The+South+and+Reconstruction

=The South and Reconstruction= After the civil war the south had to go through reconstruction to bring it back to what it once was before the war. At the beginning of reconstructing Lincoln proposed the 10 percent plan in. The ten percent plan required that ten percent of the people in the southern states that had seceded must swear loyalty to the union. Once ten percent of the people had sworn their loyalty the state would have full restoration of their civil right and could reinstate their state government. Congress rejected this plan because they felt it was being too soft on the southerners and instead passed the Wade-Davis bill, also known as the “Iron Clad Oath” this bill forced everyone in the state to swear loyalty before it could get any of its political rights back. After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson became the new President, in his plan of reconstruction he wished to punish the rich southern plantation who he believed was responsible for the civil war. He, like Andrew Jackson, believed in helping the common man, unfortunately this help did not extend to the freedmen. The goal of most free slaves was to own a piece of land, most got help to achieve this goal from the freedman’s bureau, but a lot couldn’t. Those that couldn’t start their own lives after the gained their freedom most likely went back to the plantation where they had been enslaved. On the other hand there were also plantation owners that did not allow their slaves to leave the plantations even after the emancipation was passed. Then in 1867 radical reconstruction began in the south, radical reconstruction had a great effect and resulted in the constitutions of the southern states being rewritten, 735,000 freedmen and 635,000 whites were registered to vote and new delegates elected for the states within the first six months. Reconstruction was hard on the south and caused most of the whites in the south to oppose the government, resulting in majority of democrats in the south. Jim Crow Laws were a set of laws named after a song character passed in 1896. These Jim Crow Laws were set up to prevent the African Americans from mingling with the white people, and to limit their freedom as much as possible. They established the segregation of African Americans in almost every public place. This included public schools, restaurants, theaters, hotels, cinemas, public baths, trains, and buses, and in some states marriage between white people and African Americans was not allowed. = Works Cited  = Boydston, J., Cullather, N., Lewis, J. E., McGerr, M., & Oakes, J. (2002). Reconstructing a Nation. In J. Boydston, N. Cullather, J. E. Lewis, M. McGerr, & J. Oakes, //Making a Nation: The United States and Its People, Volume One// (pp. 451-479). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Custom Publishing. Simkin, J. (n.d.). //Jim Crow Laws//. Retrieved May 5, 2009, from Spartacus Educational : http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/author.htm