Essay Sample: The Ku Klux Klan

Reconstruction was a vital part of history and repairing of the broken country of that time. African Americans had finally been freed from slavery, but freedom comes short. The north sought out ways to reconstruct the south but was not too victorious on the rights and freedom aspect. The south was completely against reconstruction, and took extreme measures in order to prevent reconstruction. Reconstruction took place not too long after the civil war in the late 1800s. Reconstruction was the series of events the north was taking to in a way join the south back into the union under the regulation of civilizing against racism and slavery.

The south wasn’t too into that idea, however. The south would retaliate in a violent manner, willing to harm or kill to get their way. Prime example, the KKK. The KKK would take extreme steps in preventing reconstruction. The KKK was a white supremicist hate group, and very well known in the south. This group was very much against reconstruction, as well as republicans. The republicans were the group attempting to reconstruct the south, after they previously freed the slaves and gave them some rights. In order to threaten the republicans and many others, the Klu-Klux foully killed senator John W. Stephens, by stabbing him five or six times in the grand jury room, and hanged him in the same room afterward. As shown on document C, “it is my mournful duty to inform you that our friend John W. Stephens, State Senator from Caswell, is dead. He was foully murdered by the Ku-Klux in the Grand Jury room of the Court House on Saturday… He was stabbed five or six times, and then hanged on a hook in the Grand Jury room…. Another brave, honest Republican citizen has met his fate at the hands of these fiends”. Abram Colby was a black man who came forward about some of the klansmen breaking into his home, taking him into the woods, and whipping him repeatedly for 3 hours. He was then left to die. What the Klansmen told him when they were assaulting him was, "Do you think you

will ever vote another damned Radical ticket?". Colby was a republican, and wanted reconstruction to take place, and instead of settling differences justly, the KKK was extremely violent and aggressive. The south had more ways of attempting to prevent reconstruction, most ways were in fact, very violent.

The North was not exactly perfect on reconstruction either. Though they proposed the idea and did attempt to keep it going, they also had their flaws. One of these flaws was their government. The government was corrupt because of its members as well as the nation's issues. Though the government opted to start reconstruction, they couldn’t focus on it in order to keep it going strong, simply because the government was corrupt. They had other things to focus on, and would neglect the issues in the south. Other things they had to focus on were the Panic of 1873 and the corruption in Grants Administration. Political violence raged in the south, but the north turned a blind eye to deal with other problems. Once African Americans were given rights they started running for office, and other governmental officials. Some white politicians were threatened or angered by black people attempting to be in office, and reacted in racist ways as a result. In document D it shows an evening transcript of a letter. The letter said, "the blacks, as a people, are unfitted for the proper exercise of political duties. The rising generation of .. blacks needed a period of probation and instruction; a period…. long enough for the black to have forgotten something of his condition as a slave and learned much of the true method of gaining honorable subsistence and of performing the duties of any position to which he might aspire.”.

Reconstruction wasn’t necessarily kept up by neither the north nor the south, but if one were to be worse on account of killing reconstruction, it’d have to be the south. The south resisted, retaliated, and fought against reconstruction, no matter the efforts of the south. In the south paragraph I spoke about the violent acts the south committed, which by far caused a harsh stopping point to reconstruction. Both contributed but the south delivered. So yes I believe that the south killed reconstruction.