Radical Reconstruction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Radical Reconstruction - Essay Example Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, established the Freedmen’s Bureau intended to stop the lawmakers in the South from passing discriminatory legislation. President Johnson angered Radical Republicans by vetoing these laws but both were overridden by Congress which then rejected the Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case that denied citizenship rights to freed slaves by passing the 14th Amendment. In addition, it provides that no state can â€Å"deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.This Amendment also gave the right to black men aged 21 and over to vote and run for public office. However, despite these reconstructive legislative efforts white on black violence became increasingly commonplace in the South.Ex-Confederate troops and southern loyalists formed paramilitary organizations to fight the Union Army to kill all blacks and any whites that opposed their cause. White vigilante organizations derailed Reconstruction and re-established ‘home rule,’ a term used to describe whites only in the government and legal system. Blacks were terrorized and threatened not vote and certainly not run for office. The devastated South never received economic help that had been previously promised by Lincoln thus never fully recovered economically. The oppression of Blacks likely continued to a greater degree and for a longer period of time due to Lincoln’s assassination. The cumulative amount of human misery caused by Johnson is incalculable.