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The Failure Of Reconstruction

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We as a country have gone through many changes (Politically, Socially and etc.,) throughout our lifetime. Many great leaders have come and gone, all of them bring different objectives and plan for our future. As we move on, though, so does all of their “Radical Movements”. One such movement was reconstruction. Reconstruction was a period in our nations time some of us would like to forget. Can it really be said, though, that reconstruction was a complete failure? That all it did was make times hard for freed slaves in the U.S. I for one think that Reconstruction was both a success and a failure.

When reconstruction first began in 1865, the people of America had just gotten over the brutal and destructive Civil War. In actually, reconstruction …show more content…
Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and Andrew Johnson made up these three leaders. Thaddeus Stevens held a place in the House if Representatives. His main objective was to improve the economic opportunity for slaves. He wanted them to be able to survive on their own without the need of the “White man” as they did all their lives. Charles Sumner was a senator who fought for African Americans citizenship as well as their political rights. He felt that the constitution was correct when it stated the “all men are created equal”. Lastly, there was president Andrew Johnson. He had been Abraham Lincolns vice president, and thus had in mind a plan for Reconstruction that mirrored Lincoln’s. Most of the Radicals did not agree with his plan though. They thought he wasn’t giving enough attention the their main issue, the right for slaves, and that he went overboard with the 13,000 pardons. Andrew Johnson was later impeached in 1868. While still held his office he had basically no authority to go with …show more content…
The Act that they finally decided to pass was the Reconstruction act. This act had two main points to it, which first states that U.S troops are required to take up residence in the confederate states of the south. Secondly, the act stated that any state that wanted a position with the union was only allowed back in if they admitted that all men, no matter race, that were born in the United States are citizens and there for are guaranteed treatment by the law. New state constitutions were written in the south under the terms of this new act and by August 1868 six states (South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, and Florida) had returned to the

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