Should Reconstruction have ended in 1876? This historical question may be argued throughout the time it took for the US to fully recover from the scars of the Civil War. Even today, racism and economic problems haunt this country. So we must ask ourselves if it was a wise decision of the US to have ended Reconstruction so early. Various arguments can be concluded from this chance and these arguments were the problems that became of the US after the Civil War and took us so very long to heal from. Reconstruction should not have ended in 1876 because the South was devastated, post war violence continued, and black rights were not being respected. The South had been devastated after the war and carried a strong sense of defeat that continued during Reconstruction. Many people known as carpetbaggers traveled from the north to the South after the war to loot as much as they possibly could.
There they took large amounts of money and land wreaking havoc on the recovering south. The South‘s economy had been damaged terribly after slavery had ended because slave plantations which were once key economic benefits had now been producing far less cotton. Without slave labor, the South was left weak and a vast amount of slave plantations were already gone because they had been burnt down in the course of the war. This large blow to the South’s economy created poverty for many and a longer Reconstruction would have greatly assisted in the South‘s recuperation. Reconstruction should have begun where it ended because the war was never truly over and the violence had raged on. Post-war gangs such as the KKK ravaged blacks and rebelled against the government during Reconstruction.
Many people in the South had refused to accept the defeat and did not want to acknowledge the North won the war. Racism became a great problem in society that still continues today. It is very clear that Reconstruction should not have ended in 1876 because the healing of the US had only started. Black Rights were also not being respected after the war. The newly freed men were only to be restricted by the Black Codes developed from the South. The South had not respected the freedom of blacks post war and the KKK had sought to lynch many.
The blacks were labeled under the rumor of stealing jobs and land from people in the south. Their rights were constricted very quickly and Reconstruction was supposed to not allow for this. Reconstruction should not have ended in 1876 because the South was devastated, post war Violence continued, and black rights were not being respected. Reconstruction was far too short and could have been more effective if Abraham Lincoln was alive to carry it out. Instead it was rushed and it failed to bond the North and South. Reconstruction should have continued past 1876 in order to better reform the United States.
