New Life and Laws after the War of Northern Aggression

The economic changes were quite devastating for both sides but mostly towards the South. Much of the Southern plantations were destroyed along with many big cities, such as Richmond and Vicksburg. Another economic change which had a large impact on the South was due to the loss of slaves. Slaves were what had made their economy prosper and post-war, slavery had been abolished and southerners had lost their work force. War needs led to expansion and centralization of Southern government control over the economy. The economic setback to the South lasted for decades. Although the United States remained as one country, a number of Southern states through the 20th century have had to receive an inconsistent amount of federal aid and intervention. This intervention by the Federal government has caused disagreement and resentment between

The South did all that it could to suppress and terrorize blacks. The idea was to demonstrate white superiority even though blacks were no longer slaves. The Ku Klux Klan was formed for this purpose and because of it, the Force Bill had to be imposed to control the racist men (Doc I and H). The Force Bill sent in the military to control the KKK terrorization but was ultimately useless because the KKK had already fulfilled its purpose of intimating blacks (Example). Because of this intimating, it is no surprise that social change did not occur. Blacks, though yearning, still did not have the power to counter racist white efforts against them.

The end of civil war in the United States of America brought about many problems, in particular for the South. Some of the problems were political, economic decay and social disorder. The war destroyed the plantations and crops thus causing many to starve to death while others became homeless. The reconstruction became the only hope for the people. Radical reconstruction began in 1867, which enabled the freed black men to have a voice in the government. Before the civil war, the Southern state had enacted laws that suppressed all African American. This fact angered many people from the North who were seeking to end slavery. Therefore, during the reconstruction era, the black people wanted their voices to be heard.

Forever. 170). The Klan were white southerners who were organized and committed to the breaking down of Reconstruction. By methods of brutality, “the Klan during Reconstruction offers the most extensive example of homegrown terrorism in American history” (Foner. Forever. 171). The Ku Klux Klan as well as other groups killed or tormented black politicians or threatened the blacks who voted in elections. The Klan strongly disagreed with the northern idea that slaves should become part of the government. The Historian Kenneth M. Stampp states, “for their [the North] supreme offense was not corruption but attempting to organize the Negroes for political action” (Stampp. Era. 159). This corresponds with Foner’s idea that the South was not open to the idea of change but more so consumed with the idea of recreating a society similar to one of the past. However, the goal of white power groups was not just politics. The Klan wanted to restore the hierarchy once controlling the South. Foner observes that, “the organization took on the function of the antebellum slave patrols: making sure that blacks did not violate the rules and etiquette of white supremacy” (Foner. Forever. 172). Like the power the southern whites formerly held over the slave population, the Ku Klux Klan wanted to control the African American population still living in the South. They did not want the freedmen to become integrated into their society because they saw them as lesser people. By suppressing and

     One of the major issues of the Civil War was slavery, and even with a victory by the North, blacks rights did not improve very much. Throughout individual Southern states, Black Codes were passed in state legislatures to repress the suffrage of black males. “All freedmen, free Negroes, and mulattos…with no lawful employment or business… shall be fined… and imprisoned…” In an effort to counteract these laws, the federal government passed the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. These Amendments were only effective to a minimal degree, because the Southerners found other ways to restrict the opportunities of blacks. Southern whites organized secret societies such as the Ku Klux Klan to intimidate blacks and white reformers. Often times, violence was used by these secret societies to express their views. These Reconstruction policies dealing with blacks were not very efficient, for blacks did not receive equal

Whatever of good may have come in these years of change, the shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon the Negro people,--a disappointment all the more bitter because the unattained ideal was unbounded save by the simple ignorance of a lowly people. The first decade was merely a prolongation of the vain search for freedom, the boon that seemed ever barely to elude their grasp,--like a tantalizing will-o'-the-wisp, maddening and misleading the headless host. The holocaust of war, the terrors of the Ku-Klux Klan, the lies of carpet-baggers, the disorganization of industry, and the contradictory advice of friends and foes, left the bewildered serf with no new watchword beyond the old cry for freedom" (Chapter 1). They thought the Black people did not enjoy their deserved rights, like the 14th and 15th Amendments. 14th Amendments provided civil rights for African Americans, and15th Amendments provided voting rights for African Americans. Ku Klux Klan preventing African American from using the 15th Amendment to enable them to vote. Ku Klux Klan was the terrorist arm of the Southern Democratic Party. The immediate goal of these groups was to keep white and black Republicans away from polling places. Their violent tactics, targeted at black leaders, escalated during Reconstruction. White mobs killed three state legislators during these turbulent times.

Under the new Democratic leadership government funding for reconstruction was severely severed or eliminated altogether. After the former Confederates won back their right to vote groups of people known as “Redeemers” won public office and started to carefully reverse a lot of the social and economic changes. Redeemers were Southern Democrats who promised to bring back the “Old South” by undoing the reconstruction. They passed restrictions on voting such voting polls and literacy tests, which all but prohibited most African Americans from voting. For example in 1900 fourteen counties in Alabama had 79,311 African American voters on the rosters but in just three short years the registration in these same counties had dropped to just 1,081 registered voters. Jim Crow laws were established, making segregation legal. And the Supreme Court allowed it stating that the 14th and 15th amendments were only applied at the federal

In the Civil War in 1865, many slaves got their freedom but were still being controlled by the whites and government. Black codes were being passed by Southern states to control the labor and behavior of former slaves and African Americans. The Ku Klux Klan became a structure for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction. The purpose of the Reconstruction was to bring the South together to be part of the Union. The success and failures of Reconstruction negatively impacted the political, social, and economic lives of newly freed African Americans in the south. It impacted them in a negative way politically because the government wasn’t fair with the newly freed African Americans. Many families were getting separated

Reconstruction was forcibly imposed on the southern states by the government, with the presence of overbearing federal troops, and, as a result, racial attitudes in the south didn’t really evolve during this period. With the support of a conservative Supreme Court, black codes, voter qualifications, and other anti-progressive legislation were passed through state governments to reverse the rights that blacks had gained during Radical Reconstruction. Andrew Johnson had already provided generous pardons to virtually the entire Confederacy, so the same leadership had come into play, eventually instituting brutally racist governments. Because the North stopped enforcing Federal civil rights law in the South after 1876, the freed slaves lost all political

African Americans also wanted to practice their given rights by the constitution, such as citizenship and the right to vote but were given a hard time in several ways by the white Americans. On the other hand, white southerners were struggling to regain their economic status, while before the war they would get free labor from African American slaves, now they had to pay their workers’ wages. Also, the southerners had to deal with a government that forced apoun them by military rule. Thus all these factors made terrorist groups like kkk, seem appealing to the white

The most radical Democrats with the white supremacist vision sought revenge to the North which included terror and violence, and the Republicans of the North fought for full freedom and citizenship for former slaves. During this period, shifts in people's personal beliefs helped establish order and justice. Reconstruction strongly shows how people's personal beliefs and opinions of the majority of a population are what establish order and equality in society, rather than enforcing laws that oppose people's own beliefs and opinions. All though reconstruction was not an immediate success, it is a strong example throughout humanity of how personal beliefs and opinions trump laws when it comes to making a change in society. This is directly shown through the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group, whose ideas and beliefs were firmly shaped based on their former views before the civil war. Laws did not hold them back from expressing their beliefs and terrorizing the African Americans. This idea is shown as well by President Johnson who opposed many new laws including the 14th amendment, making the moderate political group shift to being more Republican because of some of the firm democratic decisions he made. Additionally, another strong example of this idea is the

In the South, the KKK practically took over, and some Southerners were afraid of trying to

The reconstruction era brought uncertainty to many non-whites in the south, with the formation of groups such as the Klu Klux Klan.

The formal Congressional period of Reconstruction, from 1866 to 1877, was intended to readmit the former Rebel states into the Union, rebuild and reinvigorate communities ravaged by war, and eliminate the highly visible vestiges of Southern slave society. The events transpiring during these efforts made the whole affair largely ineffectual and reductive (“Reconstruction and Its Aftermath). In response, the South provided a marked resistance to the attempted establishment of civil rights and liberties for recently freed slaves, producing such scourges as the Ku Klux Klan, Grandfather Clause, and Jim Crow Laws. Beyond enforcing the rudimentary legislation that would grant basic agency to African Americans, Grant failed to institute long term and helpful efforts that would diminish the culture of racialized violence and white supremacy in the South. The Ku Klux Klan still exerted widescale political and local influence

In many aspects, Reconstruction had many successes, which included the ratification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments by the Southern States to be emitted back into the Union. Although the nation had been brought back together, many other issues plagued Reconstruction such as racism and corruption rendering it a failure. Many Confederate veterans began gaining power in the new established Southern governments, counteracting many of the laws and regulations set up by the Republicans. Such laws passed by Southern Democrats as the Black Codes limited many of the freedoms that former slaves had established since the Civil War. Other examples of racism are seen with the establishment of the Jim Crow Laws, which made it legal to practice segregation meaning the separation of black and white societies. Corruption during Reconstruction, which aided in its failure were the Carpetbaggers from the North who took advantage of the Southern States during its rebuilding of the states’