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Laws and International Laws

What was Reconstruction and why did it fail?

The era from 1867 to 1877 is known as the Reconstruction era in which several developments regarding liberty, equality, and freedom were made which include the abolition of slavery, ban on the confederacy, readmission of the southern states into the Union, and incorporation of the African Americans into the political system. Although it brought many monumental changes such as the restoration of the United States and the settlement of the long-going rights vs. federalism debate, the reconstruction was failed due to many factors including the compromise of 1877, lack of enough efforts to enforce the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, and the black supremacy thesis.

Moreover, Radical Republican legislation could not protect the former slaves from white’s oppression and even failed to bring primary changes in the social structure of the South. For instance, after removing the federal troops in 1877 from the South as per the order of President Rutherford B. Hayes, the past slave owners and allied representatives instantly assumed power and with the legislative support of the Supreme Court approved the voter black codes and numerous other anti-progressive regulations that ultimately reversed the rights of blacks given during Reconstruction. Moreover, the Supreme Court of the US has reinforced these anti-progressive movements with its several verdicts in the Civil Rights and the Slaughterhouse to repeal the “14th and 15th amendments and civil rights act of 1875”.

The 14th amendment states that “no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” (Avalon Project – U.S. Constitution : Amendments XI – XXVII, 2019). However, in the mean times, the sharecropping system that allows the custody of blacks by rich white farmers also widely spread in the South. While whites in the North lost their interest in Reconstruction which finally led to the failure of reconstruction in 1877 (Frederick Douglass Project: In the Classroom | RBSCP, n.d.).

References

Avalon Project – U.S. Constitution : Amendments XI – XXVII. (2019). Yale.Edu. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/amend1.asp

Frederick Douglass Project: In the Classroom | RBSCP. (n.d.). Rbscp.Lib.Rochester.Edu. Retrieved November 23, 2020, from https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/2885

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