Throughout the history of the United States there have been many historical events that changed the direction of the country’s upbringing, within the many Reconstruction was one of the most significant. Throughout this time period the Presidents and the people themselves had many different goals they wanted to attain through reconstruction. The three major goals they were reaching for with this was, uniting both the north and the south, transform the southern society and the approval and acceptance of the rights of the freed slaves. Reconstruction had two main phases which include Presidential Reconstruction and Congressional or Radical Reconstruction. By the end of the Civil War, the country was divided in two and the south was literally falling apart, socially, economically and politically. The war brought so much destruction for south that they were not prepared for. Many people lost their jobs, didn’t have food to eat because most plantations, southern crops, and cities were destroyed.
One of the causes of the Civil war was the south’s desire to become their own country so that they could do as they pleased, and not have to follow the laws that the government was passing. One of the challenges they faced “with the defeat of the Confederacy and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment” was figuring out the status of the defeated states and how they planned to reunite them back into the country. During this time is when President Abraham Lincoln decided that if any southern state with at least 10% of its voters making a pledge to be loyal to the United States only then, they could be readmitted to the Union. His goal was to reunite the union as soon as possible. This proved to be successful for the most part, there were still a few territories that did not agree with President Lincoln and wanted to do what they thought best. When the assassination of President Lincoln occurred his successor Andrew Johnson took place as president and presented with a similar plan to reuniting the States.
Johnson’s Restoration Plan was a plan that would bring the states back together and start to transform the south society back to a functioning part of the country once again. His plan was to implement a Unionist as provisional governor in each southern state, it also “required that each state convention ratify the Thirteenth Amendment ending slavery before the state could be readmitted to the Union.” The states of the former confederacy eventually all met Johnson’s requirements to reunite with the Union. One of the conflicts that Johnson faced during the time he was trying to bring the south back was the anger of the Radicals who were furious with the fact that he was trying to bring them back into the Union.
With this started a war between the president and congress when President Johnson vetoed a bill that renewed funding for the Freedmen’s Bureau. With time this lead to many disagreements and an outbreak of former Confederate soldiers who ended up murdering and injuring hundreds of African Americans just to prove that they should never cross the white Americans ever again. Radicals felt that President Andrew Johnson was the cause to all these terrible events. However that was not the only challenge they faced, another part of the reason they went to war in the first placed was because of slavery. Now that the African Americans have been emancipated the caucasian southerners were not happy with this. Which led to the question of the political status of these former slaves in the country. It was because of this that the Freedmen’s Bureau was founded. Congressional Reconstruction stepped in by forcing former confederate states to ratify the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment and by passing the Military Reconstruction Act.
Throughout the process of reuniting the south with the states there were many different conflicts and challenges faced by both the states and the south. The effects it had on the country were both positive and negative. Mostly positive because after reconstruction the country is united and slavery is no longer something we have to deal with. Negative because even though slavery ended there are still those believe that African Americans should not be allowed to do certain things because of their skin color and because of the amount of people who had to die for some people to prove their point during this time period. Overall reconstruction was a successful yet painful event that changed the country forever, they united to south back with the country, they transformed the society in the south and they got acceptance of the newly freed slaves.