The civil war created incredibly high tensions and an extreme dichotomy in beliefs between the 10 or so ex-confederate southern states and the victorious states of the north. Reconstruction of the south was now going to be based on what the north wanted, since they had won the war. Political figures of the south and wealthy plantation owners were in an uproar when hearing of what was

The era of reconstruction saw the largest struggle between Congress and the chief executive in the nation’s history. The Fourteenth Amendment was helpful in shinning some light on this situation and making it easier to decide who gets office and how they’re going to obtain it. Section three of the amendment denied any federal office to those who had taken an oath before the war and then supported the Confederacy. There was a plan among congress to implement its own reconstruction by passing a series of acts that would nullify the president’s initiatives and reorganize the south on a new basis. This was known as Radical Reconstruction, and was supported by people such as Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts and Congressmen Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania. Stevens was very influential, and had the idea to seize land from the wealth plantation owners and divide it evenly among the freed slaves. Although this idea was widely accepted by Republicans, its democratic idealism gave legitimacy and fervor to the cause of black male suffrage (AP&P 462).

The Fourteenth Amendment was perhaps one of the most important amendments in our constitution. It “gave the federal government responsibility for guaranteeing equal rights under the law to all Americans” (AP&P 460). In Section two of the amendment, it warned t

Some topics in this essay:
Fourteenth Amendment, Americans” AP&P, Pennsylvania Stevens, Andrew Johnson, Union Republicans, Black Codes, Rights Act, Virginia Georgia, fourteenth amendment, Carolina Florida, , plantation owners, section amendment, equal rights, fourteenth amendment passed, readmission union, reconstruction era, federal government, amendment passed, ap&p 460, wealthy plantation, wealthy plantation owners, andrew johnson military, violated civil rights, civil rights act,