Question

Examine the cartoon and read the annotation. Then respond with a brief essay giving your personal reaction to Johnson's approach to Reconstruction. Present at least three specific points in your analysis.

Answer 1

The correct answer to this open question is the following.

Although there is no cartoon attached or another reference, we can say that the question is probably referring to the cartoon called "Running the Machine," of 1864.

My personal reaction to Johnson's approach to Reconstruction is that President Jhonson could have done a little more and been more stern in the application of Reconstruction's original purpose.

In a similar approach to President Lincolns's approach, Jhonson gave leeway to Southern states to do Reconstruction as they considered better. So Southerners still had some people working in their large plantations and black people did not have the same rights as the whites in that region of the country. Indeed, southern states approved the Jim Crow laws and the black codes that racially segregated African Americans.

That is why Radical Republicans in Congress did not support Jhonson's plan. Radical Republicans demanded a more severe punishment to the Confederate States.

Answer 2

Answer: This is my answer, there wasn't a PLATO sample answer it just said "Answers will vary, but should focus on at least three specific elements of Johnson's Reconstruction, a careful analysis of the cartoon, and the student's reaction to both."

I believe that things could have been dealt with much better if everyone would have just seen each other equally. He was making it easier for the south to just walk all over the blacks and control them how this wish without calling it slavery. Johnson and congress didn't get along with each other because what he was doing wasn't right nor very constitutional. Because of how he was trying to go about it fights and riots broke out and because of that so much damage was done "Some forty-six African Americans and two whites died during the riot. A Joint Congressional Committee reported seventy-five persons injured, one hundred persons robbed, five women raped, ninety-one homes burned, four churches and eight schools burned and destroyed, and seventeen thousand dollars in federal property destroyed." In other places such as New Orleans where riots broke out because they were having peaceful protests, the policemen believed they were up to no good and so they were attacked and shot at. "As the firing continued some delegates attempted to flee or surrender. Some of those who surrendered, mostly blacks, were killed on the spot. Those who ran were chased as the killing spread over several blocks around the Institute. By this point both the rioters and victims included people who were never at the Institute. African Americans were shot on the street or pulled off of streetcars to be summarily beaten or killed. By the end of the massacre, at least 200 black Union war veterans were killed, including forty delegates at the Convention. Altogether 238 people were killed and 46 were wounded."

Explanation: