U.S. History- Reconstruction?

Question

What was the Reconstruction period?
What was so significant about it?

Answer 1

1865 to 1877
This link explains it in basic terms (it explains it nicely in about 5 paragraphs- includes the dates each Confederate state was readmitted into the Union):
http://www.thomaslegion.net/reconstruction.html

Also see
http://thomaslegion.net/aftermath.html

Answer 2

The Reconstruction period was the 10 years following the War Between the States. During that time the South was treated as a conquered country and had US military occupation. It was a time of great hardship, greed, and exploitation and generated as many negative feelings among Southerners as the original war did. In the North it was seen as a time to return the wayward South to the Union by passage and enforcement of laws to force Southern compliance to Union rules; but I think most Northerners thought it was an opportunity to "teach them a lesson they won't forget". They succeeded. Many have never forgotten.

Answer 3

The only good thing to come out of Reconstruction was the term "Damn Yankees". Carpet baggers, scallywags and scroundals worked real hard to obtain that reputation.

Man I was 20 years old before I learned that "Yankee" was not just half a word. I am 65 years old and I still don't trust them "Damn Yankees".

Answer 4

The significance was rebuilding all of the destruction done by the Civil War.

Answer 5

"Reconstruction" refers to the restoring of the states that had seceded to their "proper relationship with (and place in) the Union", including with full voting rights in the federal government.

In fact, there were TWO phases of Reconstruction --

1) Presidential Reconstruction, which Lincoln had laid the groundwork for, but Andrew Johnson carried out. Johnson announced that the work was finished in December of 1865. But it turned out he had freely pardoned nearly everyone who asked for it AND, more importantly, that the Southern states had begun to pass "black codes" which so harshly regulated the activities of newly freed slaves, that they were virtually returned to slavery. Furthermore, the states immediately began to elect the same leaders who had led them in secession.

This led to a major backlash from "Radical Republicans" concerned to guarantee the rights of the freedmen, but also the North more generally.

So much so that the Republicans won by a large margin in the 1866 elections and so were able to put THEIR plan in place. that is

2) Congressional Reconstruction - attempted in 1866, but really only able to be realized after Republicans increased their numbers in the 1877 Congress.

The links provided earlier lay out some of how this plan was carried out -- by dividing 10 former Confederate states into five military districts -- and pressuring the states the ratify not only the 13th amendment, but additional amendments (14th & 15th) to guarantee the rights of the free men, esp the right to vote.

New governments were formed in these states in which blacks played a significant role (esp those who had already been free blacks), along with Unionist Southerners who had never gone along with secession (unfairly labeled "scalawags" by their opponents), and Northerners, many of whom came to help set up schools, etc and assist in rebuilding.

Note - contrary to the common mythology spread by white Southern Democrats, these governments were NOT particularly corrupt or wasteful (less so, it appears, than other state governments of the time), and they spent a lot of money because the task of rebuilding, and of educating BOTH black and white children was no enormous.

Also, most of the states were fully restored within just a few years (NOT 10), between 1867 and 1872.

There was significant progress for blacks during this period, including in the area of education. Unfortunately, the response of those who had formerly held power often became violent, including riots and many political lynchings of leading Republicans and blacks, till others were cowed into submission ... by 1876 many blacks had stopped voting and the white Democrats were able to take back (they called it "redeeming") the control of government.

The North, meanwhile tired of the cost of it all, and did not want to continue a 'military occupation' of the South, even on the very small scale and few states any of that was still happening. (At one point, in 1875, when Grant was contemplating sending additional troops to protect the vote of blacks in Mississippi, it became clear that the people of Ohio would turn out their own Republican government if he did so. Grant blinked. And Mississippians, through threats, lynchings and a whole series of 'spontaneous' riots... succeeeded in their plan. The next year, the same plan was tried in other parts of the South. Reconstruction was essentially over before the election of 1876, and Hayes had (BEFORE the election) made it clear that he would not attempt to keep any more troops there. (That is, he did NOT somehow steal the office by a deal to betray blacks.)

(This story of 1875 Mississippi has recently been powerfully retold in the book *Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War* by Nicholas Lemann -- and the story is all there in papers from the official hearing about these things held in the U.S. Senate.)

So, sadly, this experiment, in many ways failed... and it took many decades before the efforts to restore black rights in the South could finally get a firm foothold. (Fortunately, many of us have lived to see it happen.)

The story I've told above is very different from the POPULAR version that spread through the South, and later into the North -- in which the blacks and 'scalawags' and 'carpetbaggers' were all villains from whom the 'natural leaders' needed to reclaim their proper place. In fact, the story of white opposition (fromt he Ku Klux Klan to the political lynchings. . .) is a shameful one. It is UNDERSTANDABLE, because whites had come to fear blacks (esp. that they would 'get back at them' if given the chance), that many imagined just such actions was being planned and attempted.

On the other hand, this was perhaps the FIRST time in the modern age that such an emancipation was quickly followed by ANY attempt to improve the lot and rights of those recently freed. The fact that there was ANY such idealism and effort is remarkable.