Reconstruction AMENDMENTS
13th Amendment
The thirteenth amendment was adopted abolition by the secretary of State, William Seward, for the abolition of slavery. The amendment abolished slavery and indentured servitude unless under punishment. This was the amendment that freed all the slaves in the South which was not widely accepted. The South rejected this amendment but after the Civil War, they were forced to ratify the thirteenth amendment in order to rejoin the Union. The confederate states reluctantly agreed to this conditions but then created Black Codes that would create similar conditions of slavery for the African Americans.
14th amendment
The fourteenth amendment contains two clauses that allowed the freedmen to have citizenship. The first was the Citizenship Clause that gave slaves and other indentured workers citizenship in the United States of America. This clause overruled the Supreme Courts decision in the Dred Scott case, which stated that no matter where a slave was they were not given the same rights and limited slaves. The second clause was the Equal Protection Clause which protected the rights of all people and races under the jurisdiction of law. Slaves had the protection of the government because of this amendment.
15th Amendment
The fifteenth amendment prohibits the government from denying any person the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. This amendment was created because of the black codes that were created by the southern states to limit a former slaves rights and voting ability. Also, after the close election of Ulysses Grant, the Republicans realized they needed the African Americans votes in order to remain in control of the government.
All the amendments were not in favor of the South returning to the original society that they had created. Former slaves were being put on the same level as lower class white citizens were and they were being protected by the government to keep this position in society. People began to turn away from the government when looking for help and turned to the KKK to solve their problems. The Ku Klux Klan was an outside force that broke the laws that had been created to return freed slaves to slavery. People saw the KKK as protectors of their lively hoods which allowed them to gain support and popularity across the South.
Freedom of Slaves
When the Civil War ended, most of the South had been completely destroyed by the Union armies. Farms and homes had been burned, railroads destroyed, and the entire social system of the South was changed. Officers that returned from war were often returning back to nothing and would have to rebuild their entire lives. The South had a hard enough problem just returning back from the war but now they had a new race that would be competing with them. The African Americans could now get jobs or buy land that would have gone to a caucasian. This social pressure was not received well by the lower class citizens that were on the same social level as the freed slaves.
Because of the Ku Klux Klans goal to return the South to the old ways of society many under privileged people supported or joined their cause. The KKK were trying to keep the freed slaves in the same conditions as slavery by restricting them from voting, limiting their rights as people, and only allowing them to receive certain jobs with no better conditions than they had previously had lived in. Even though this went against the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, people clearly were willing to support anything that returned them to the same social status.The economic and social reconstruction in the South helped the Ku Klux Klan rise to power because of theses problems in society during reconstruction.
Because of the Ku Klux Klans goal to return the South to the old ways of society many under privileged people supported or joined their cause. The KKK were trying to keep the freed slaves in the same conditions as slavery by restricting them from voting, limiting their rights as people, and only allowing them to receive certain jobs with no better conditions than they had previously had lived in. Even though this went against the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, people clearly were willing to support anything that returned them to the same social status.The economic and social reconstruction in the South helped the Ku Klux Klan rise to power because of theses problems in society during reconstruction.