Reconstruction was a failed program in the United States: socially, Blacks continued to live

as inferiors to Whites; economically, Blacks continued to live under economic servitude;

physically, violence against Blacks increased to be even greater than during the time of slavery;

and politically, Blacks were discouraged from engaging in their newfound rights as American

citizens.

The period of Reconstruction came right after the end of the Civil War and the North’s

victory over the South. While Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had already declared

Southern slaves free, the passage of the 13th Amendment solidified this and extended this

freedom to the border states and, thus, to the entire country. The following Fourteenth and

Fifteenth Amendments further set up the expectation and opportunity for the nation to fully

liberalize with Blacks achieving equality with Whites in all regards of public life through the

process of Southern Reconstruction; the realities of Reconstruction, however, show that the

country failed to reach these goals set by these amendments.

Economically, Blacks continued to exist in servitude to Whites despite their newfound

freedom. Document 8 shows that sharecropping came to be on former slave plantations, with

labor simply being spread moreso across the plantation as opposed to being concentrated near the

principal manor. This continued into the 1940s and evidences that, for plantations,

Reconstruction (and beyond) was simply business as usual. It was doubly so considering the

impact of the Black Codes on Black populations in these areas, with the Blacks being forced into

these plantation jobs for fear of being thrown into chain gangs for “idleness”, and further with

the incredibly poor and exploitative terms of this employment being protected by law. Forced

servitude may have been outlawed de jure under the Thirteenth Amendment, but de facto, it

continued to thrive in the South for nearly a hundred years after the Civil War.
 Nor was social, physical, or economic equality achieved for Blacks during the period of

Reconstruction. Document 10 shows the election of Hayes in 1876. This was made possible by

the removal of Federal troops from the South via the Compromise of 1877, which put a

premature end to Reconstruction. Thus, Reconstruction was neutered before it could even begin,

and it thus was able to accomplish very little of what it set out to accomplish. Documents 4 and 5

show this to be the case. Document 4 is written by Southerners for Southerners, and shows that,

in the South, there was nothing but contempt for Freedmen; such contempt, in fact, that Plessy v

Ferguson separates Blacks from Whites for nearly seventy years in what all can today agree was

in the separate and unequal condition of segregation. Document 9 shows that Blacks felt this

deepening inequality with which they were being presented during the period of Reconstruction

even when they were in the North, and Document 7 shows that the only way for Blacks to

survive in Reconstruction-era America was to give up their rights. Thus, the promises of the

Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were broken as well.

Following the Enlightenment, the entire world began to be changed. Many of the radical

new ideas which came to be—natural rights and so forth—would be used to justify both the

American Revolution and, later, the Emancipation of slaves. Reality, however, failed to live up

to these great expectations. Equality was unattainable for Blacks during the period of

Reconstruction, and in fact many things got even worse for Blacks in America; the Civil Rights

Movement of the 1950s and 1960s would have to deal with these increased injustices in its quest

to do what Reconstruction could not: get equality for Blacks in America.