Amos Zoeller Prompt: Analyze the reasons for the failure of Congressional Reconstruction to achieve lasting civil rights

for free men and women. During the Reconstruction Era, amendments and congressional acts quickly tried to emancipate African Americans in the United States. But their guilt faded quickly, and the surviving hatred of the African American people found new ways to suppress them, particularly in the South. Women, a group that thus far had little power in the first place, continued to be ignored by a male-dominated society. The failure of these groups to significantly benefit from the Reconstruction is the product of two main reasons: The general lack of interest on freedom for these groups among citizens, and the inability for these powerless groups to obtain political power in a rigid social environment. While most abolitionists and many other northerners in general were opposed to slavery, racism and general dislike of African Americans was extremely common, not to mention the extremes harbored in the south. It was no wonder then how quickly the topic lost support. Following the passage of the Thirteenth amendment, many free blacks chose to move to the north, where they were resented for causing competition in the job market. The south still attempted to resist the will of the North, and the inferiority of blacks was just as common a belief as before. The Womans Rights movement was small at this point, and most participants were unmarried women, often looked down upon by society, and most decisions concerning the rights of women were decided upon entirely by men, meaning women were powerless to be heard. In both the North and South, society was rigid, capitalism or not. Most farmland in the south was already in the hands of wealthy plantation owners or other farmers, so free black men had no chance of making a living for themselves, the only choice being to resume farm work for their former masters, with conditions that were hardly better than before. In the north, even though manufacturing industries were rapidly growing, these jobs were easily filled with the surplus population of women and children. As opposed to blacks, women did have an option that could bring them financial success: marriage. The societal norm of the time was for a woman to try to marry up and perform menial labor in the home for the rest of her life; they certainly weren't worthy of the political freedoms reserved for the hardworking men of the time. What's more, it was rare for women to receive higher education, actually lending some truth to the idea that women were inferior both physically and mentally to men. Due to the set-in-stone societal structure and anti-black sentiments of the reconstruction era, most benefits to either group were short-lived at best. While slavery was successfully outlawed, little was done for improving the socioeconomic situation of the African American. Before either group could obtain political equality, they would first have to prove themselves that they were equal to the powerful white men in control of the era's political participants.