13th, 14th and 15th Amendements

The statement that, “Despite the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th amedements, for most African-Americans reconstruction was a failure”, may seem like an exaggeration or a generalization, but in many senses this statement was true. Sure the African American were now free citizens with the right to vote, but the status that they had wished to obtain, and the status that they did obtain are so different that reconstruction could be deemed a failure, not a complete failure, but a failure nonetheless. The statement mentioned above is reasonably valid, although conditions did seem to improve for a short while, many of the seeming “accomplishments” of reconstruction were cancelled out by other factors such as racism and impoverishment of black people.
The irony of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 is that it really didn’t emancipate anyone, the slaves in the border states of the union were not affected, in fact the only slaves that were affected were those inside of the confederate states who didn’t care what Abraham Lincoln said, because they felt they were no longer part of the United states. The achievement of the 13th amendment was that it , unlike its forbearer, did end the ownership of men by other men through the more literal definition of slavery. However slavery can come in other forms than the direct owenership of master and slave. With little or no money, education or opputunites many former slaves ended up working as sharecroppers or working for their former masters. As far as their living conditions were concerned, not much if anything improved, historians have alikened the conditions of sharecroppers in the south to the serfs of Russia. Also the restrictive Black codes still made African-Americans feel as if they were inferior to their white counterparts. Under these laws they were treated as second-class citizens, denied the right to vote, and often forced to sign oppressive land contracts with conditions that sounded very similar to the slavery that they had just been “liberated” from. Although they were freemen they still were treated as inferior and it is in this way that the 13th amendement failed.
After congress got wind of the Black Codes they set out to suppress them through the Civil Rights Bill which would grant African-Americans the citizenship they had been denied. It was promptly vetoed by Andrew Johnson, whose veto was soon overrun by congress. This episode would later add to the tension which would lead to Johnson’s impeachement. The 14th amendement passed by congress took the Civil Rights Bil a step forward as it not only guaranteed civil rights freemen, but reduced a southern state’s number of representatives if they refused to give freemen the vote. However like many of the seeming victories during reconstruction this one was also met by a counter in the south. Many southern states still withheld the vote from its African-american citizens, and in the compromise of 1877 the amendement was weakened when it declared that it protected only from government abuse of these rights, but individual abuse from such organizations as the KKK were not covered. In many senses this amedement did little to protect or help African-Americans.
Perhaps the biggest opposition to the reconstruction being a failure for the African-Americans comes in the 15th amendement when they are finally granted the right to vote. Despite violent threats and protests from such groups as the KKK, many African-american men (women, to their chagrin, had still not achieved the vote) took to the polls and organized politically through such organizations as the Union League, and many blacks even held office. Times were changing and the African-americans helped attribute to that change. Still in 1877 things looked bleak for the African-american cause as it was put on hold without full equality for freement being reached. It was in this way that many of the goals of equality for forsaken as persecutions of African-Americans continued.
To say that the despite the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, reconstruction for most African Americans was a failure may seem to be harsh, but in many senses this statement is perfectly valid. The 13th and 14th amendements provoked little change as each of them was met with a rebuttal in the south. With the emergence of the 15th amendement, true change and reform was finally able to take place, but the end of reconstruction brought with it the end of congressional reform for freemen for the time being. The 15th amendement was a big step for the civil rights movement, but not big enough. It’s like running 400 meters in a mile-long race, the 15th amendement was able to push forward some of the goals of freemen, but there were so many other goals that still needed to be accomplished. It is in this sense that reconstruction was a failure for most blacks. Many postitive changes were made as they achieved freedom, citizenship and the right to vote, but equality still lay far ahead.