Why The Failure Of The Reconstruction Era

The reconstruction after the Civil war was America’s first experiment in a multiracial democracy but not the last. It tested traditions of American culture and foundations. The Civil War resulted in creating the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Once approved, Congress was constitutionally permitted to enforce the amendments. Now, like every new thing introduced to the government and congress it has its up’s and downs. The reconstruction era was similar to a beautiful nightmare. It had its highs and its lows. The Freedmen’s Bureau was the beautiful in the beautiful nightmare. The bureau educated a vast majority as well as numerous established schools in the South. It provided aid to the poor and the elder who needed help. One major thing that the Freedmen’s Bureau did was settle the disputes between whites and blacks and among the freedpeople, and secure for former slaves and white Unionists equal treatment before the courts. The bureau helped equalized blacks and whites in the South but only for a short amount of time. “I fear you have Hercules’ task” General …show more content…
You could name reasons such as the Ku Kluk Klan, Jim Crow Law, taxes and poverty. The one that stood out to myself the most, showed me that the blacks were still slaves in the South, limited to what they could and couldn’t do. The black codes were used at the beginning of the Reconstruction whereas freedmen, the blacks still had pressure about things like when to meet with friends. They were restrictions on the way a freedman should live. The black codes denied blacks to testify against whites, to serve on juries or in state militias, or the right to vote. “We are not permitted to own the land whereon to build a schoolhouse or a church …” One black complained about having limited restrictions during a black convention in Mississippi. The death of slavery obviously didn’t mean the birth of freedom for