Reconstruction and its Effects on African Americans, continued
by Derell Kennedo
To conclude, while the nation was losing interest in Reconstruction, the Democrats regained power in the South. With a sympathetic Supreme Court, many of the bills enacted during Congressional Reconstruction were declared unconstitutional. Furthermore, Southern states subordinated blacks through the use of Jim Crow laws, which segregated blacks and whites, the implementation of poll taxes and qualification tests, which disenfranchised blacks. This was the beginning of a dark period for blacks in the American South. Any attempts by a black person to better one's self or change the social system was met with violence, usually lynching. Furthermore, the perpetrators would be tried on all-white juries where they were overwhelmingly acquitted.
Reconstruction officially ended in 1877 when the new president, Rutherford B. Hayes, removed the last federal troops from the public and put them back to their barracks. Reconstruction was a noble attempt by Radical Republicans in Congress, along with moderates, to attempt to bring blacks into American society. However, due to the many obstacles which faced them - reluctant presidents, a vicious and brutal Southern atmosphere, lack of funds, lack of a clear understanding of what was necessary - Reconstruction failed relatively quickly. It was a period when many people from the North had certain zeal to go and right the wrongs of the pre Civil War South, but that too faded quickly as even teachers were harassed for attempting to help the Negroes. Some people argue that Reconstruction was a period in which Congress abused its powers and overstepped the Constitution in order to get their ideologies put forth. This is possible, depending on which side one is looking at it from. There were many times when it seemed as Northern Republicans were overstepping their boundaries, such as the Third Enforcement Act when there was talk about suspending Habeas Corpus in order to combat the Ku Klux Klan. However, I am sure that the freedmen did not care about the Constitution when it came to their lives being taken by madmen in white sheets. I see Reconstruction as the United States government attempting to bring a rebel society more in line with, not only the Constitution, but also principles of humanity and the belief that all men should have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It would be about another century, during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s before America began grappling again with the moral questions which were so prevalent during Reconstruction.
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