Was Reconstruction successful?
(Read what others wrote and respond to this question.  Consider any social, political or economic changes that occured.)
 


Comments

AnC
02/18/2011 10:05

The Recontruction was not a successful event in history. After all the horrible things that happend in the Civil War, after it was still bad. The country had a drastic change in political,social and economic things. Crops went down and the freedmen had to still work as a sharecropper. The 13th, 14th, 15th amendment occured and some weren't even followed. The blackcodes were created target the African Americans. Things really didn't change and it took about 30 years for Reconstruction to finally be succesful. So no, Recontruction was NOT succesful in my poit of view. :p

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SF
02/18/2011 10:07

Overall, when it comes to Reconstruction, I must say that overall it was a catastrophic failure, even when on paper it seemed perfect! Slavery had been ended, Freedmen were given rights and the good ol' USA got back together. Even segregation demanded structures for African Americans to be up to par. However, if one was to pay more attention to the day to day social lives of people in this era, they would quickly find that Reconstruction was a resounding failure. Though slavery had been outlawed, Black Codes came in to play, limiting African Americans rights and freedoms. Sharecropping was the new slavery, the only difference being that instead of brutal beatings and fear, the former slaves now contended with debt, violence and lack of shelter or food. So once again, while the economy, and to a lesser extent politics, were reformed and back on track, the poor treatment of Freedmen basically cancel out any positives of Reconstruction. That is why Reconstruction was a failure.

As for you tl;dr people, while the country re-united successfully, the treatment of minorities for whom the Civil War was fought negates any good parts.

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MMM
02/18/2011 10:08

No, Reconstruction was not succesful event in history. It might have been successful in rebuilding the South after all the destruction caused by the war, but It did absolutely nothing for slavery. In my opinion, I think African Americans were better off in slavery than they were freedmen. When they were slaves, atleast they were protected. Their owners looked out for them and made sure nothing happened, because they needed them for work. But when they were freed people, nobody was there to help them, and nobody cared if they lived or died.
When slaves were free, what were they supposed to do? They weren't educated, and they had no sense of how to live on their own without being bossed around. Also, the whites disagreed with freeing the slaves, so they didn't help at all when they were freed. In fact, they created almost a whole new type of slavery, called sharecropping. Sharecropping not only made the freedmen poor, but made them fall harshly into debt that could not be paid off with the amount of their salary.
There were also social changes, like having a segregated society and a new wat of life for freed people. I can say the white people were not particularly fond of all the social changes.
Also, in the business part of reconstruction, the industry blew out. They were trying to "Out yankee the yankees", but they couldn't grow their industry faster than the North.
In the end, Reconstruction only favored white people. They had it set in their minds that whites were the top class, and African Americans didn't even make a social status. Reconstruction was not succesful at all.

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MMM
02/18/2011 10:09

!!! SF, even though we're on the same side, my blog was still better than yours. !!!

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ap
02/20/2011 10:29

AnC u spelled point wrong you spelled it poit

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MPN
02/23/2011 15:54

Reconstruction was not successful. People may think that Reconstruction was helpful in the re-building of our nation because rules were made in order to give African Americans their freedom. Although these rules and changes to the government were made the South revolted. For example the southerners created a law called the Jim Crow Laws. This technically said that even though all men are equal they are segregated into groups by race. Another reason why Reconstruction was unsuccessful was because even though the African Americans were now free they did not know how to do anything other than work with land, due to former rules made in the South. After the Civil War no freedmen owned any land to farm on, so they rented land from white land owners. The land owners were unfair to their land renters and made a contract with them stating that they had to share half of the money they get from farming. Also they had to pay off debt to them leaving the African American land renters with little to no money left in their pockets. Reconstruction was unfair and not well controlled. In all Reconstruction was not a successful event in our nations history.

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T.E
02/27/2011 10:32

Reconstruction can be considered successful, slavery was abolished in the 13th  amendment. The 14th and 15th amendment were also made so that African americans could have equal right. Such as becoming citizens and acquiring the same rights any other citizen would get (14th). African Americans could also vote no matter what race, skin color, or previous condition of servitude (15th). On paper this sound great but reality was that reconstruction was a complete failure. It's true slavery was abolished, but a new form slavery was made, this was  called sharecropping. I quick summary of sharecropping is basically you worked someone else's land and got a share of the crop. The bad thing about this was that you were in a never ending debt.  Jim Crow laws were made to segregate blacks from whites. They (whites) said they were separate but equal and trust me when I say there was nothing equal. They (blacks,and whites) had to use different bathrooms, schools, water fountains, blacks had to use the back of the bus and whites were able to use the front, etc. Everything was in bad conditions for the blacks.  Other laws were are also passed in the south so that they could shorten African American rights.  Such as the literacy test, and the poll tax. Both were so that African Americans could not vote. The literacy test was when people had to be able to read before they could vote, and a poll tax was simply a tax that had to be paid in order to vote. This is why reconstruction was a failure state government made laws so that it made it difficult for African Americans to get the same rights any other citizen would.

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T.E
02/27/2011 10:35

i forgot a comma(,) in between failure and state on the last sentence.

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EK
02/27/2011 16:31

Reconstruction was not a successful time period in our nations history.Although reconstruction was meant to mend our nation after the war,it really only became worse.Reconstruction was meant for whites and blacks to be equal,but after reconstruction they were far from it.On top of the blacks being unequal to the whites after reconstruction they were also unable to vote. because of the inequalty between the blacks and whites ,it led to frequent riots.Reconstruction was defenitley not a successful event in the rebuilding of our nation after the civil war.

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A.T.
02/27/2011 16:32

Reconstruction was successful in some ways and in some ways it wasnt. Reconstruction was successful because blacks gained freedom and many political rights. The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments increased black rights of citizenship. Another reason that the reconstruction was successful was because the states at war with the U.S were brought back into the united states. Reconstruction was a failure because african amercians were still tortured by the klu klux klan (KKK) and other white groups showing anger towards blacks. Also black codes were formed and the Jim Crow Law was created. Another reason was that Lincoln was assassinated. Those are the reasons why the reconstruction was successful in some ways and a failure in others.

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