Posted: May 13th, 2021

The Reconstruction Era in American History Research paper

Paper is on the Reconstruction Era of American History, 4-5 pages long, typed, double spaced, with one inch margins, using 12 font. Must have three distinct parts: intro, middle, and conclusion. The intro will tell the reader whats going on, it will states the thesis providing the road map. the middle the ideas, makes the argument, tells what you have found in your research. the conclusion tells” so what” of the paper, what it all means. Know your thesis, state it in the intro. Avoid the use of first person pronouns. Minimum of five Sources. Four (library) books, and the other can be journal articles. You may not use encyclopedia or wikipedia as sources. The paper will include a bibliography with footnotes throughout the paper using the Turabian style of citing.
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The Reconstruction Era in American History

Introduction and Thesis Statement
The editorial discusses the reconstruction era in the history of the U.S. the reconstruction era refers to the years following outbreak of the Civil War which took place between the years 1865-1877 . The period is referred to as the reconstruction era because it was the time when the federal government restored states that had seceded back to the union. The restoration process proved to be process subject to difficulties and was contentious. The federal government of the states put into concern three main issues in the nation. The government had to know how to deal with the states as they rejoined the union and how to treat the southern whites. It also had to restore a viable process on how to deal with the slaves who had been freed. The reconstruction process was vital in that it was necessary to heal the divisions that had arisen as result of sectionalism and racial basis.
Before the Civil began, African Americans had only been able to exercise their voting rights in only a few of the Northern states. There were virtually no blacks who held offices during that era. After the victory of the Union in 1865, there was extensive mobilization within the black community. These mobilization plans included meetings, parades and petitions to fight for legal and political rights including the vital right to vote. The first two years of the reconstruction process saw the blacks organize Equal Rights Leagues in the southern region. They held state and local conventions aimed to protest against discriminatory treatment and demand suffrage. They also demanded for equality before the rule of law.
Lincolns Reconstruction Plan
The then U.S President, Abraham Lincoln had formulated a plan for reconstruction which was opposed by the congress. Lincoln’s plan was pegged on the idea that the states to rejoin the union should not be punished since they had not really seceded from the union . His plan had two provisions: that the Southerners who had participated in the war should be pardoned provided they took oath of allegiance to the U.S. It also postulated that there should be readmission of a state of ten percent of the white voters in that state took the oath of allegiance to the states and it created a new form of government which was guaranteed to make efforts to end slavery.
Upon the assassination of Lincoln, his successor, Andrew Johnson made an adoption of Lincoln’s plan to pioneer the reconstruction plan. Johnson pardoned the Southern people who took the oath of allegiance except for a few Confederate leaders. He also made recognition to the governments of four states which had emerged following Lincoln’s creation and appointments of temporary governors who held offices for the other Southern states. By the end of 1865, major steps had been made towards reconstruction as only one Sothern state had not implemented a new government that was to abolish slavery.
The reconstruction policies of Andrew Johnson were opposed by the African American activists. This is because the policies excluded the blacks from the politics of the southern region and allowed the legislatures of the states to pass restrictive black codes. These codes regulated the lives of the men and women who had been freed. The Midwestern states put regulations to the migration of freed African Americans to the Midwest. After the civil war, black code laws which were research paper writing service  cruel and severe were adopted by the Southern states to control the former social structure. Laws were passed by the Southern legislatures that gave restrictions to the civil rights of the emancipated former slaves. These discriminatory laws faced a fierce resistance. Johnson’s policies saw rejection and strong opposition in the northern region. This led to the Republican victory in the U.S congressional elections of 1866 . The victory shade light to a new phase of reconstruction that would give the African Americans a sound and active role in the life of the southern region both politically, economically and on social basis.
The Reconstruction Radical Changes
The Radical Reconstruction process that took place between 1867-1877 saw the Congress grant the African Americans men the status and the rights of citizenship. They were also granted the right to vote as guaranteed by the 14th and the 15th Amendments of the U.S Constitution. The Union League encouraged the political activism of the African Americans and they spread their operation in the southern region. The state constitutional conventions held during the years 1867-1869 gave the white Americans and the black Americans their first chance in their political life to stand side by side.
Majority of the blacks made up the southern Republican voters. The elections saw the election of 265 African American delegated being elected. Among those delegates, more than 100 of them had been born into slavery . During the reconstruction process, 16 African Americans were in the U.S Congress. More than 600 hundred African Americas were elected as state legislatures. It also saw many of them hold offices in the southern region. Thus the congressional elections brought the radical republicans to power. The black political mobilization was of paramount importance to the success of the Republican Party.
The military reconstruction acts of 1867 saw the division of the south into five regions . The act outlined how the new governments would be designed. Blacks including those who had been freed received the rights to vote, held political offices and became judges and police chiefs. These rights were granted under the federal bayonets. Thus the black held the positions that formerly were held by the southern Democrats.
The most radical aspect of the Radical Reconstruction period and the political activism of the African Americans also inspired the most hostility from the opponents of the reconstruction process. Southern whites frustrated with policies giving the former slaves the right to vote and hold offices. This increasingly led to intimidation and violence as a means of reaffirming white supremacy. The Congress proposed an amendment to the Constitution in 1865.This amendment would abolish slavery in the U.S. on December 1865; the 13th Amendment was ratified by the Congress thus abolishing slavery formally.
Slavery died with the end of civil war. The African American rights natures were altered following the provision of three constitutional amendments. Slavery was abolished in all states and territories by the 13th amendment. The 14th amendment gave constitutional provisions that prohibited states from depriving and male citizen of equal protection under the existing law regardless of the race of that person. The 14th amendment was a multi-purpose constituonal device that resolved many questions. It ended the power of the president to grant easy pardons to Confederate leaders. It established a constitutional guarantee of basic citizenship for all Americans not leaving behind the African Americans. Thus the amendment defined and American citizen as anyone born in the U.S or naturalized there. The amendment prohibited states from depriving any person of the rights of life, liberty and to ownership of property without following the due process of the law. The amendment saw founded the basis for a national benchmark for citizenship in the States .
The right to vote to African American males was fully granted by the 15th amendment. It became a requirement for the states in the South to be readmitted into the union following the ratification of these three constitutional amendments. These provisions by the three constitutional amendments provided a positive milestone towards achieving a nation with racial equality. The U.S garnered uniqueness among other societies that allowed slavery when it gave the right to vote to former slaves after the emancipation period. Two years after the abolition of slavery, former slaves and their former masters competed for political power in the U.S.This was opposed to other areas like Jamaica, Haiti and Brazil where no former slaves were enfranchised.
Conclusion
The major partakers of the reconstruction process were aware that the contests over rights both on political and civil basis were inseparable from the economic reconstruction of the south and the nation. The end for slavery to the blacks meant not only an end to the work but also and end to forced labor. Thus it was as a result of these powerful national and international reconstruction acts and forces that guaranteed the restoration of the United States marking a more unified economy than before.

Bibliography
Holzer, Harold. The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views: Social, Political, Iconographic.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers. 13-28.
Harlan, Booker. Washington in Perspective (1988), p. 164; A. A. Taylor, “Historians of the
Reconstruction,” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 23, No. 1 (January 1938), pp. 16–34.
Woodward, Vann. Reunion and Reaction The Compromise of 1877 and the End of
Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. 25-56.
Wagner, Margaret. Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 2009. 19-34.
Scott, John. Living Documents in American History. New York: Washington Square Press, 2004.
21-33
Morris, Richard & Jeffrey, Morris. Encyclopedia of American History. New York: Harper &
Row, 2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers. 34-98.

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