To what extent was the Reconstruction in the former Confederate States
successful in achieving its objectives in the first decade after the American
Civil War?
Following the
American Civil War (1861-1865), tension and conflict between the opposing
states and races was unavoidable, and the objectives of the Reconstruction in
the former Confederate States could not be successfully achieved to a substantial
extent within the first decade after the war. With hopes to unify the Southern
and Northern states, common objectives were established by politicians in which
the, “Congress focussed on rebuilding the nation”
,
and attempts were made to fully abolish African American slavery, which would
be achieved through changes in legislation such as the Thirteenth Amendment to
the Constitution. Some success was seen in these objectives of reconstruction,
where several movements existed in an effort to eradicate slavery. The
Freedmen’s Bureau, which was set up to provide the freed slaves with short term
support and security, and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which granted all men,
including those of African American heritage, with United Sates citizenship,
provide examples of the post war objectives achieving success. However, many of
the plans and objectives failed, and were unable to be successfully implemented
into society. Unification of the Southern and Northern states saw difficulties
in deciding appropriate punishments for the South, as many Northerners argued
that the Southern states were wrongly excused of their punishments. Numerous
troubles also resulted for the freed slaves, whereby manipulation of the law
and a lack of acceptance in society meant they were still experiencing strong discrimination.
The level of difficulty in achieving reconstruction following the war was
almost unavoidable due to the nature of the war, as soldiers were in essence
fighting their own people, and for the first time in their history, Americans
were facing, “
a landscape of ruins, cities in ruin,
crops in ruin, an economy in ruin, and a whole section of the population with
their psyche, their spirit, their society in ruin”.
Thus, within the first decade after the American Civil War, the objectives of
reconstruction were not successfully achieved due to undying conflict between
the Southern and Northern states, and between Caucasian Americans and the
African American freed slaves.
As the American Civil War reached
its conclusion, it was crucial for both the Southern and Northern states to
consider appropriate objectives and methods of reconstruction to aid in the rapid
reconciliation of the Union.
The
predominant objectives of the Reconstruction aimed to, “bring the Union
physically and politically back together”
,
in which plans were developed to, “rebuild the nation, readmit the southern
(sic) states and provide citizen rights
to African Americans”
. Whilst
the preponderance of the nation indisputably desired the restoration of
economic stability and political unity, various difficulties resulted in
determining an effectual plan in which this could be done successfully. However,
following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, his successor, Andrew
Johnson, developed what was known as the Presidential Reconstruction, which
became the plan of implementation in regaining political unification. Whilst
many Republicans, “had hoped for gradual remission of the southern
(sic) rebel states into the union
(sic)”
,
and others had wished to see them completely excluded from political influence,
Johnson’s reconstruction proposed a contrary approach. The Presidential
Reconstruction asserted that, “southerners
(sic)
who were prepared to swear an oath of allegiance to the union
(sic) were to receive a pardon and
amnesty”
,
and that with the exemption of their previously owned slaves, all property
would be restored to them. Whilst many members of Congress felt the Southern
states did not receive their deserving punishment through the Presidential
Reconstruction, it was nevertheless implemented and accepted in the
reconstructive period. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, in which
slavery was abolished in the United States and in any place under its
jurisdiction, “gave congress
(sic)
the power to enforce it”
,
whereby slavery would no longer be tolerated in any part of the nation. Southerners
rejected the idea of illegal slavery as they, “still believed in the arguments
that had justified it”
,
however were still required to follow the Constitution, especially considering
their vulnerable economic state after the war. Thus the implementation of the
Presidential Reconstruction and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution
identified the main objectives of reconstruction following the American Civil
War, whereby political unification, economic restoration and African American civil
rights were the prominent motivations.
The objectives of reconstruction that
were established following the war accomplished some success in initiating
effective solutions to rebuild the unity of the nation, especially in regards
to racial inequality. Whilst it was crucial that both the Northern and Southern
states felt they were receiving equal consideration in any post-war movements, the
successful objectives prominently focussed on the desires of the Northern
states, that was eradicating slavery. This was evident in the establishment of
the Freedmen’s Bureau, which was set up to, “support freed black slaves in the
short term and provide a basis for their long term security”
.
The Freedmen’s Bureau’s prominent focus was thus to provide freed slaves with
an improved lifestyle, where it, “administered schools, negotiated labour contracts
between ex-slaves and white employers, provided legal advice too freed people,
and organised such institutions as hospitals, orphanages, and elderly homes”
. The
initial intentions for the Bureau in its establishment in March 1865, suggested
it should be, “a temporary institution to ease the transition form slavery to
freedom”
.
However, its existence was extended for an additional three years in the
Supplementary Freedmen’s Bureau Act in 1866, where it was suggested that in
addition to improving the lifestyle of the freed slaves, the Bureau would also
implement military courts in order to, “deal with labour disputes between
former slaves and their ‘new’ employers, and to protect African Americans from
those aspects of the Black Codes that forced labour contracts on former slaves”
.
Other successes that resulted from post-war reconstruction included the Civil
Rights Act in 1866. The Civil Rights bill, introduced by Senator Lyman
Trumbull, granted citizenship and civil rights to all men in the United States,
“without discrimination of race and colour”
. A
prominent objective of the Civil Rights Act was to offer protection for the
freed slaves against state laws such as the Black Codes, which aimed to, “
replace the social controls of slavery that
had been removed by the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment
to the Constitution, and were thus intended to assure continuance of white
supremacy”.
Amendments made to the United States’ Constitution also displayed success in
reconstruction achieved by the nation. The Fourteenth Amendment, passed in
1866, stated that, “all persons born or naturalised in the United States are
both national and state citizens”,
followed by the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 in which all male citizens were
allowed the right to vote without racial discrimination. By 1875, the United
States aimed to eradicate racial inequality with the passing of the Civil
Rights Act, which was implemented to, “protect the rights of all Americans,
regardless of race”,
prohibiting the exclusion of African Americans from public facilities such as
restaurants, theatres and trains. Therefore success in the objectives of
reconstruction following the Civil War was prominent in those areas that
involved the eradication of racial inequality, although in reality the
practical application of the legislation fell well short.
Whilst there was undoubtedly some success in the objectives of the Reconstruction,
there were many flaws in its procedures and outcomes, essentially due to their bypassing,
that made them ineffective. Several issues resulted from the processes of
reconstruction, where, “many in Congress, particularly the Radical Republicans,
felt that President Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction plan failed to punish the
Confederate states adequately”.
It was a common conception amongst people of the Northern states that the atrocities
of the war could not be forgiven by simply swearing an oath of
allegiance to the Union, and that further punishment should have resulted for
the Southerners, which unquestionably decelerated the process of unity within
the nation. Difficulties also resulted in the movement for African American
civil rights, where many of the freed slaves faced numerous troubles following
the war. It was perceived that the enactment of the Black Codes, “appeared
racist and reactionary and attempted to replace one kind of slavery with
another
”,
where far heavier penalties were imposed on the freed slaves should they have
committed the same crime as a Caucasian American under these codes, and many
restrictions were faced in owning property, receiving work and public
segregation. Attempts that were made to further eradicate this racial
discrimination often failed, which was particularly evident in the Fifteenth
Amendment of the Constitution. Although the amendment allowed African American
citizens the right to vote, some Southern states, “used literacy tests, poll
taxes or outright violence and intimidation to deprive African Americans of
this right”
.
African Americans were also commonly subjected to disfranchising stereotypes
and labels that further segregated them from the Caucasian Americans. It,
“suited Southern whites to depict Reconstruction as an era of black rule, rape,
murder and arson”
,
portraying the African American community to be monstrous and inhumane. Therefore,
several flaws in the Reconstruction of the nation and its unity resulted following
the American Civil War, essentially due to a common Southern refusal to abide
by, and accept, changes in legislation and daily life.
Post war reconciliation after
conflict has provided many difficulties for participant nations under any
circumstance, however, such issues were greater to overcome following the Civil
War, considering that reconciliation following a civil war is more difficult
than a war of any other kind. For the United States, the Civil War not only created
disharmony between the Southern and Northern states, but also evoked various
economic problems that proved difficult to surpass following the war. Many
industries that depended on raw materials collapsed due to wartime destruction,
impacting the South significantly in cotton textile and tobacco production, and
the national economic depression that resulted in the early 1870s, “only made
these post war economic challenges more difficult”
.
Inescapable tension between the Northern and Southern states also ascended
difficulties in the unification of the nation and reconciliation. With a total
approximation of 620,000 soldiers who died in the Civil War, made moving on
difficult as, “bitter and demoralised ex-soldiers, refugees from war towns and
cities and freed slaves roamed the countryside aimless and confused”
. Whilst
some were eventually able to move on from the devastation of the war and accept
the foreseeable changes, others who were, “unwilling to accept a new
relationship to former slaves, resorted to violent opposition to the new world
being created around them
”,
this included the terrorist group, the Ku Klux Klan, which was founded in 1865 as
a, “
racist group established by people who
believed that white people were better and wanted to see black people remaining
slaves”, and exhibited violent and malicious behaviours against
African
Americans.
Thus, following the Civil War several difficulties arose in the reconciliation
of the Southern and Northern states due to the nature of a civil war, which
made it more difficult to overcome than wars of other kinds.
Within the first decade following
the American Civil War, the objectives of reconstruction could not be
successfully achieved to a substantial extent. Whilst the objectives of
reconstruction, which focused on the unification of the Southern and Northern
states and the eradication of African American slavery, saw some success in the
establishment of new laws and societal changes, such as the founding of the
Freedmen’s Bureau and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the resulting negatives
were far more significant. The unification of the Southern and Northern states
was affected by the perception of inadequate punishment towards the South,
where many believed they should have received greater punishment following
their loss of the war. The freed African
American slaves were also unable to escape suppressive discrimination from Caucasian
Americans, where legislation was manipulated and society refused to accept
integration of the freed slaved into their daily life. The nature of the war
itself intensified the complications within the nations reconstruction, as moving
forward from the Civil War proved tremendously difficult due to the unending
tension and conflict. Therefore the reconstruction in the former Confederate
States was unsuccessful in achieving its objectives in the first decade after
the American Civil War.
Word Count: 1993
U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, op. cit.
D.
Paterson, D. Willoughby and S. Willoughby,
Civil
Rights in the USA, 1863 – 1980, Heinemann Educational Publishers, Oxford,
2001, P. 31.
U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, op. cit.
V.
Sanders,
Race Relations in the USA since
1900, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 2000, P.
18.
D.
Paterson, et. al., op. cit. P.
34.
D. Paterson, et. al., op. cit. P. 34.
U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, op. cit..
The
atrocities committed by the South during the Civil War included mass genocides
such as the massacre at Fort Pillow in 1864, where 262 African Americans and
295 Caucasian Union soldiers were killed, as well as the unwarranted violence against
African American women, including physical and sexual abuse.
D. Paterson, et. al., op. cit. P. 32
U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, op. cit..
V. Sanders, op. cit. P. 18.
Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area, op. cit..
D. Paterson, et. al., op. cit. P. 29.
