DBQ
...oth a constitutional and social development that led to a revolution. The central government had to some way convince the South to rejoin the Union, while still trying to please the angry planters and former slave holders. Both President Andrew Johnson and Congress tried to come up with ways to bring the South back into the nation. The results were that in order for southern states to be readmitted to the Union, they had to adopt the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. These amendments abolished slavery, granted civil rights to blacks, and allowed all adult males to vote regardless of the race. All southern states were readmitted by 1870 but Reconstruction did not officially end until 1877. The passage of these amendments deeply angered white southerners because giving more rights to blacks meant that whites would be losing more of their rights. Reconstruction was only created to help the devastated South, but as time went on, Reconstruction in some ways turned out to be more detrimental than life before the war. Blacks were still being mistreated and the South was in ruins. In the political cartoon by Thomas Nast, he demonstrates that Reconstruction was worse than slavery, one of the most important causes of the Civil War. His cartoon shows the Ku Klux Klan and the White League, which were organizations that tried to reestablish the rights that were taken away from them, holding a picture that shows a school house being burned and a black family mourning for their dead baby. Nast vividly shows that although Reconstruction did have good intentions, it did not work and it may have hurt the United States even more. Lastly, the election of 1876 was a constitutional development that that finally ended Reconstruction, but it did have many consequences. With Ulysses S. Grant leaving after two terms of office, the Republicans turned to Rutherford B. Hayes to lead them to the presidency. Hayes was to be running against Samuel J. Tilden who was best known for bringing down the infamous Boss Tweed. Although Tilden racked earned 184 electoral votes out of a needed 185, 20 of these votes were disputed. In order to fix this mess, the Compromise of 1877 stated that Hayes would take office as long as he removed the remaining federal troops in the South and support a bill funding the Texas and Pacific Railroad’s construction of a southern transcontinental line. When Hayes did remove the troops from the South, Reconstruction officially ended. With the end of Reconstruction, the United States was able to move on but still encountered more problems as the time passed. The social developments during this time mainly involved the blacks being freed and how the whites reacted to this life-changing decision. Once the Civil War was over in 1864, all slaves were declared free and they expected to be given the same rights and respect that was given to everyone else. Unfortunately, very few blacks were treated like freedmen; instead they were still treated like slaves. In the petition written on January 9, 1865 from American citizens of African descent, it discusses how blacks in the military should be allowed to vote and have the same rights as everyone else that served in the war. It states that blacks have done nothing wrong while there have been plenty of white traitors, so why are blacks still being mistreated? In order to help blacks start a new life and gain more respect, the Freedmen’s Bureau was created on March 3, 1865. With millions of freed blacks unskilled, illiterate, without money, and with little knowledge, the Freedmen’s Bureau provided food, clothes, medical care, and education to freedmen. Even tho...