Restruction and It's Failure
Reconstruction and Its Failure As the civil war was finally getting closer to being over, Abraham Lincoln started a program to begin the much-needed quick reconstruction of the South. Racism was a huge problem and needed a way to heal the hatred. Lincoln pardoned any person that would swear their loyalty to the Government. When a state that already had voted in the year 1860 had ten percent of the people of that state take the oath of loyalty that state could then have elections in their town and rule their own town. This plan didn’t do a thing for blacks because no blacks had voted in 1860 in any southern state so his plan did not offer anything to them. Even though Lincoln believed blacks should be allowed to vote this part of the plan was left up to each state to work out in the future. Rebuilding was given more attention than the ex-slave. A few republicans knew a person that was coming from slavery was not ready or had they been taught to begin living as a free person in a society that was not willing to accept them. There were a few that knew slavery had not taught the ex-slave, nevertheless, most thought when slavery ended it also ended the ex-slaves problems. Nothing was farther from the truth. Actually, slaves were free but had nothing, and an ex-slave had not yet been given his civil rights. Because of their freedom they no longer had any rights to property and were open to being hurt physically, they did not even have a place to hide. And to make matters worse Lincoln was assassinated and Andrew Johnson became president and gave even more power to the individual southern states. These southern states began ruling in their individual states. And one state after the other began passing black rules that were exactly like the ones in the days of slavery.