Reconstruction Failure Or Success

4 Pages 1014 Words

During Reconstruction America missed the opportunity to meet racial equality. James McPherson's paper "Reconstruction: A
Revolution Manqué" claims that many things such as the poverty and illiteracy of blacks after the Civil War contributed to the racial inequality
during this time period. McPherson believes that for this reason the Reconstruction era was a failure. I believe the other things that were
Accomplished in this time period overshadow this failure.
According to McPherson, there were quite a few reasons that America failed to achieve racial equality during reconstruction. The reason
that contributed most to it was probably that the North was not entirely committed to it. Several Northern states did not pass the laws that
would allow Negro suffrage. These laws did not end up getting passed until the Fifteenth Amendment. The North did not want racial equality
because they felt it was unfair to treat the blacks in the manner they were. Northerners wanted it because the South was opposed to it and the
North still had opposition to the South after the war. Another reason for the failure of racial equality during Reconstruction was
the opposition the South had for it. They often reacted with violent organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan which even the government could
not fully contain. They would attack the Black families especially the politicians and the ones that were doing well in society. The Republican
party also aided to the inequality of Negroes. Blacks wanted more representation in the government councils which Southern whites could not
agree with. This made it easier for the Democratic party to take over many of the states. The last reason given for Reconstructions failure is
that the Negroes were uneducated. Most of them could not read or write because it was forbidden for the slave masters to teach them. This
along with the combination of them being poor from slavery made it very difficu...