Why Did Reconstruction Fail?

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Later on, Congress came up with their own plan of Reconstruction. The Reconstruction Act that passed by congress had two primary points to it. Firstly, troops needed to take residence in the confederate states. Secondly, states were allowed to come back to the union if they changed their 14th amendment. The states had to believe that all men born in the U.S were citizens, and they got guaranteed equal treatment under the law.

The Reconstruction Act was all set, however, things went a bit sideways during the Compromise of 1877. During the 1876 presidential election, the two men running for president were Samuel Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes. Both parties made Hayes the winner. The freed slaves living down in southern states had no protection after the military of the southern states were put to an end. Without the military, the southerners could take advantage of the free slaves and that was exactly what happened. Protection laws did almost nothing and since there were no one to enforce laws many southerners set up black codes and treated African Americans like second class citizens. The laws that were put in place failed miserably and at this point, Reconstruction ended.

I believe that the construction was a big failure, however, it did help start taking the right steps into creating rights for African American. The enforcement of the 14th and 15th amendments was a great success, however, proper enforcements were not taken to properly reconstruct the US.

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