Civil War Reconstruction Research Paper

The Reconstruction happened in period following the end of the American Civil and the main goal was to reintegrate the Southern Confederate States back into the Union after they had been defeated by the Union (Northern States). As would be expected, the process was met with many challenges as the interests of both groups had to be addressed. There was debate over the terms under which the Confederate States would be allowed back into the Union, and whether it was the president or congress to set these terms. There was also the question about what rights freed slaves had and their role in the new American society. Even though the war had ended, the reconstruction presented a new battlefront for a political struggle between the North and the South. This paper analyses what reconstruction sought to achieve, and why it failed with dire long-term consequences.

Reconstruction was a period of time after the Civil War (1865-1877) that was supposed to be the rebuilding of America. It was also the process used to readmit all the Confederate states back into the Union. There was controversy, however, on how to go about rebuilding the nation. Abraham Lincoln proposed a lenient plan. After he was assassinated, Andrew Johnson proposed a very similar plan. The Radical Republicans, a group of legislators that were in favor of freedmen’s rights, were opposed to both plans under “Presidential Reconstruction”. They initiated “Congressional Reconstruction”. Because of the conflicting views, there was little cooperation between the Executive and Legislative branches. This lead to many unsuccessful

During the time period of 1860 and 1877 many major changes occurred. From the beginning of the civil war to the fall of the reconstruction, the United States changed dramatically. Nearly one hundred years after the Declaration of Independence which declared all men equal, many social and constitutional alterations were necessary to protect the rights of all people, no matter their race. These social and constitutional developments that were made during 1860 to 1877 were so drastic it could be called a revolution.

The years after the Civil War are referred to as the Reconstruction Era, during this time the country was rebuilding the south, and making progressive changes to the United States Constitution. Prior to the end of the Civil War, African Americans were enslaved by white masters. Of course, this has never been morally correct, but by the summer of 1862, blacks had started pushing the issue of being free, leading to Former President Abraham Lincoln giving the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. This was only the beginning of the fight for civil rights.

1. The war in 1862 was only more than a year old and the people in both the Union and Confederate sides didn’t anticipate it would last that long, but it is going to go on. Close to the end of the summer in this same year, the Union has made huge progress in claiming confederate lands, winning some major battles. They have put the confederacy in the defensive. They have taken over New Orleans, with even black troops major on the ground of New Orleans. They have taken Missouri and are working hard to take over the Mississippi Valley and maybe even Richmond itself. Bruce Catton puts it this way in The Civil War, “Except for guerrilla activity, Kentucky and Missouri has been swept clear of armed confederates, Western Tennessee had been reclaimed, there was a Yankee army in Cumberland Gap, another one was approaching chattanooga, and a third was sprawled out from Memphis to Corinth, preparing to splice down through Mississippi and touch hands with the Union occupation forces in Baton Rouge and New Orleans” (85) So not only that they Union had taken over regions, they are advancing as well, but they did not win the way this year for some reason. Firstly, because they did not have generals and army heads capable of taking them to victory. General Halleck, chief of the Union Armies and Pope in charge of one of the Union armies in Virginia, were major examples of this.

Imagine being a soldier in the Civil War, fighting with a great risk of dying, and then, somehow win the war. Since winning the war, slaves had been freed and the United States would start rebuilding itself. Former slaves were even able to get jobs and become part of the government. However, after several years of rebuilding, there is still more things to do. Then, all of the sudden, the rebuilding stops and no one knows why. Racism was making a comeback, even more so fierce than before the Civil War. There was even talk of a second Civil War, and People started wondering if it was the North or South who had stopped this great rebuilding. Recently, there has been talk about who had caused the end. However, because of the North having the most power, them getting sick of carpetbagging government/“Negro Question”, and also deciding on slaves having a probation period, it is clear that the North was the problem to Reconstruction.

Reconstruction was the period following the Civil War in which the national government attempted to reintegrate the Southern states that had formed the Confederacy back into the United States. During this time the US faced many social, political, and economic challenges. The national government worked to establish order in the South. In the process, the nation passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution that ended slavery, defined citizenship, and protected the right to vote. As a result, most Southern states, where former slave owners needed workers, adopted Black Codes, allowing them to still treat African Americans as if they were beneath them. After Reconstruction many were extremely poor, and created a poverty system known as Sharecropping. This was when the poor grew crops on another’s land in return for money paid after the harvest. With recently been freed with no financial resources, African Americans had to accept credit each year to pay for seeds, tools and other supplies. In the end, most sharecroppers remained in debt.

The Reconstructive period was considered the period after the Civil War, which was 1865-1877. Abraham Lincoln had started to prepare for the reconstruction of the South during the Civil War while Union soldiers were occupying huge areas of the South. Abraham Lincoln wanted to bring the Nation back together as quickly as he possibly could and by December of 1863 he offered his plan for Reconstruction which required that the state’s new constitutions prohibited slavery.

Reconstruction is a time period after the Civil War ended in 1877. We view it as something that resembles a transformation, shifts in the southern U.S. after the Civil War. This was when slavery inequality, some political, economic, and social issues were, in some ways, balanced. The categories of issues that arose throughout this “restoration” were aspects such as involving the Confederacy into the Union, abolishing along with figuring out what to do with our free blacks, and addressing conflict between the Confederate leaders and a group of people, which we characterize as “the North.” During reconstruction, there was a challenging goal of incorporating former slaves into our nation as free citizens like everyone else. It looks like this “era” attempted to take out the unfairness of slavery; however, it was successful to a degree. Reconstruction, itself, was successful in fulfilling its goal to a degree because the Freedmen’s Bureau attempted to help former slaves with simple things such as housing, although it “lost its touch” due to deficiency of needed funds along with personnel, and trouble dealing with pressure that was advancing from the so-called white southerners.

The United States faced a Civil War from April 12, 1861 to April 9, 1865. The Civil War was caused by disagreements between the North and the South on certain social issues and state rights, because of this, the South decided it was its own country and left the Union. After the Civil War reconstruction had to take place. Reconstruction is a program made by the federal government from 1865-1877 to repair the damage caused by the Civil War and restore southern states back to the Union (Lapsansky-Werner, et al. 958). Problems associated with Reconstruction affected the South’s ability to industrialize after the Civil War in multiple ways. This affected the nation as a whole concerning factors such as economic development, infrastructure, labor and human rights.

The civil war was a war against the north and south it the United States. The war began because they north did not agree with what the South was doing with the African Americans. The south was using them as slaves making them do all of the white man’s dirty work. Besides doing there work they were beaten, starved, and poorly clothed to work in such horrible conditions. The north tried to help the slaves sometimes by ether buying them then would take them to the north so that they were a free. They also had the underground rail road where some of the whites would help escape to the north. Then Abe Lincoln became president and declared war against the south to end all slavery, and also to

The author describes the reconstruction of the Civil War based on facts and taking about how the slaves got new lives. They talk about what type of jobs that they have gotten after being enslaved alongside some of the mistreatment that they also received for those new jobs. In the text it states, "Many sharecroppers experienced bad treatment." When the author put this into their article, they were wanting people to know that it wasn't an easy switch from slavery to non slavery. Not only did the author put that they were mistreated, they gave some examples of how they were being mistreated. The texts reads, "Landowners sometimes sold sharecroppers seeds, shelter, and food for outrageous prices, slowly putting the borrowers into debt."

The dictionary defines a leader as “the person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country.” It takes a great leader to make a country run smoothly, properly and have it be as successful as possible. Abraham Lincoln was that great leader, he was able to command respect, think rationally about all decisions and lead his nation to great heights in the mist of such a terrible tragedy. Unfortunately the south did have such a leader to run their country in the time of the Civil War. Jefferson Davis was an inept leader that sealed doom for his nation in the most important war of all time for the confederacy. Although he was very

Civil War can be also known as “War Between the States” that happened in the mid 19th century. The war was a result of decades simmering tensions and controversy between the North and South of United States over slavery, state’s right and moving West. The northern states leading by President Abraham Lincoln wanted to abolist slavery in the United States. On the other hand, the southern states fought against this policy. Over those decades before the war, there were many critical events that led to the Civil War. Though, in my opinions, the four most critical events that contributed to the outbreak out the war were The Missouri Compromise in 1820, Nat Turner’s Rebellion in 1831, the Dred Scott Decision

The deadliest war in American history is known as the American Civil War killing nearly 620,000 soldiers and a mass amount of civilians. The War Between the States was fought between Southern slave states and the United States federal government. Southern states formed a group called the Confederacy, which went against the beliefs of the Union. Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of America and Abraham Lincoln sought different views on slavery. Lincoln believed that all slaves should be emancipated and advocated the restoration of the Union.