. Stating that “...no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of laws; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” (This was the first national definition of citizenship in American History, and it attempted to protect civil rights against state interferences.) Most white southerners overlooked the 14th Amendment, and saw it as an insignificant amendment. And as result of the dismissal of the 14th Amendment most private, and public companies like steamboats, hotels, and railroads either refused to serve blacks or set up separated facilities. The Second goal that the Reconstruction attempted to achieve was the redistribution of land to African Americans and poor whites. However the distribution of homesteads, or seizure of land, one of Thaddeus Steven’s ideas, met with little success. One reason was because the North and South resisted as much as it was in their power to delay or terminate the idea. In addition to this, most times the government was seizing land from Indian and Mexican nations, and then would later give most of it to railroads, land speculators, and small cultivators. Lastly the Reconstruction attempted to change African Americans lives one last time, by giving them political freedom. With the new constitutions they were able to work as sheriffs, mayors, justices, and take seats in the city council. Very few took seats in congress, and the senate, but there were still some African Americans who did. These new jobs dealing with the local government gave them the power to determine the rights entitled to all African American’s as well as their political future. The Reconstruction gave African Americans the right to an education, the benefits of hospitals, and they became part of the legal system as Sheriffs, police officers, judges and jurors. All these rights and benefits were given as a result of the new southern state...
