After the defeat in the Civil War, Arkansas and the other Confederate states had no choice but to accept the idea of “reconstruction” and defeat. Arkansas had mainly been ran by the Democratic Party, but the Republican Party was on the rise after the Civil War. Both parties had different and distinct goals for the reconstruction of Arkansas. The Democratic Party was interested in rebuilding Arkansas while the Republican Party was interested in changing the state’s government all together. Throughout the Reconstruction period, the Democrats and Republicans held different goals for the “reconstruction” of Arkansas. The Democrats wanted to maintain the idea of white supremacy. They also wished to limit the power of the government in state affairs. …show more content…
The Republican Party was made up of three groups of people. These three groups included: the carpetbaggers, the scalawags, and the freedmen. Carpetbaggers were whites who traveled from northern states to the south because they saw the chance to take part in the reconstruction of Arkansas. Democrats did not particularly like the carpetbaggers. They believed that they should stay in the north where they belong. The scalawags were white natives to the south who supported the Republican Party. To the Democrats, scalawags were considered to be traders. The freedmen were former slaves who had just recently been freed. As these three groups worked together, they were able to take the authority of Congress and pass the Reconstruction Act of 1867. This act laid out the process in which the southern states would be readmitted into the Union. This act also required the southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment granted former slaves national citizenship and equal rights to all citizens. This amendment is also known as the Civil Rights amendment. The southern states were not allowed to reenter the Union until they had ratified the 14th Amendment. All of the southern states were readmitted into the Union by 1870 after ratifying the 14th Amendment. By this time, Congress adopted the 15th Amendment, which granted black men the right to vote. Through the ratification of the 14th and 15th amendments, the Republican party saw evidence that their desire of racial advancement was seen, creating hostility amid white
The other political party, the anti-federalists which was led by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. They believed that the U.S. should be solely based upon the state government. They wanted to have more power given to the people. This political party was made mostly made up of the middle class. During this time period, you had to be a white male in order to be apart and/or be acknowledged as being apart of a specific party.
Some goals of the Democratic Party in the 1800's include the following: Enforcing slavery, taking the Republican power, oppose the Civil Rights movement, enforcing the Jim Crow laws therefore meaning they supported segregation, trying not to pass the 19th amendment, more agriculture, take the government out of the banking business and the list goes on. The goals that the Democratic Party have now are different to the ones they had back in the 1800's. These goals include: Changing the law to make sure that the political process which includes elections controlled by the citizens, Changing the law to create economic decentralization, and working to make sure diverse political and policy viewpoints. As you can see their goals have changed over
Between the years 1868 and 1878, the Republican Radicals controlled most of the states in the South. This control was affected by an unstable alliance of three groups: freedmen, carpetbaggers, and scalawags. These groups took advantage of the fact that the South's former leaders were not allowed to hold office or vote. The carpetbaggers were Northerners who descended on the South. Some were adventurers; others sought honest business and political opportunities; still others wanted to help the former slaves.
The Democrat-republicans were led by Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson. This party was opposed to Hamilton’s financial plans because they believed his plans were seen as aiding the northern states who had not paid off their debts. The Democratic-Republicans viewed this plan in a way that would generally weaken the power of the states. This party followed Andrew Jackson ideas of not having a national bank, which was completely opposite of the federalists who supported Hamilton and his idea of the national bank. The Democrat-Republicans favored a weak government and held a strict interpretation of the Constitution in contrast to the Federalists who had a loose interpretation of the Constitution.
Both President Abraham Lincoln, and the Republicans thought that they should lead the process of reconstruction. The Radical Republicans was led by Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens. The Republicans opposed Lincoln's easy terms for reuniting the United States. Their terms wanted more forceful status toward the war and more protection for the freed slaves. During this Reconstruction, the Radical Republicans
On the left side of the political spectrum was Revolutionaries, Radical Republicans, and Moderate Republicans. Revolutionaries were extremely opposed to slavery, and wanted not only for slaves to be freed, but also for them to have equal rights to white people. They wanted to completely turn the current system upside-down and were willing to use violence and break away from the system in order to do so. Revolutionaries were mostly free blacks, and their bitterness from being enslaved was a factor that drove their acts of violence and strengthened their desire for equality. Radical Republicans were Liberals.
As the Depression of 1873 wore on into the mid-1870s, northern voters became decreasingly interested in southern Reconstruction. With unemployment high and hard currency scarce, northerners were more concerned with their own financial well-being than in securing rights for freedmen, punishing the Ku Klux Klan, or readmitting secessionist states. After Democrats capitalized on these depression conditions and took control of the House of Representatives in 1874, Reconstruction efforts stalled. The Radical Republicans last successful piece of legislation in Congress was the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Unfortunately, the act proved ineffective, as Democrats in the House made sure the bill was unenforceable.
Republican ideas on the consent of the governed were also embraced and exemplified through the limitation of the government. As seen in both Document I and the Bill of Rights, at least the idea to limit the government to prevent any abuses of power against the people was taken into account. However, on the other hand, politics, in a way, didn’t change after the war as well. Even after the war and the propagation of egalitarian ideas, only rich, protestant, land-owning, white men participated, if not dominated, politics. In the post-revolution confederacy, it was only rich, white men who could and did occupy positions of political power, and more often
This ushered a shift in the Union’s purpose for fighting the war. Initially, they were fighting to preserve the Union, but now they were also fighting for the end of the practice and expansion of slavery. The Republican Party described their support for this change of motives, stating that they endorsed the proposed amendment that prohibited the use of slavery (the 13th Amendment) and granted protection of the laws to all men, black or white (Document D). Their purpose was to establish their approval for the abolition of slavery and to officially
Arkansas experienced a period of Reconstruction after the Civil War that was unsuccessful in making serious social changes throughout the state. The idea of intervention had a tremendous impact on Arkansas and delayed any progress, even though the federal government had approved the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments in an attempt to reform the social justice system. Liberalism experienced an increase in support throughout the state of Arkansas during the 1960s and early 1970s. The philosophy of liberalism emphasized that to make social changes in the state the federal government was necessary. As the number of liberals increased, a period known as the “Second Reconstruction” allowed Arkansas another chance to reform.
The first African American leaders in the South Came from the ranks of antebellum free blacks who were joint by norther blacks to support Reconstruction. Blanche K Bruce an ex slave established a school for freedmen and in 1874 he became Mississippi’s second black U.S. senator. African American speakers who were financed by the Republican Party, spread out into the plantation districts and recruited former slaves to take part in politics. In South Carolina, African Americans constituted a majority in the lower house of legislature in 1868. Over the reconstruction twenty African Americans served in state administrations as Governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, or lesser offices.
The Democrats had no confidence in the Constitution after the reconstruction period, the Democrats who once again regained control of legislation had a “strong conservative, agrarian interest, and a reaction to carpetbagger rule” (Newell 47). This was a major factor of calling the convention to restructure the 1869
The bloc of Southern democrats was led by Senator Richard Russell of Georgia. The South had blocked every piece of civil rights introduced since the late 1800s(Carrasco 2). Senator Russell even made their personalized bill saying they didn’t want colored people, mainly African Americans to have voting rights let alone rights. The south also wanted to be separated from the North, but they couldn’t do that because it was illegal. After the act is when things started to change for the better, but also for the
The Republican party was then created by a large number of former Whig party members and Democrats who did want to support
Reconstruction a Failure or Success? Throughout the years, America has gone through many different political changes. Many presidents selected with different plans for our future. Sadly, many of those objectives have failed or came to an end.