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Legacy of reconstruction

 

Radical Republicans now headed Reconstruction, the Ten Percent Plan was overthrown, and Congress took control of all matters. .
             In June of 1866, the Fourteenth Amendment was passed. This amendment granted blacks citizenship. Ex-Confederate states were advised not to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment by President Andrew Johnson; although, Tennessee, did ratify it. The Fifteenth Amendment, which was later passed, granted blacks to vote. The point was to force all states to allow Negro suffrage, but as with anything else, get-outs were exposed. Local law enforcement easily found alternative reasons for forbidding blacks to vote in the South. Now, being able to vote, blacks decided to take full advantage of it. A respectable group who educated blacks and taught them how to be productive members of society, was the Union League; also, the Union League provided protection for blacks in danger of being terrorized. Soon enough, blacks began holding high positions. Many were congressmen, senators, mayors, and law enforcers. .
             The Reconstruction Act of 1867 was soon brought into play. It was "an act to provide for the more efficient government in the Rebel States." Radical Republicans refused to recognize the Southern state governments, and decided to draw up the Reconstruction Act of 1867. This act stated that there was no legal government in any of the Ex-Confederate states except Tennessee. After that, it went on to set up the Congressional Plan for Reconstruction.
             Southern lawmakers devised the Black Codes in 1865. Although each state's codes were slightly different they all held the sole purpose to control and restrain the freedom of former slaves. Even marriages were often prohibited under these codes. The Black Codes laid down labor hours, behavior, and duties assigned. An African American man could be arrested and charged with vagrancy because he was unemployed. Although most blacks were forced back into the fields because this was their only skill, they were paid for their labor.


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