What was Reconstruction?
Reconstruction
refers to the period after the Civil War when the
southern states were reintegrated into the Union.
Immediately following the war, the southern states
were in disarray. Not only were many towns and cities
burned, looted and destroyed, but the southern states
were still not part of the United States. Reconstruction
aimed to integrate the southern states back into
the Union while ensuring such states were ready
to obey the new laws and measures resulting from
the war. Many questions arose after the Civil War,
and policies and bills passed during reconstruction
aimed to answer them. The Reconstruction Acts of
1867 and 1868 divided ten confederate states into
five military districts. Tens of thousands of U.S.
soldiers were stationed in the south to ensure the
tenets of reconstruction were honored.
Constitutional Amendments
As
a result of the Civil War, three constitutional
amendments were born. The 13th amendment prohibited
slavery, the 14th granted Civil Rights to black
people, and the 15th granted black people the right
to vote. Although president Lincoln had called for
a lenient plan in dealing with the southern states,
Congress enacted a plan that required the former
states to meet certain conditions such as acceptance
of the aforementioned amendments.
Cultural Changes
The
period of Reconstruction transformed southern society and culture. Many northerners,
who were referred to as Carpetbaggers, moved to the south
to participate in southern governments. The Republican
party ( a political party formed in 1854) gained
much power in the south and passed numerous Civil
Rights laws including those that legalized interracial
marriage, and provided black students with the
opportunities to attend school. Furthermore, black people were
given positions of political power in state senates.
Black people became mayors, sheriffs, and judges.
Racial Tension
The
cultural transformation resulted in considerable
racial tension. Violent racist organizations such
as the Ku Klux Klan were formed in an attempt to
intimidate black people. Many white southerners
joined the Republican party (they were called Scalawags),
and others moved to border states such as Maryland
and Kentucky, where the effects of northern occupation
were absent.
Jim Crow Laws and Civil Rights Violations
Reconstruction
ended in 1877. By that time, all states had been
re-admitted to the Union. Nevertheless, the south
remained an ominous place for black people. After
twelve years of southern transformation, the north
lost interest in pursuing and enforcing the laws
and measures passed to ensure civil rights for black
people. Many of the laws were soon overturned and
conditions worsened for the black citizens of the
south. The south convinced Congress to pass the
Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibited federal authorities
from exercising any power or control over local
enforcement agencies. In other words, law interpretation
and enforcement were left to individual southern
districts. Predictably, this led to gross violations
of law and unfair treatment for black people. In
1883, the 14th amendment was rewritten to declare
that Congress only had the power to outlaw public,
rather than private discrimination. 13 years later,
the famous Plessy v. Ferguson case ruled that state-mandated
segregation (separation of races) was legal as long
as the statute or ordinance provided for "separate
but equal" facilities. Rulings such as these
were referred to as Jim Crow laws, and were clearly
passed to ensure that black people could not do
the same things as white people. Such laws encouraged
and promoted racial segregation and varied from
district to district. Some required black people
to drink at separate fountains and use separate
bathrooms than white people. Others required black
people to relinquish seats on public buses if a
white person wanted their seat, and still others
prohibited black people from attending the same
schools at white people. Such laws existed until
the 1964 Civil Rights Act, nearly 100 years after
the Civil War.
