what outcome of reconstruction caused change in the womenâ€™s movement

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Reconstruction, in U.S. history, the period (1865–77) that followed the American Ceremonious War and during which attempts were made to redress the inequities of slavery and its political, social, and economic legacy and to solve the problems arising from the readmission to the Matrimony of the 11 states that had seceded at or before the outbreak of war. Long portrayed past many historians equally a time when vindictive Radical Republicans fastened Black supremacy upon the defeated Confederacy, Reconstruction has since the late 20th century been viewed more sympathetically every bit a laudable experiment in interracial democracy. Reconstruction witnessed far-reaching changes in America'south political life. At the national level, new laws and ramble amendments permanently contradistinct the federal system and the definition of American citizenship. In the South, a politically mobilized Black community joined with white allies to bring the Republican Party to power, and with information technology a redefinition of the responsibilities of authorities.

Origins of Reconstruction

The national contend over Reconstruction began during the Civil State of war. In December 1863, less than a year after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Pres. Abraham Lincoln appear the first comprehensive plan for Reconstruction, the X Percent Programme. Under it, when one-tenth of a state'south prewar voters took an oath of loyalty, they could plant a new state government. To Lincoln, the plan was an attempt to weaken the Confederacy rather than a blueprint for the postwar S. It was put into performance in parts of the Union-occupied Confederacy, but none of the new governments accomplished wide local support. In 1864 Congress enacted (and Lincoln pocket vetoed) the Wade-Davis Pecker, which proposed to delay the formation of new Southern governments until a majority of voters had taken a loyalty oath. Some Republicans were already convinced that equal rights for the old slaves had to accompany the South's readmission to the Union. In his terminal speech, on April xi, 1865, Lincoln, referring to Reconstruction in Louisiana, expressed the view that some Blacks—the "very intelligent" and those who had served in the Marriage army—ought to savor the correct to vote.

Presidential Reconstruction

Reconstruction explained in five questions and answers — Reconstruction explained in v questions and answers

Learn more about the Reconstruction period post-obit the American Civil War.
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Following Lincoln's bump-off in Apr 1865, Andrew Johnson became president and inaugurated the period of Presidential Reconstruction (1865–67). Johnson offered a pardon to all Southern whites except Confederate leaders and wealthy planters (although most of these afterward received individual pardons), restoring their political rights and all property except slaves. He likewise outlined how new state governments would exist created. Autonomously from the requirement that they abolish slavery, repudiate secession, and abrogate the Confederate debt, these governments were granted a free hand in managing their diplomacy. They responded past enacting the Black codes, laws that required African Americans to sign yearly labour contracts and in other means sought to limit the freedmen'south economic options and reestablish plantation discipline. African Americans strongly resisted the implementation of these measures, and they seriously undermined Northern support for Johnson's policies.

When Congress assembled in Dec 1865, Radical Republicans such as Rep. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and Sen. Charles Sumner from Massachusetts called for the establishment of new Southern governments based on equality earlier the law and universal male person suffrage. But the more numerous moderate Republicans hoped to piece of work with Johnson while modifying his plan. Congress refused to seat the representatives and senators elected from the Southern states and in early on 1866 passed the Freedmen'south Bureau and Civil Rights Bills. The first extended the life of an bureau Congress had created in 1865 to oversee the transition from slavery to freedom. The 2d defined all persons born in the United States as national citizens, who were to savour equality before the law.

A combination of personal stubbornness, fervent conventionalities in states' rights, and racist convictions led Johnson to refuse these bills, causing a permanent rupture betwixt himself and Congress. The Civil Rights Act became the first pregnant legislation in American history to become law over a president'southward veto. Shortly thereafter, Congress approved the Fourteenth Amendment, which put the principle of birthright citizenship into the Constitution and forbade states to deprive any citizen of the "equal protection" of the laws. Arguably the well-nigh important add-on to the Constitution other than the Bill of Rights, the amendment constituted a profound alter in federal-state relations. Traditionally, citizens' rights had been delineated and protected by the states. Thereafter, the federal government would guarantee all Americans' equality before the law against land violation.

Radical Reconstruction

In the fall 1866 congressional elections, Northern voters overwhelmingly repudiated Johnson's policies. Congress decided to brainstorm Reconstruction afresh. The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 divided the South into five military districts and outlined how new governments, based on manhood suffrage without regard to race, were to exist established. Thus began the period of Radical or Congressional Reconstruction, which lasted until the end of the terminal Southern Republican governments in 1877.

Thomas Nast: "This Is a White Man's Regime"
"This Is a White Man's Authorities," political cartoon by Thomas Nast, published in *Harper's Weekly*, September five, 1868. Depicted standing atop a black Civil State of war veteran are a "V Points Irishman," Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest, and Wall Street financier and Democrat August Belmont.
Thomas Nast/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (neg. no. LC-USZ62-121735)

By 1870 all the former Confederate states had been readmitted to the Union, and almost all were controlled by the Republican Party. Three groups made up Southern Republicanism. Carpetbaggers, or contempo arrivals from the N, were former Union soldiers, teachers, Freedmen's Bureau agents, and businessmen. The second large group, scalawags, or native-born white Republicans, included some businessmen and planters, but well-nigh were nonslaveholding small farmers from the Southern up-country. Loyal to the Union during the Civil State of war, they saw the Republican Party as a means of keeping Confederates from regaining power in the Due south.

In every state, African Americans formed the overwhelming bulk of Southern Republican voters. From the commencement of Reconstruction, Black conventions and newspapers throughout the Southward had called for the extension of full civil and political rights to African Americans. Composed of those who had been free earlier the Civil War plus slave ministers, artisans, and Ceremonious State of war veterans, the Black political leadership pressed for the elimination of the racial degree organisation and the economical uplifting of the onetime slaves. Sixteen African Americans served in Congress during Reconstruction—including Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce in the U.S. Senate—more than 600 in state legislatures, and hundreds more in local offices from sheriff to justice of the peace scattered across the S. So-chosen "Black supremacy" never existed, merely the advent of African Americans in positions of political power marked a dramatic break with the state's traditions and aroused biting hostility from Reconstruction'south opponents.

Serving an expanded citizenry, Reconstruction governments established the Southward's first country-funded public school systems, sought to strengthen the bargaining ability of plantation labourers, fabricated taxation more equitable, and outlawed racial discrimination in public transportation and accommodations. They also offered lavish aid to railroads and other enterprises in the hope of creating a "New South" whose economic expansion would benefit Blacks and whites alike. But the economical programme spawned corruption and rising taxes, alienating increasing numbers of white voters.

Meanwhile, the social and economic transformation of the S proceeded rapidly. To Blacks, freedom meant independence from white control. Reconstruction provided the opportunity for African Americans to solidify their family ties and to create contained religious institutions, which became centres of community life that survived long later on Reconstruction concluded. The former slaves too demanded economic independence. Blacks' hopes that the federal government would provide them with state had been raised past Gen. William T. Sherman's Field Lodge No. xv of January 1865, which prepare aside a large swath of land along the declension of South Carolina and Georgia for the exclusive settlement of Black families, and by the Freedmen'southward Bureau Act of March, which authorized the bureau to rent or sell state in its possession to old slaves. But President Johnson in the summer of 1865 ordered land in federal easily to be returned to its one-time owners. The dream of "40 acres and a mule" was stillborn. Lacking country, nearly former slaves had little economic culling other than resuming work on plantations owned by whites. Some worked for wages, others as sharecroppers, who divided the crop with the owner at the terminate of the twelvemonth. Neither condition offered much hope for economic mobility. For decades, about Southern Blacks remained propertyless and poor.

Nonetheless, the political revolution of Reconstruction spawned increasingly tearing opposition from white Southerners. White supremacist organizations that committed terrorist acts, such every bit the Ku Klux Klan, targeted local Republican leaders for beatings or bump-off. African Americans who asserted their rights in dealings with white employers, teachers, ministers, and others seeking to assistance the quondam slaves also became targets. At Colfax, Louisiana, in 1873, scores of Blackness militiamen were killed after surrendering to armed whites intent on seizing command of local government. Increasingly, the new Southern governments looked to Washington, D.C., for assistance.

By 1869 the Republican Party was firmly in control of all 3 branches of the federal authorities. After attempting to remove Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, in violation of the new Tenure of Office Deed, Johnson had been impeached past the House of Representatives in 1868. Although the Senate, past a unmarried vote, failed to remove him from office, Johnson's power to obstruct the form of Reconstruction was gone. Republican Ulysses South. Grant was elected president that fall (see United states presidential election of 1868). Before long afterward, Congress approved the Fifteenth Amendment, prohibiting states from restricting the right to vote because of race. Then it enacted a serial of Enforcement Acts authorizing national activity to suppress political violence. In 1871 the administration launched a legal and military offensive that destroyed the Klan. Grant was reelected in 1872 in the nearly peaceful election of the flow.