End of Reconstruction

Reconstruction thought to be one of the largest changes to the south after the civil war. It did not change the South fully; however, there was social, political, and legal continuity from before the civil war. It was an attempt to rebuild and reform the South according to new legal rights, political and social behaviors, and economic status. It mainly focused on the rights of the African-Americans and other immigrants who came in during that period. Reconstruction was fully successful; however, it made changes and failed at specific ways, such as, different points of views of Reconstruction, amendments, sharecropping, and Compromise of 1877 that ended the Reconstruction.

Civil war meant to be "the war between the states, the war of the northern aggression, the war of Southern independence, the war of the rebellion, and the freedom war" (Clark lecture, August 18). However, it did not fulfill all the needs, rights in which the war fought between people. There was much to reform and rebuild after destruction of the states in the Civil War. When reconstruction plans created once, the different points of views aroused by different people. During Civil war, United States President, Abraham Lincoln came up with the plan to reconstruct the South. According to Lincoln's 10 Percent Plan, he planned to "replace majority rule with loyal rule to reconstruct southern state governments and pardoning ex-Confederates except the highest ranking military and civilian officers" (Norton 406). However, Congress was against the Lincoln's plan and constructed three specific conditions for southern readmission. When the President was trying to reconstruct the South, Slaves were trying to weaken the slavery by "working slowdowns," "passing along information," and "helping runaways." African-Americans did everything to weaken the slavery during the civil war (Clark lecture, August 18). When the civil war ended, thirteen amendment resulted and became the law, in which abolished slavery. Black southerners started to search for freedom in many ways. Many of them started to move away from slave owners to have independence and to feel the freedom. Some of the former slaves started to act freely at their former slave owner, for example, "One angry grandmother dropped her hoe and confronted her mistress with, "I'm free! Ain't got to work for you no more!" As another man recalled that the he and others "started on the move," either to search for family members or just to move on". Freedpeople also had the desire to own land in which General Sherman decided to give 400,000 acres of land for settlement. However, Johnson refused this plan to give land to the freedpeople and gave land back to original owners, which ended up selling to northern investors (Norton 408-9). With freedom, former slaves started to earn education and started black churches. As all the changes were taking place in the South, there was still discrimination in terms of sharecropping by the white community.

The South mainly depended on the plantation of cotton. Since former slaves did not have any land ownership and lacked money, they could not afford to buy land for plantation. Therefore, they preferred to rent land, in which it resulted in a compromise between black farmers and white landowners, sharecropping. Sharecropping was "a system where landowners and former slaves managed a new arrangement, with laborers paying with a portion of their crops for the right to work their own land" (Norton 410). Sharecropping was a way to have a land to work, to work as a family rather than split family, to protect girls and women from the sexual assortment (Clark lecture, August 23). However, it did not help black farmers to gain much of the profit through this system. Instead of gaining better life for blacks and landowners, "owners and merchants developed a monopoly of control over the agricultural economy, as sharecroppers faced ever-increasing debt" (Norton 412). As a result, white landowners always wanted to have control over blacks in which blacks end up being slaves. Slavery was still in the minds of white people for the blacks.

When more violence progressed, there were more rights needed for the