Reconstruction of the Civil War
The reconstruction of the Civil War was a period of time in which America began to rebuild the south. After the Civil War, the federal government let Southern soldiers return to their home after confirming their loyalty. The southerners did not want the blacks to be free, so they tried to create a legal system that required free slaves to remain in a state of slavery. Their source for this was to use the Black Codes, which were laws that limited African Americans rights. The whites eventually formed a racist group against the blacks, called the Ku Klux Klan, also known as the KKK. The KKK tortured, burned homes, lynched, and beat the blacks. During the reconstruction of the war, blacks had hope of racial equality with the whites. African Americans achieved full equality, just as the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments stated. They eventually were freed, and the African Americans became political figures, and were properly educated. This is just a small portion of the reconstruction of the Civil War.
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was the seventeenth president of the United States of America. Johnson was pro-slavery, or in other words suppirtive of it. Andrew was the vice president for Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was republican, and Andrew Johnson was a democrat. Lincoln chose Johnson as his vice presidential candidate because he wanted to attract southerners. He thought that since Johnson supported slavery, the southerners would vote for him, and since Lincoln was against slavery, the Northerners would vote for him. Johnson grew up in poverty, so he didn't learn how to write until he was twenty years old. He became politically famous because he was a backer of a small farmer, and he would give speeches. Johnson did not believe that African Americans could handle their own lives and thought that they should not be able to vote. The Southerners came up with the Black Codes, which restricted blacks from certain rights. Some states even made free slaves work on plantations. In another state, some blacks were taxed if they were servants or farmers, on their pets and guns. They were not always allowed to own guns. He was in office from 1864 to 1869. When he was the president, the differences grew between him and the Congress. President Andrew Johnson was impeached from office on April 24th,1868.
Hiram Rhodes Revels
Hiram Rhodes Revels, also known as Hiram R. Revels, was a very crucial part to the reconstruction of the Civil War. Revels was the first African American citizen of the United States of America to be elected to the U.S. Senate. Hiram was born on the date of September 27, 1827. He was born in a town of North Carolina by the name of Fayetteville. Revels was born to two free African Americans, and later went on in life to be the first U.S. senator. He represented the state of Mississippi. Hiram proposed two black regiments to the Union Army during the Civil War, and also fought in the Battle of Vicksburg. He was very intelligent and had good oral skills, which is a necessity in order to give proper speeches. In 1870, Rhodes was chosen to stuff an empty place in the U.S. Senate. The seat he had occupied in the U.S. Senate was previously were the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, was seated. Hiram Revels' most significant worry was to protect the civil rights of the blacks in America. Hiram Rhodes Revels dies on January 16, 1901. Hiram lived to be seventy three years old, leaving a legacy behind that is still remembered today.
Lincoln's Assassination
Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president, and a very important figure in the Civil War. After the Civil War was over, Lincoln wanted to start rebuilding the South. Since he was republican, he opposed slavery, so when he was planning to rebuild, he thought that every state should prohibit slavery. The ratification of the thirteenth amendment was the first amendment that formally abolished slavery in the United States. Lincoln's vice president, Andrew Johnson, became the seventeenth president when Abraham was assassinated. Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865, at Ford's Theatre. He was shot in the head by actor, John Wilkes Booth. Andrew went along with Abraham's plan for reconstruction for a short amount of time, but then proposed his own plan for reconstruction. Johnson set a requirement that needed to be accomplished by the southern states in order to be re-admitted to the United States. The Southern states eventually took up the Black Codes, which limited the rights of the blacks. This action caused the establishment of The Freedmen's Bureau, which provided food, education, and medical aid for African Americans. Congress also followed up on the thirteenth amendment, creating the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. After the Civil War, the blacks ended up with full equality, and over one hundred were in public office. Abraham Lincoln's assassination left a great effect on the reconstruction of the Civil War, in which it is still commemorated today.
The Freedmen's Bureau
The Freedmen's Bureau was created by the Congress in the year of 1865. The purpose of the bureau was to provide land that was taken away, food, medical aid, and supplies to former African American slave workers. This is also known as The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. This cause helped to work toward the building schools for education of the blacks. Although President Johnson put pressure on the bureau, they still continued to run the administration. This agency also had to settle the fights that blacks had with their white landowners. Since Andrew Johnson was for slavery, he was not in favor of giving full rights to African Americans. This led to the white southern Americans being upset. During this reconstruction of the Civil War, the Freedmen's Bureau did an acceptable job of making an education for blacks by creating colleges and schools specially for them. The bureau was terminated in 1872 because it could not create a peaceful relation between the Northerners and the Southerners.