Northern Baggers Research Paper

In 1865, slavery was abolished, by the Thirteenth amendment. This Amendment brought humongous changes and a large number of problems. (Lecture 1) After the destruction of slavery, it left nearly four million African American with no property, little training, and few rights; which made the definition of freedom for African Americans the central question on the nation’s agenda. The big question of the time period was, “what was freedom for African Americans?” (Give me liberty! An American 550)

While many have described the civil war as simply the war between the States, Bruce Levine in his book “Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of Civil War” has put together an 80 year survey from around 1773 the pre-revolutionary era to the Civil War with well documented evidence of the social, cultural and political idealisms of our once divided nation. This book review will emphasize points on each of the book’s chapters which are put chronologically and particularly comparing the southern slave labor system to the free labor system in the north. Levine’s thesis statement on page four of his book reads as follows, “What impelled so many-rich, middling, and poor; white and black; native-born and immigrant- to risk and sacrifice so much? To answer such questions, this book reexamines the antebellum political history in the light of the broader economic, social, cultural, and ideological developments that shaped the lives of the American people”. (p. 4) Clearly the author of the book has researched numerous historical papers and has placed them in the direction his thesis will be provided with hard evidence from the founding fathers’ letters, written memos and of course the laws put into the United States constitution.

Following the Civil War, America was in shambles. There were many groups with strong, conflicting ideas of how things should be. However, most groups had one idea in common: reducing the rights of African Americans as much as possible. Freed slaves had very little freedom under the law, were treated like a lesser species by those around them, and faced dangerous environments everywhere they went. Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation may have legally freed slaves, but African Americans were barely more than paid slaves.

Historians have found that carpetbaggers in Texas hold a numeral insignificance. This is due to the fact that very few Northerners who arrived after the war ever even held political offices. During the Constitutional Convention of 1868-1869, a mere seven of ninety-three delegates were able to be considered carpetbaggers. In the Republican administration of Governor Edmund J. Davis, Northerners held only the positions of state adjutant general and chief justice of Texas supreme court. Eight out of sixty total district court judges were carpetbaggers. This goes to show that the so-called carpetbaggers weren’t so power hungry after all. At the county level the documented number of northern carpetbaggers was also small. One scholar, Randolph B.

During the 19th century, slavery expanded geographically and demographically in the South and Southwest of America, generating a wave of abolitionist movements. These events provoked a different response in the country’s society, since not everyone shared the same definition of slavery and freedom. These concepts started to get involved in almost every part of American sociopolitical life, creating differing points of view that would later conform the two sides in the Civil War of America: The Union in the north, and Confederacy in the south.

The Civil War and the period of Reconstruction brought great social, political, and economic changes to American society. These changes affected the way everyone in the nation was used to living. Slavery was a huge thing that led the economy for the south, providing a free source of labor, which would soon lead to a lot of change in the southern economy when emancipated. Slavery also did not allow the African Americans to have any rights or participate in any political things. White people dominated the nation and restricted all that the African Americans were allowed to do. The emancipation of slavery led to changes in economics, politics, and brought many social changes. These changes ultimately had positive effects on the world, and these changes are still seen today as they continued into the 20th century.

First, how did the myth/legend of failures of reconstruction came about? I would suppose the myth came about from Native Texans during the failed Reconstruction who felt that the Northerners or as they were referred to as carpet baggers where ruining the state. This myth was unfounded because only a small amount of judges were Northerners and in the Twelfth Legislature 12 out of 142 came from Northern states and a very few participated in politics at the local level. Those carpetbaggers that were in politics often didn’t fit the stereotype that was given to most northerners. Most carpetbaggers came before Republicans took power so they couldn’t

Prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, the main focus of the Civil War was to preserve and protect the ideals of the Union. However, freeing southern slaves became the primary objective, following Lincoln’s proclamation. Because slavery was believed to be the root cause of southern secession, the decision to emancipate “would weaken the rebels by drawing off their laborers, which is of great importance.” According to Alexander Stevens, Southern society, at this time, was entirely dependent on the labor of African American slaves. Relying on an already weak and unstable economy, the Confederacy could not afford to lose their salient source of labor-- doing so would almost guarantee a Union victory.

Public schools had been established and civil rights laws in place protecting against discrimination. This was Lincoln’s goal and should to be considered a success of Reconstruction. However, by the late 1870’s, this success is overshadowed with the passing of Black Codes, the formation of the Ku Klux Klan, and widespread government corruption in the south. Reconstruction had also succeed in fueling a backlash of racism that was spreading to northern abolitionist. Newspapers and periodicals once championing the merits of former slaves now depict them as less than human. Codes seeking to enslave black men again and blatant acts of terrorism soon went without

The Civil War changed and molded the nation onto a path never taken before the Gilded Age, leading to the use of machinery, agricultural advances, and monopolies. Farmers and industrial laborers noticed something in common- the growth of the United States was rapidly moving westward: in size, population, opportunity, and technological advances. With this rapid growth steadily increasing, industrial workers became frustrated with the unsafe workplaces, limited rights, and long shifts with low pay. Farmers recognized the growing need for agriculture in the west as the nation was expanding, but ran into trouble as the realization set in that monopolies were influencing nearly every aspect of the United State’s government and economy. The Gilded

Did the North or the South Kill Reconstruction? Reconstruction, A failed attempt at giving blacks equal rights. A period that usually lasts only 10 to 20 years took 98 years to subside. Reconstruction is the period in United States history immediately following the Civil War in which the federal government set the conditions that would allow the rebellious Southern states back into the Union.

The trail to the Thirteenth Amendment is covered in the bloodshed caused by the ideological split between the Northern and Southern American states. Because of the South’s plantation-based economy, longstanding European traditions of chattel slavery had a stronger grip on farmers seeking to increase the profit margin of their harvests. With the growth of abolitionist agitation and the election of Abraham Lincoln, the Southern states seceded from the union and thus the Civil War began, and with it the stronger push for African-American rights. Upon the war’s conclusion, Lincoln, persuaded further by African-American participation in the war, put an emphasis on ending slavery that led to the Thirteenth Amendment.

The suitcases they carried aroused suspicion in the South because carpetbaggers were thought to be poor adventurers who came to rob the Southerners of their goods and increase the carpetbaggers' wealth status. In reality, carpetbaggers were well-educated members of the middle class. A sizable number of carpetbaggers saw themselves as reformers and

The political factors that tied into Texas being a Southern state before the Civil War relied heavily on who owned slaves. When the people went out to vote for who they wanted to run the state and local governments, it was generally those who owned slaves that won the elections. This meant that the leadership positions, and the overall ideals of the state, functioned under a “southern consensus” (230). The elected officials in Texas were all Democrats with pro-slavery positions, and these Democrats were able to win every “presidential and gubernatiorial election from 1845-1860” (231). These slaveholders held Texas in their hands and there was no one any of the politicians would sacrifice their careers to oppose the topic of slavery.

Levine argues the Civil War being a complete transformation of the South brought on by slavery, clearly demonstrating the true battle of freedom occurring not among the newborn United States of America and Europe, but the insurgency of African American people oppressed by the Southern Confederates governed by pietistic actions and beliefs of inferiority in the Negro community. The South’s great monopoly, including cotton and tobacco, clutched African American slaves tightly, digging in maliciously and squeezing the profitability out of each man and woman born into such misfortune. Levine says, “slaves in her [Katherine Stone] family’s cotton fields… ‘pick five or six hundred pounds each day for maybe a week at a time’’’ (Levine 9). Slaves worked