American History reconstruction - Essay Example

Reconstruction in American History: Changes towards the Better End In the US history Reconstruction had brought about some age-worthy changes in order to make the nation steadier as a whole. Reconstruction’s primary goals were to end Slavery and to reintegrate the South with the mainstream of the nation, though for many of the Southerners it was a further insult added, by the Northern polity, to the injury of the Civil War. It began with President Lincoln’s affirmative actions for a race-blind, equal and reunited America.

While Lincoln took a more lenient and tolerant course to end slavery and reuniting the South, the Radical Republicans opposed it on the ground that Lincoln reconstruction plan had freed the slaves without paying much attention to establishing their socio-political, economic and other rights. The next mentionable event in the Reconstruction era was the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864. Republican dominated Congress passed it declaring that Southern States should be run by military governors and Secession and Slavery would be outlawed with the consent of the fifty percent of a state’s voters.

Congress passed the 13th Amendment and established the Freedmen’s Bureau in order to provide the formers slaves and black communities with the opportunities of education, employment, medical service, and economic facilities. Indeed the Republican dominated Congress’s attempts complementary ones to a great extent, though they were more stringent and punitive than Lincoln. Reconstruction under Johnson’s Presidency took the same course that Lincoln started. But President Johnson’s lack of foresight made Reconstruction less effective.

Consequently the Congress passed the 14th Amendment in order to protect Black people’s civil right and full citizenship in 1866 and the 15th Amendment in order to give constitutional protection to black suffrage in 1870. But along the passage of time, the reconstruction zeal began to wane. Indeed the different political scandal, corruption of the reconstructed governments, economic aftermaths, etc aggravated the waning of Reconstruction. If Reconstruction in American history is taken for granted that it was a means to reach a particular goal defined by a particular political ideology either democratic or republican, Reconstruction cannot be marked as a success.

Even it is more difficult to decide whether the Reconstruction was a failure or a success, since it had been interpreted by different groups of people and polities from different ideological points of view and none of these groups had been successful. But if Reconstruction is reviewed as a struggle to reach a better end, it was more or less a successful attempt. It is because it was the nation’s attempt of self-evaluation, self-amendment and to move forward with an enlightened and revised hope for future.

Works Cited Carter, Dan T. When the war was over: the failure of self-reconstruction in the South, 1865-1867. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1985.