What was a historical figure, event, or detail that particularly stuck out to you or interested you? How did the author use this figure, event, or detail to support his/her overall argument or interpretation?
The Radical Reconstruction struck out to me the most in the reading called “The Making of Radical Reconstruction” by Eric Foner. The radical reconstruction was a time in the later 1800s where parties were trying to help the slave laborers get out of their dreadful situation of overworking and minimal to no compensation. Congress played a key role in making this life-changing decision for so many workers.
Radical Reconstruction helped change the way labor workers or slaves were treated after the American Civil War. There was a position that was filled by someone. This person, under the title “Radical Republican”, is intended to be in charge of representing labor workers. The main purpose of this position is to ensure that former and current slaves(at the time) were protected and had the same civil rights as white Americans. The role of the Radical Republican was effective because it allowed radicals to gain support from other citizens such as manufacturers. According to Foner’s reading, it is stated that “Radicals also won support among manufacturers who saw upwardly mobile blacks as a new market for their products”(page 106). This shows how so many people were starting to take a stand for the radicals. This was just what Radical Republicans wanted and it affected the rest of the society- both people of color as well as White Americans. It positively affected people of color who were trying to get out of slavery, but White Americans were not very happy about this. The slaves (who are now being represented by Radicals), were meant to do labor and produce necessary goods for trade and profit such as cotton. Since the Radical Republicans are determined to reduce the labor of slaves(or essentially reduce free labor), the production of cotton will decrease and it will prevent businessmen from making money. Radical Republicans were reshaping the South so that the rich people living in that part of the society wouldn’t be able to control them. As a matter of fact, the Radicals proposed that the federal government should cut the “400 million acres of a plantation belonging to the wealthiest ten percent of Southerners”(page 107). This would eventually hurt those ten percent of the population that will no longer receive free cotton or money from cotton production More importantly, the people of color are now on the same level of civil rights as White Americans. To further support this movement, Congress removed the people who were originally selected as Southern Congressmen and formed a Joint Committee on Reconstruction to see if Southern states were eligible for representation. Unfortunately, the attempt to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment was unsuccessful because the proposed amendment stated that the weak class of laborers were to form contracts for their labor. This steered away from the main point to abolish slavery in the Southern states. This was doing the opposite of that, so President Andrew Johnson suggested that the amendment should be revised and reconsidered. President Johnson actually supported both Northerners and Southerners, but the Bureau Bill forced him to choose against his diverse allies. In other words, President Johnson went against the Southern states.
The Radical Reconstruction movement in the mid-late 1800s was an attempt to change the way people of color were treated by their slave masters. They were producing loads of cotton without any compensation for their hard, long labor. Instances of labor with little to no pay still exist today such as the school bus protest that happened in the U.S as bus drivers were saying that they should receive more pay for the work that day do. In short, Radical Reconstruction had a strong impact on the government and population in the past briefly leading into the present where we still practice some of the same concepts.
There are some good insights here, but also some errors. First, slavery had largely been destroyed by the Emancipation Proclamation and war, and was officially abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Republicans then made ratifying 13A a condition of re-admittance to the Union for former Confederate states. So there were no “current slaves” during the period Foner talks about. The main issue at stake during Reconstruction was what the status of these formerly enslaved people would be—would they enjoy equal citizenship, including voting rights? Would they be compensated for their work and otherwise be treated fairly? Would they continue to grow cotton, as many northern businessmen and manufacturers hoped? If so, under what conditions?
You seem unclear about who the Radical Republicans are. By and large, they were (white) members of Congress who strongly supported extending civil and political rights and federal government protections to former slaves. Some even wanted to confiscate former slaveowners’ lands and distribute them to the freedmen, although they did not succeed. Hence the phase of “Radical” or “congressional” Reconstruction” that Foner writes about, which lasted roughly from 1866 to 1873.
Your post suggests two things to me. First, the importance of using the lectures and American Yawp readings as background for understanding some of the more detailed and nuanced points that are often being made in these longer reading assignments. Second, more simply, is the importance of dates. Instead of writing “later in the 19th century,” be as specific as possible (Reconstruction is usually considered to have lasted from 1865–77). It’s also important to keep chronological order in mind—perhaps if you had recalled 1865 as the year of the 13th Amendment, you wouldn’t have been unclear about whether or not people were still enslaved during the period in question.