politically. Economically, the reconstruction caused a revised and legal version of slavery that implicated long term social problems. In 1865, Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau which helped distribute food, supplies, medical care, and education to freedmen and white refugees. Its greatest success came from educational aide to about 200,000 African Americans. Failures were often derived from the re-establishment of slavery - legally - through labor contracts. These contracts were often impossible to fulfill because the landowner would claim “the sharecropper owes more than he has earned” (Document D). To pay the debt, the sharecropper must promise the landowner …show more content…

From Johnson's perspective, reconstruction was complete by 1865 but in reality, freed slaves still had no rights and Johnson tried to detain any forward moving actions of reconstruction. The republican congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which granted emancipated African Americans the right to sue, serve on juries, and other legal rights. Congress also passed the 13th amendment, abolishing slavery, and the 14th amendment, recognizing freed slaves as citizens (Document B). Opelousas, Louisiana responded to the amendments with the “Black Codes;” no African American enter the limits of the town unless a permit is cleared, no African American will rent or own a house or weapon in town, and no public meetings between African Americans are permitted, and all African Americans must be employed by a “white person” (Document C). Other legal issues pertained to the Ku Klux Klan or KKK. The members of this society pursued the idea that African Americans are meant to be enslaved and put in place to function properly in American society. At one point, the KKK’s violence become so prominent that military troops were ordered to protect freedmen. The political portion of reconstruction placed important laws but lacked in tremendously improving the political situation of African

Get Access