Reconstruction is the time from 1865 to 1877 when the U.S. was rebuilding the damages to the South from the Civil War.
Positive Effects on the U.S.
The South was ruined during the war, so President Lincoln wanted to reunite the Southern states to the Union.
The Freedmen's Bureaus was formed which gave African Americans clothes, food, and medical care.
One of the positive things that came out of the reconstruction of the states is that the slaves were free. This was possible because of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Two years later, the government came up with an idea to abolished slavery throughout the whole nation, known as the Thirteenth Amendment. With the Emancipation Proclamation in effect, African Americans were then able to participate in the war, but were still not treated fairly and were payed less than the whites.
The Fourteenth Amendment also came about during the Reconstruction period. It states that the government can't deprive someone of life, liberty, or the ownership of property. It pretty much means that the government has to treat everyone equally.
One more Amendment was added to the Constitution around the time of the ending of the Civil War. The Fifteenth Amendment states that you cannot deny someone's vote because of that person's race or previous condition of servitude.
These three Amendments are sometimes referred to as The Reconstruction Amendments.
Negative Effects on the U.S.
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) came about during the time of Reconstruction. The KKK wanted to restore white power and attempted to do so by threatening and murdering Republicans who wanted to free the slaves and treat African Americans as equals.
The farmland in the South after the Civil War was terrible! The slaves who normally worked for the plantation owners were now emancipated, and the farmers had little money offer to pay other workers. The South was pretty much in poverty because of this. Sharecropping came into play during this time. Sharecropping is when an owner of land allows a tenant to use their land, but in return they get some of the crop that comes from that land.
I thought that this topic was pretty interesting. I had no idea that all this happened during that time and three Amendments were added to the Constitution.
http://histclo.com/essay/war/cwa/recon.html
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