EOTO #2 Reaction: 

The Reconstruction era was a tumultuous time in the United States, for the government, for the white citizens, and for the newly freed slaves. Because the freeing of African American's was a completely unprecedented event in American history, where to proceed as a nation was in question. Not only that, but the differing attitudes of pro-abolition and pro-slavery individuals made for both considerable advancements and considerable stagnation to black progress. 

The passage of the Reconstruction amendments, also known as the second Bill of Rights were significant strides forward in the fight for African American rights. The 13th Amendment outlawed slavery officially in all US territories forever answering the questions legislatures had spent the better part of a century trying to answer. 

The 14th amendment gave citizenship to ALL people born in the United States, thusly nullifying the 3/5 compromise, and afforded all citizens equal protection under the law. It also gave the federal government power to punish any state that did not abide by those laws. 

The 15th Amendment gave all black men the right to vote in the United States. These amendments were enormous steps in African American progress post Civil War. The creation of the 1st Black college and the election of the first black people to Congress were other significant advances to the black cause. 

Initially, the government struggled with the fact that there were 4 million freed black men, women and children with virtually no possessions and no property. The governments created an agency called the Freedmen's Bureau to redistribute Confederate lands to freedmen, provide food, build hospitals, and even reunite slaves with their long lost family. The Bureau was supposed to last for a year, however the federal government soon realized it needed to continue for longer. 

Even though Congress overwhelmingly voted to continue the Freedmen's Bureau, the new President Andrew Johnson vetoed the bill and Congress chose to not to overrule the veto. However, soon after, Congress realized the positive effects of the Freedmen's Bureau and voted to continue it; but it was too little, too late. Andrew Johnson had decided to issue Presidential pardons to the Confederate leaders and distribute their lands back to them...the same lands that had been given to the Freedmen's Bureau. Thus begins the backslide of African American progress. 

An enemy of the Freedmen's Bureau was the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist organization that reached its peak in the 1870's and used violence and intimidation tactics to kill and harm freedmen in nighttime raids. Lynching, public killings with no trial, were also used by the Klan and other pro-slavery groups to put down black individuals. 

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the inauguration of Andrew Johnson changed Reconstruction in a tangible way. Not only was the nation in mourning, opinions regarding Lincoln and his ideals and policies created a lot of hatred, vitriol, and divisive dialogue. Carpetbaggers, Republicans that moved South after the Civil War for economic and political reasons created more tension, especially after military reconstruction was put into place. This kept the South in its place and under the thumb of the Radical Republicans for a time...until the election of 1876. 

Once military reconstruction ended by the Compromise of 1877, black progress was undoubtedly halted, allowing for racists, former Confederate, and pro slavery activists to put in place Black Codes, codes that limited the freedoms of African Americans and ensured their existence as cheap laborers and second class citizens (ex: literacy test, Jim Crow laws, and the grandfather clause). 

Although Reconstruction had many hopes for black equality, it truly just sent the nation into a spiraling of continued segregation. The fight for civil rights and social equality for African Americans was far from over.