The Unjust Radical Reconstruction of the South.
In 1868 Congress passed The Radical Reconstruction Plan. The plan was made up of a series of acts to help the South become a part of the Union after the Civil War. Due to the death of President Lincoln and the stale mate with President Johnson, Congress took action to rebuild the Union in what turned out to be one of the worst reconstruction efforts ever.
The Radical Reconstruction started out as a good idea, but quickly took a turn for the worst. The Federal Government had the idea of making blacks free, but the southerners had no intention of truly freeing any blacks. The South now was in a struggle of three groups; southern whites, southern blacks, and new northerners that moved to the south. The three groups and their own goals caused nothing but unrest. The success of the Radical Reconstruction depended on supporting the Federal Government for the short term, as well as long term. .
When the southern support of the Federal Government faltered, the true south appeared and white supremacy was unleashed. Blacks were given land by the Freedman Bureau only to have it returned a few years later to its prior owners. The blacks thought that the dream of "forty acres and a mule" was a reality only to have that dream crushed by the same government that gave it to them in the first place. This was to be the beginning of many other so-called Federal Government programs to be nothing more than lie.
The southern state governments that arose around 1865 had little or no respect for the new rights of the freed slaves. Some states even put specific laws in place to insure that the blacks were restricted to the same laws as before their freedom. These laws included unemployment as a crime, and the requirement to make long-term work contracts to white landowners. These laws caused the murder of thousands of blacks between 1865 and 1866. In 1867, the Federal Government imposed military law in the south to protect black rights.
