Pretty much everything I've heard about reconstruction has been awful. I grew up in America (although in a state that didn't fight in the Civil War) so I know very little about reconstruction. Any outline and suggestions would be helpful to my adult education.
What were some goals and eventual flaws of reconstruction? Is there a way to explain why Americans should have seen those results coming?
Now that its been almost 150 years since the end of the war, what should America have done different that it would have no way of knowing to do at the time?
As I'm sure you know, the goal of Reconstruction was to reintroduce the former Confederate states back into the Union. The early stages of Reconstruction had been put into motion by Abraham Lincoln, but were disrupted due to his assassination. After Lincoln's death, Andrew Johnson took over the presidency as well as the duties of Reconstruction. Johnson approach towards Reconstruction was quite relaxed, and he ended up pardoning many former Confederate leaders. He also ignored the discriminatory and restrictive laws that were being passed in southern states which became known as the "black codes". Congress eventually decided that Andrew Johnson's method of Reconstruction was not effective and took over control. Their version of Reconstruction was much more hands on, and involved placing the governments of the Southern state's under military control. To me, the inconsistency and the shift from one extreme to the other in regards to Reconstruction policies is a major reason for why Reconstruction went so poorly. Under presidential Reconstruction, the Southern states were given too much freedom and immediately began to revert back to their pre-Civil War ways. On the other hand, Congress' plan for reconstruction went to far by implementing military run governments in the Southern states. Obviously, people in the south weren't going to respond well to that form of reconstruction, and as soon as the military run governments left, the Southern states went back to doing things the way they always had. A more moderate approach to Reconstruction would have been ideal. They needed a plan that had clear guidelines for the Southern states to follow on their way back to readmission into the Union.
We should have told Lincoln to bring more bodyguards to the play that day so his racist vice president wouldn't have taken over and scrapped all the reconstruction plans to help socialize the slave population.
Also, the economy got fucked and the reconstruction became less and less popular ass the nation went into recession.
Many disagree but I think having a stronger central government and giving the states less and less power will keep them from enacting racist legislature (See: Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, etc) and have more oversight on the discrimination still happening today. Same with religion in politics. Especially states that have not proven that they can be responsibly civil.