Reconstruction in the South Till 1960

Immediately following the civil war, there was great controversy over what to do with the states that attempted secession from the United States. It was clearly not as simply as reinstating their statehood, as this would send the message that not cooperating with the federal government is acceptable. In order to facilitate the reentry of the states into the union, an era of reconstruction ushered in. This would be a time of many ambitious efforts by congress to expand the civil rights of African-Americans.

It proved to be a failed effort, overall, because little permanent change occurred. Although reconstruction did manage to raise great controversy and spark some change, it was ultimately a failure, for African-Americans, despite having laws put in place to grant them civil rights, failed to achieve long-term racial integration. It also proved to be short-lived, and its collapse in the mid-1870s, would have immense impact on the future of the south well into the 20th century. The largest failure of reconstruction was its inability to seriously address and impact racial relations.The African-American people fought endlessly for equality with the white man following their emancipation.

While reconstruction ideologically targeted equal rights for African-Americans, its execution of this goal failed to have a lasting impact. In order to see the failure in its entire form, one must carefully examine the legislative agenda pursued by Congress and how that agenda failed to achieve its purpose. Immediately following the start of reconstruction, radical republicans pushed a legislative agenda aimed at the expansion of civil rights for the African race.William Howard Day attempted a more subtle approach at this in 1865 by saying it would be a service to honor Abraham Lincoln, himself, by reducing the oppression of these people. A year later, the first of several failed legislative acts would be passed, The Civil Rights Act of 1866. As Boyer explains, The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was initiated by congress in April of 1865.

Unfortunately, Andrew Johnson vetoed it. This did not doom the bill as Congress managed to override the veto in April of 1866, thus enacting the bill.Now it is important to understand the bill’s purpose. As Senator Lyman Trumbull and James Wilson stated, “[The bill has a purpose for] It provides for the equality of citizens of the United States in the enjoyment of "civil rights and immunities.

" What do these terms mean? Do they mean that in all things civil, social, political, all citizens, without distinction of race or color, shall be equal? By no means can they be so construed. Do they mean that all citizens shall vote in the several States?No; for suffrage is a political right which has been left under the control of the several States, subject to the action of Congress only when it becomes necessary to enforce the guarantee of a republican form of government (protection against a monarchy). Nor do they mean that all citizens shall sit on the juries, or that their children shall attend the same schools. The definition given to the term "civil rights" in Bouvier's Law Dictionary is very concise, and is supported by the best authority.

It is this: "Civil rights are those which have no relation to the establishment, support, or management of government. From this it is easy to gather an understanding that civil rights are the natural rights of man; and these are the rights which this bill proposes to protect every citizen in the enjoyment of throughout the entire dominion of the Republic. But what of the term immunities? What is an immunity? Simply "freedom or exemption from obligation;" an immunity is "a right of exemption only," as "an exemption from serving in an office, or performing duties which the law generally requires other citizens to perform.This is all that is intended by the word "immunities" as used in this bill.

It merely secures to citizens of the United States equality in the exemptions of the law. A colored citizen shall not, because he is colored, be subjected to obligations, duties, pains, and penalties from which other citizens are exempted. Whatever exemptions there may be shall apply to all citizens alike. ” The bill, however, could not meet this purpose and actually managed to make black rights an even more distant prospect.

Once the bill passed, the Ku Klux Klan undermined its effect. The KKK’s undermining of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 caused the act to fail the purpose of immediately securing civil rights within the African-American community. While the bill did clearly state that as of April, 1866, it is illegal to discriminate hiring and housing on the basis race, it failed to provide any federal penalties for those who do so. The intention of this was to place the obligation to bring suit, on the individuals involved rather than the state.This failed because those who were being discriminated against had limited access to legal help, effectively making them the victim of discrimination without recourse. This act attempted to solve a civil rights issue, but it actually placed a barrier between the employee and justice for discrimination, a considerably large loophole.

Ultimately, this act failed because of this. It was supposed to free blacks from discrimination, but due to organizations, such as the KKK, that enforced ideas of white supremacy, it created more racial tension in the south.However, April of 1866 did bring more congressional action towards civil rights. This was the period which Congress adopted the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States’ constitution. In the amendment’s first clause, as Boyer explains, it tried to protect blacks’ rights by ensuring all persons, born or naturalized, were citizens of the United States and their home state.

It further stated that their rights could not be abridged without due process of law, where they shall receive equal protection of the law.This also was, perhaps, an attempt to fill in the loophole left by the Civil Rights Act of 1866, for it spelled out a federal punishment for any state that denied black males suffrage. Boyer states that it did not guarantee black suffrage, it only threatened to punish the state if it disobeyed. This might seem to some as blacks making progress in terms of civil rights, but this assumption is incorrect.

In the abolitionist community, this amendment upset many because it did not explicitly ensure that blacks could vote, a definite setback in the civil rights process.All of the reconstruction states, with the exception of Tennessee, refused to ratify the amendment. Congress was on a roll, passing an act and a constitutional amendment that would backfire on the very people it aimed to serve, the African community. At this point, the United States had only readmitted one state, Tennessee, and it was clear that reconstruction was becoming failed effort. Hoping to solve issues with reconstruction-state government and with black male enfranchisement, Congress worked to pass what would be known as The Reconstruction Act of 1867.Boyer informs the reader that the Reconstruction Act of 1867 invalidated the governments in reconstruction states that formed during the presidency of Lincoln and Johnson.

The act split the ten reconstruction states into five union-controlled military districts. In these districts, the voters, which consisted of white men who were not disqualified by the fourteenth amendment and blacks, would elect delegates to a convention to write a new state constitution which must ensure blacks the right to vote.After this convention drafted a constitution, the voters must ratify it. Following its ratification, the tate could elect state officers to form a government. If congress approved, the state would be readmitted into the union.

The Reconstruction Act of 1867 essentially laid out a process for states to follow in order to be readmitted into the union, and this process centered on black suffrage within the states. Essentially, it forced each state to ratify the fourteenth amendment. Now there are many elements of this act that need examination, as they are crucial to the failure of reconstruction, not just in terms of black civil rights. However, only the terms containing civil rights will be discussed right now.The states did follow this process, and all of the former confederate states were readmitted into the union by 1870.

Soon after congressional readmission, however, these states ended the temporary civil equality gain of blacks in the reconstruction-south. In order to reinstate provisons of the slave era, black codes were enacted by states in order to blockade African-Americans from excercising the rights granted on a federal level and by the state constitution. In theory, The Reconstruction Act of 1867 was successful, for the states did follow its guidelines.It backfired because the states were able to pass these black codes, which deprived blacks of their rights on a local level.

These codes prohibited blacks from doing things such as owning guns, testifying against whites, serving on a jury, and many other things often taken for granted. Not only did the codes rob blacks of their basic liberties, The codes also created oppressive vagrancy laws that subjected those without work to arrest and prison. It is quite clear to see that blacks were loosing everything they had achieved in terms of equality.The civil rights act freed them from discrimination, but it did not penalize those who discriminated. The black codes arrested those without work, many of whom are without work because of the color of their skin.

The KKK ensured that any black that attempted to vote, or do anything previously exclusive to the white, would be killed. Finally, congress passed the fifteenth amendment, ratified in 1870. The fifteenth amendment attempted to protect the suffrage of African-Americans in the south against repeal by state or federal authority, and it enfranchised northern and border state blacks (a political stunt for the republican party).The terms of the amendment were that denial of suffrage on race, color, or previous servitude was unconstitutional. Surely, this would protect blacks from any further denial of civil liberties in the south.

Unfortunately, the swift south found yet another way to avoid federal legislation. By enacting a simple literacy test before being registered to vote, blacks were once again kept from voting, as ninety percent of the black population in the south were completely illiterate. Therefore, they could not pass a literacy test, effectively barring them from exercising their electoral power.Civil Rights for African-Americans were what modern politicians would consider a hot-button issue.

Reconstruction, in the congressional sense, aimed to expand the civil liberties of newly emancipated blacks. Reconstruction failed because congress failed to target the sectional racial problems in the south. While legislation was passed to protect civil rights of blacks, it failed because the south managed exploit a loophole in every act of congress. The ex-confederates managed to subject blacks to oppression similar to slavery by the 1880s because of the loopholes congress allowed in every piece of legislation.However, the failure of blacks to make progress in the area of civil rights is not the sole reason that reconstruction failed. However, the collapse of reconstruction would affect the South’s future well into the 20th century, predominantly in the sense that blacks would be the victims of terrorist attacks.

It is incredibly evident to historians that reconstruction, in its whole, was a failed effort that damaged the south and the union. The goal of reconstruction was to rebuild the south with blacks playing a part in society.However, the effects of the failure of reconstruction would impact the south much more than the era itself. Reconstruction did not address a key issue, reimbursement from the south effectively reducing the national debt incurred from the civil war.

Though the United States was thriving economically as it propelled into the 20th century, it managed to procure a national debt larger than any other nation. This debt was created from the civil war, which the south was responsible. Reconstruction, unfortunately, took too much of an ideological quest instead of helping the south rebuild its economy.As farms were rebuilt, people in the South grew crops that weren't food. Some of these products were tobacco and sugar. Farmers began to earn good money again.

But this meant that they were growing less food to feed the people who lived there. Much of the food was shipped in from other parts of the country. When this happens, as history shows, an economic situation results where the money raised goes to providing for one’s family. In other words, one only has enough to survive. Well this creates a problem, financially.

People are not infusing money into the economy, which creates a pitfall economically speaking. While reconstruction did allow the south to eventually return to economic stability, it did not encourage industrial growth as it should have, and it would make a farming economy that would doom the south during the great depression in the 1920s. This proved to be a very negative effect resulting from reconstruction, and it would permanently damage the south making them reliant on their farms to survive. Industry was the face of the 20th century.Reconstruction also made life for the blacks living in the south very difficult.

The 20th century would be among the hardest for the blacks in terms of racial persecution. As reconstruction ended, the KKK took on a new meaning. It was no longer enough to keep the laws granting black liberties from being enforced, for the organization as whole held a new objective; eliminate the African-American race with as much pain and suffering as humanly possible. Public lynching, burnings, sleighing, and shootings would be the face of the KKK for the 1900s and the fate for hundreds of deserving African-Americans.Reconstruction failed to grant blacks civil rights. They would struggle with their right to exist until the 1960s where laws that ensured liberty would be passed.

The era of reconstruction affected the south greatly in the future because it had a lasting negative effect on race relations in the ex-confederate south. It also failed to ignite a successful industrial economy in the south, where the people could prosper as they did in the north. Reconstruction had failed to have a positive long-term effect. Reconstruction after the Civil War was a failure.

The North was at odds and distracted over how the effort should be addressed and thus did not effectively rebuild the South and bring it back into the Union. Also, although for a time it appeared as if the freed slaves would become equal with whites, racism was allowed to pervade into society. Therefore, as seen in the ineffective efforts to bring the South back into the Union as a healthy equal to the North, Reconstruction also failed to successfully integrate freed slaves into society. The attempt at reconstructing the south proved to damage public opinion of African-Americans and little was positive for their until the 1960s.