Third, a group of Northern politicians who were strongly opposed to slavery, unsympathetic to the South, wanted protection for the freed slaves, and wanted to keep their majority in Congress formed the Radical Republicans. Andrew Johnson has to be considered the fourth political element of the time due to his unpartisan views and actions. Johnson's only apparent goal was unification of North and South. The Radical Republicans surfaced as the country's dominant political party and with the majority in Congress they set the goals for reconstruction. Their initial goal for reconstruction was to prevent slavery from again rising in the South. They thought this could be accomplished by passing the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery. However after the passage of the amendment, Southern Democrats counteracted with the Black Codes that reinstated slavery in all but name. Both Moderate and Radical Republicans reacted to the Codes with expansion of the Freedman's Bureau to include the protection of Blacks from such codes and laws. Apparently going nowhere in their pursuit of the complete abolition of slavery, the Radical Republicans changed expanded their objectives to include political equality and suffrage. These new goals were established for two reasons, Northerners were siding with the Southern Blacks in increasing numbers but also because the Radical Republicans saw an opportunity to gain the votes needed to all but insure their continued majority and keep the Southern Democrats out of office. Although the extension of suffrage to the Black man worked fairly well it did not give the Black man any real power. The number of offices held by Blacks was far from proportional to the number of Black voters. And those Blacks who did manage to get into a political office usually owed it to an alliance that hindered their effectiveness as an office holder. The Reconstruction leaders overlooked the fact that if the Blacks were unable to gain economic equality they would quickly become mere serfs in the Southern plantation system.
In what ways does the Industrial Revolution affect the opportunities and constraints in women's lives in the 19th century? In the 19th century women were expected to live in the home and be constrained to the affairs of the household and family (children, her husband). The average woman had ...