Congress Failed Reconstruction essays

Congress' Failed Reconstruction essays Immediately following the Civil War President Lincoln created a working Reconstruction plan. In Howard Zinns renowned book, he tells of how blacks were allowed to vote, elect other blacks to political offices and receive an education. Unfortunately, this didnt last. After both Lincolns and President Johnsons reconstruction plans failed to actually reconstruct the US after the Civil War, Congress felt as though they should step in. The plan they had included protecting the rights of the freedmen, ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment, and separating the former Confederacy into five military districts. While the basis of these was set, Congress reconstruction efforts failed because the southerners didnt want to return to the Union, the freedmen werent actually free, and groups like the Ku Klux Klan were unable to be stopped from persecuting the blacks. The central idea of Reconstruction was to reinstate the southerners into the Union. But how do you make men who left want to return after years of despising the North? Lincoln was faced with this very dilemma and thus set his own reconstruction plan that required just 10% of the southerners in any certain state to swear loyalty to the Union in order to be reinstated. But as mentioned before, Lincolns Ten Percent Plan didnt work. The hate for the North was stronger than he expected. A confederate song popularized during the post-war era, which included lyrics that proclaimed, ...For this Fair Land of Freedom, I do not give a dam... It continued on stating how they only wished theyd won. The military districts set up in the South didnt help the situation as southerners felt as though they were being spied on. Without a want to return to the Union, Congress own efforts came short of successful. Oddly enough, the reluctance of the southerners to accept reconstruction was the ...