September 8, 2014
Reconstruction Essay
Reconstruction made a great change to the United States of America that transformed the
way we live now. There were many problems that complicated the process of Reconstruction.
When the Civil War was over, the North had different views on how to handle the South, and
that angered the South because they didn't want the North to tell them what to do. There were a
lot of pros and cons to Reconstruction that the U.S. government tried to fix, some succeeded, but
some failed.
Thanks to Reconstruction, it made the U.S. a better place to live for all races. It reunited
the states together into one and they expanded their economy. Most importantly, it gave all of the
African Americans freedom and education like everyone else. There were more laws made that
helped the newly freedmen, and accepted them as men, having the right to vote, and speak.
For
example, the Enforcement Act of 1870 banned the use of terror, force, or bribery to prevent
people from voting because of their race.
Even though there were so many positive effects to Reconstruction, there were also
negative effects, like I said earlier. There were things like the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow Laws,
the death of Abraham Lincoln, etc. The KKK was a group of white people that attacked African
Americans because they were scared of the changes and they wanted the Afro-Americans to be
slaves. Jim Crow Laws supported discrimination and racial segregation. Lincoln's assassination
took away the country's leader and best hope to reunite the country.
I think Reconstruction was a success even with the many failures that occurred. The main
goal of Reconstruction was to bring the rebel states back into the Union, and to help the
freedmen become a part...