Reconstruction: A Partial Success and Partial FailureAfter the Civil War ended in 1865, it was followed by an era known as Reconstruction that lasted until 1877, with the goal to rebuild the nation. Lincoln was the president at the beginning of this era, until his assassination caused his vice president, Andrew Johnson, to take his place in 1865. Johnson faced numerous issues such as the reunification of the union and the unknown status of former slaves, compromising between the principles of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. After the 1868 election, Ulysses S. Grant, a former war hero with no political experience, became the nation's new president, but was involved in numerous acts of corruption. Reconstruction successfully reintegrated the Southern states into the Union through Lincoln and Johnson's Reconstruction plans, but was mostly a failure due to continued discriminatory policies against African Americans, such as the Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, and sharecropping, as well as widespread corruption of the Northern elite and the Panic of 1873, although Lincoln and Johnson both approved Reconstruction plans that helped bring the North and South together, Congress was ultimately not satisfied and passed its own plan. Lincoln approved a rather lenient Reconstruction plan because, in his opinion, the Confederate states had never seceded from the Union. The Amnesty and Reconstruction Proclamation included a ten percent plan, which “would recognize them as people of the states in which they acted, and assist them in obtaining in all respects the full recognition and enjoyment of statehood, even if the people who did so were but one-tenth of the original voters of their states” (W...... middle of paper ...... black struggles due to unjust laws such as the black codes, Jim Crow laws and sharecropping, and the fact that the economic depression of 1873 and common acts of corruption strained the economy Southern states were reunified with Northern states through Lincoln and Johnson's Reconstruction programs, although Congress did not fully support them and created his own Reconstruction plan was intended to truly give blacks the rights they deserved, but Southerners' continued acts of discrimination, including the Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, and sharecropping, ultimately denied them such rights. Ultimately, the negative effects of corruption and the Panic of 1873 led to economic failure during Reconstruction. These problems affect our society because people still face discrimination and corruption in our economy still exists today.