The Civil War, a war that came with the expense of over 600,000 American lives, was fought over the disputes between the North and South of the United States regarding the government’s attempts to emancipate all slaves nationwide. The government’s push for the abolition of all slavery extremely enraged the Southern states due to the fact that their agricultural economy relied on the use of slavery, and also because racism towards slaves and colored people heavily influenced the Southerners in to opposing abolition. The end of the civil war brought upon the next distinguishable phase in American history; The Reconstruction, in which the United States government planned to slowly rebuild the country by changing the existent political systems in the Southern states, and by granting freedmen their civil and human rights. Much success was brought upon by the Reconstruction, as the government was able to grant the black men many previously non-existent rights, such as suffrage or the right to work in a government job. However, not every outcome of the Reconstruction was a benefit. These new rights officially granted blacks their civil rights in the Constitution, but the Southern states, still spiteful about their defeat in the Civil War and abolition, refused to allow the freedmen their rights by segregating and indirectly forcing the them back into slavery-like situations. The Reconstruction deepened the hatred the Southerners had for blacks, thus defeating the purpose of the Civil War, which was fought by the Union partially in order to emancipate all slaves and secure their rights as American citizens. Therefore, due to the combination of benefits and drawbacks that the Reconstruction brought upon, it can be said that the Reconstruction was both a success and a failure.
The primary reason for which the Reconstruction can be deemed a success is because it accomplished its basic task: the successful reentry of the South into the Union. Not only was the South reentered into the Union, but the original individuality of the states was replaced with interdependence, bringing together a nation that was otherwise divided during the Civil War. This monumental process is described by the following quote delivered by historian Shelby Foote: “Before the war, it was said ‘the United States are.’ Grammatically, it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent states. And after the war, it was always ‘the United States is,’ as we say to day without being self-conscious at all. And that’s sums up what the war accomplished. It made us an ‘is.’” (Foote) Additionally, the Reconstruction brought upon a transfer of power from the executive branch of the government to the legislative branch, or Congress. For example, the Reconstruction featured the first time a presidential veto was overruled by congress (Andrew Johnson) over the passing of the military Reconstruction Act. Eventually, the country began to be run by the fully Republican Congress, which began to use its newly acquired power to pass laws that aided the newly freed blacks to establish themselves financially and socially as successful American citizens. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments were each then passed by congress, and aided in the emancipation of all slaves, the guaranteed citizenship to all blacks born in the United States, and and the right to vote for black men, respectively. Although the South remained a racist part of the Union, these new laws were enforced through the Military Reconstruction Act (which was passed by an overruled veto of Andrew Johnson), a law that divided the South into five military districts, each of which was regulated and operated by a part of the federal army. With the army’s protection, the blacks were able to thrive and work themselves in to different parts of American society. They even began to work in government job positions, both state and local, which even further allowed for the development of equal rights. Blacks also had the support and sympathy of the Republicans in the federal government, who spent time creating helpful organizations such as the Freedmen’s Bureau. The Bureau served as a charitable organization, and provided supplies and food to impoverished freed men, and even provided simple education as well. Although the Bureau did not last long, it served as the first step in the creation of more such organizations in the future. Despite the significant legislative advances and reform that occurred during the Reconstruction time period, it all proved to be short lived, as the next presidential election would soon undo everything the Reconstruction had accomplished.
The original success brought upon by the Reconstruction quickly became failure after the presidential election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden. Republican Hayes and Democratic Tilden were close contenders, and constantly tied with each other in their pursuit of the presidency. Due to the unsolvable stalemate, Congress was given the power to determine the election, and it arranged an electoral committee, made of eight Republicans and seven Democrats. Thus, Hayes won, but under a compromise made with the Democrats, called the Compromise of 1877. The Democrats, almost fully composed of Southerners, demanded the removal of the federal troops from the South, thus ending the Reconstruction. In order to secure their control of the government, the Republicans agreed, and the troops were removed. Without the federal troops to protect them and to enforce equality laws such as the fourteenth amendment, the blacks were left helpless and at the mercy of the racist and hateful Southerners. Free to do as they pleased, the Southern state governments began to undo the progress made by laws such as the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments by passing the Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, which legally separated blacks from whites, and denied blacks their otherwise constitutionally secured rights. For example, the Southerners blatantly opposed the fifteenth amendment, (which provided black men with the right of suffrage) by forcing blacks to pass nearly impossible literacy tests for the right to vote. Due to their lack of education, most blacks were unable to vote, and thus the racist leaders were able to stay in power without any popular opposition. Additionally, economic downturn and depression left the sympathetic Republicans in the North entangled in resolving their own problems, as they became less and less concerned about Southern reform, and more and more concerned about improving their own financial conditions. Thus, without any legal forms of prosecution or punishment for expressing their racism, the Southerners began to kill and terrorize the blacks, to passionately enforce their white supremacist ideals through violent ordeals such as public lynching and the creation of racist extremist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, and White League. Due to the lack of anti-racist law enforcement in the Jim Crow South, these violent acts of racism continued for nearly a century to come, until the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, the World Socialist Website confirms that, about 4,000 blacks were lynched between the years 1877 and 1950. Additionally, the extremist groups, killing nearly the same amount of people, began to grow absurdly large in membership, like the Ku Klux Klan, which reached nearly four million members by the 1920s. The Southern blacks began to suffer for nearly a century following the Reconstruction due to the lack of interest the federal government had for the racism that occurred in the South, and the complete lack of enforcement of the reformatory laws that would otherwise have secured blacks’ rights. Thus, in the long term, the Reconstruction was a failure, in that it paved the way for the development of the extreme discrimination and racism that existed in the South.