The twelve-year time period after the Civil War, also known as the Reconstruction, was considered by many people to be a failure. Although the two main goals of the reconstruction, giving blacks civil rights, and re-uniting the Confederate and Union states, were met, they weren't stretched out to completion, and at the end, left blacks worse off then they were before. Besides failing to project equal rights, in the process they as in the government failed to fulfill the promise of northern victory.
The Union and Confederate states were re-united, but not the way the government should of gone through with it. My opinion is that the northern politicians and government leaders should have tried a little harder in making it more difficult for the southern states to re-join the union. In them showing that it wasn't going to be so hard after all, the southern states seemed to just whip up some phony laws to protect the freed slaves and African Americans. Which in a sense was just legalizing slavery, not abolishing it.
These so called "Black Codes" would seem like a sort of freedom to a former slave. After all what could've been worse? Also, for the blacks to hear their very own president claim that "all men are created equal" doesn't seem feasible when at the same time they are hit with all these laws only applicable to blacks. That isn't treating us as equals. .
I"m not saying that what happened to the blacks didn't have any sense of freedom. They did get the right to vote and to be able to be treated as equals. They just had to duke it out and wait. All these freedoms they got were given to them in the long run. Nothing came without a fight.
In my eyes, the reconstruction wasn't a complete failure. The government just didn't realize what the real issues were. Not to gain economic growth, but to earn its social standings back. You can't have a rich and powerful nation if your own citizens feel violated.
