What did Reconstruction Accomplish and Why Did it End as it Did?

What did Reconstruction Accomplish and Why Did it End as it Did?

Introduction

The “Reconstruction Era” was the period of time after the Civil War, during which the federal government worked to maintain the freedom of the former slaves, to help them gain political power and education, and to help them make economic progress. Reconstruction lasted from 1865 to 1877.

President Abraham Lincoln officially freed the slaves on January 1, 1863. The former slaves were desperately poor, uneducated, and powerless. Even before the Civil War ended in May 1865, Congress passed a law in March 1865 to create the Freedmen's Bureau. This was a federal agency to help the 4 million freed slaves. The Freedmen's Bureau's most important accomplishment was setting up thousands of schools for former slaves. Some of these schools have grown into respected traditional black colleges. The Freedmen's Bureau's work ended in 1872.

Discussion

The Civil War disrupted alliances among politicians. Many former Democrats had joined Republicans in a new Union Party called by various names, including Union Party, National Union Party, and Union Republican Party, at different times and in different states. Among these former Democrats was the former Tennessee governor and U.S. senator Andrew Johnson, who was elected Abraham Lincoln's vice president on the Union Party ticket. However, most Democratic politicians remained loyal to their political organization and criticized Union Party policies. Although these former Democrats disagreed over whether to keep fighting or to restore the Union through negotiations, they all opposed making emancipation a war aim and recognizing African Americans as citizens. At the grassroots, the Union Party appealed mainly to Republicans, the party of moral reform, especially among New Englanders, western settlers of New England origin, evangelical Protestants, and Scots-Irish immigrants (Foner, 1988). Democrats were strong in regions of the Old Northwest and West settled by southerners, who disliked the New England triumphalism that characterized antislavery Republicanism, and in cities with heavy concentrations of German, Irish, and French Catholics, who were attracted by the Democrats' tolerance of cultural and religious differences. For mediating between the party leaders and the rank and file, party activists were rewarded with “patronage,” appointments to positions in the government civil service. Controlling the federal government, Republicans strengthened their party organization with federal patronage.

Reconstruction of the Union began almost as soon as the Civil War itself, as western Virginia remained loyal and Union forces occupied the northern tip of Virginia, the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, and New Orleans. The first question was the status of the states that were trying to secede. Democrats denied that secession was legal, arguing that the states remained part of the Union, entitled to all their privileges whenever their people resumed their allegiance. Democrats expected returning southerners to support their party because of its proslavery stance and its call for the immediate restoration of all states' rights.

As soon as the war ended, southern governments began to pass laws to restrict the rights ...