Reconstruction Document Analysis

However, the experiences he writes about in this essay share certain topical similarities with Phillips’s tract which make it relevant as a reference point, namely that both authors explicitly address race relations between black and white Americans over the course of Southern history. Wright’s essay is particularly useful because of his politics, in that the economic determinism he espouses sheds new light on Phillips’s argument.

After about four years of fighting, the Civil War finally ended in about 1865. Although the Northern states won, there were many predicaments still unsettled. Even though Abraham Lincoln had freed the slaves in the North, the Confederate States were still getting by with slavery. Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation of Proclamation had a dramatic impact on the lives of African American slaves throughout the United States. As Frederick Douglass says in The Civil War: Opposing Viewpoints, “But read the proclamation for it is the most important of any

Beginning in 1861, the civil war was fought over many political questions regarding slavery, yet was barely focused on the actual freedom of the slaves themselves. It is often taught that the Union fought for the freedom of slaves at the beginning of the war. However, it is more accurate to say that Abraham Lincoln’s primary goal at the beginning of the war was to reunite the Union after the majority of the slave-owning states seceded to protect their way of life: slavery. Yet, by the end of the war, the Union’s goal was to free the slaves. Though the laws securing slaves freedom and suffrage were contributed to by many, the primary driving forces behind them was the African Americans. Through their willingness to fight and support the Union cause, African Americans made the United States acknowledge their struggles and transformed the war into a fight for reconnection and freedom. Though hindered by racist people and policies, the African Americans’ participation during the war and Reconstruction greatly contributed to tremendous cultural change as well as the securing of legal rights to blacks.

Shelby Foote once said “But the Civil war defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things. It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads.” In this famous phrase he states how the civil war shaped the future of generations ahead, and was the collision of our beliefs, which led to issuing many policies and the burst of many disagreements, which were later solved with violence. His statement is valid because it interprets the situation the people where in, how they felt, and how the Civil War later affected people’s actions and beliefs.

The first roar of the Civil War ended with a last gasp for air. Where in such a war more than six hundred twenty thousand men sacrificed their lives for their own belief in the abolishment of slavery (“Civil War Facts”). “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom” (Baslor). These wise words of Abraham Lincoln cleared the way of a desolate trail of violence and pain, yet he was determined to accomplish his plans of abolishing slavery and creating equality. The Civil War, began in 1861 and ended in 1865, yet it was known as one of the bloodiest wars America has ever walked through compared to other American Wars (“Civil War Facts”). After the Civil War

The American Civil War occurred between 1861 and 1865 and is largely considered the most destructive conflict in U.S. history, resulting in approximately one million military casualties and an inestimable number of civil victims. Much controversy still surrounds the nature of this conflict, as its determining causes are complex. Contemporary international perception may have placed a progressive, anti-slavery label on the whole affair, yet the basic fact remains that nineteenth century America was an increasingly inhomogeneous country and prone to blatant discrepancy.

The Civil War was one of the most difficult and trying times during American history. The war ended with the the Union and Confederate states torn apart over one major issue: slavery. With the end of the Civil War came the end of slavery in the United States. Although the former black slaves were now free, they had no land and very few rights, and most did not even have family. Though out reconstruction, blacks were able to gain rights, but were continuously repressed by the white Southerners. The only way to truly enfranchise the former slaves was by effectively disenfranchising their former masters. The reign the masters had over their former slaves disabled the slaves from trying to fulfill their lives as equal American citizens. In

The Civil War marked a monumental period in United States History. President Lincoln found himself attempting to preserve the union, while the Confederates from the south were fighting to create their own separate country. This war was primarily caused by one issue: slavery. The northerners did not expect the power of the South; it was not the quick war that they had expected. Both sides had their fair share of victories and losses. From the beginning of the war the Confederacy had a strong advantage of military leadership. After turning points in the war such as the battles of Gettysburg and Antietam the power shifted to the Union, eventually leading to the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. During the war, Lincoln was able to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves. The freeing of the slaves resulted in a tremendous change in the lifestyle of southerners, both black and white. White southerners no longer had free labor, and black southerners were free to start their own lives. However, many of these free blacks did not know what to do with themselves after they were freed (McPherson 105). They did not have any land or money, and the majority were not educated. They were promised land from the union, but they never received this land (PBS 1). Without land it was nearly impossible to gain money in the southern economy at this time. These blacks were technically free citizens, but they were nowhere

The era of Reconstruction was a fourteen-year period following the Civil War filled with political and constitutional strife, extreme suffering, grand political ambitions and huge turns in race relations and human rights (Blight 32). During this period, many Americans realized that remembering the war “became, with time, easier than struggling over the enduring ideas for which those battles had been fought” (Blight 31). To people such as Frederick Douglass, a reborn United States could not

It is known that as time passes by humans tend to change the meanings of certain events that have occurred in the past, they add a new connotation to it. This isn’t much different when regarding U.S History. Every time we go through a tragedy or something we aren’t specifically proud of we try to see the positive side of it in order to not be ashamed of ourselves just like Blight’s prologue states a quote by William Dean Howells, “What the American public always wants is a tragedy with a happy ending.” Moreover, through the Civil War and the years it follow we see how the idea of what the Civil War means is revolutionized. At the beginning when the Civil War broke out many thought that they were fighting the South because they seceded from the Union. However, towards the end like Blight states, “In the final months of the Civil War, all participants knew they were living through transformations” (23). One needed to know what the far was going to be about in order to make it clear of the coming steps that would be developed after the Civil War. Just on key Lincoln gives the war a new meaning, the war was fought to emancipate slaves and to bestow upon them their basic rights. Blight states in his The Dead and the Living, “Lincoln seemed to see fitfully that rebirth would be rooted in the challenge of human equality in a nation” (13). This became the most reasonable meaning to the Civil War since it was one of the main reasons that tension continued to grow. Moreover, it was

The end of the civil war should’ve marked a major turning point for the position of African Americans. The north’s victory marked the end of slavery and in addition, the fourteenth and fifteenth amendment guaranteed African Americans full civil and political equality. However, the end of the civil war and the beginning of the reconstruction era was seen a ‘false dawn for the slaves in the former confederacy and border states.

He was a genuine African, and had inherited some of the so called magical powers, said to be possessed by African and eastern nations.”(158). Douglass alludes to the fact that Sandy possesses some kind of magical capacity, different from his narrative where he rejected such beliefs. Through using David Blight as a lens one may observe a shift of Douglass’ intentions in order to put a greater emphasis his own on African beliefs for the purpose of bringing freedom to his brethren. In Blight’s introduction he makes the observation, “Readers will find many influences of the Garrisonian doctrines, especially the attacks on religious hypocrisy and the remarkable moment in chapter two when Douglass compares trusted slaves who pleased overseers with the slaves of political parties ... the book is as much an abolitionist polemic as it is a revealing autobiography” (10). Blight’s remarks direct one to consider that Douglass was pursuing two causes, the abolitionist cause as well as his own. In pursuing the former, in 1845 Douglass was still associated with Garrison, by later accentuating other slaves as knowledgeable and in touch with their roots, in My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass elucidates the African race as compassionate men rather than brutes. Such an argument leads to the conclusion Africans are well overdue for their freedom.

The American Civil War was a time wrought with peril. Families were split along party lines and took up arms against one another to fight for what they believed was right. Yet there was one group of people who had more to gain than any other present in the war, and that was the African American slave. This war was one of the biggest turning points in the morality of America all because of what happened to the slave in this war. They enlisted in the army, fought bravely, and after long last, gained their freedom.

The Civil War left a country divided not only by property lines and borders but by beliefs as well. Not just religious beliefs, moral beliefs also. It left both sides, north and south struggling, trying to figure out what their next move towards reuniting the divided America was going to be. The period following the end of the Civil War would become known as the “Reconstruction Era.” An era that raised just as many questions as it did answers. A reconstruction of America that seems to carry on many decades later.

The post-Civil War South was left in shambles. The economy was wrecked, the people were divided, and the government could not keep up with the chaos on both political sides. Due to the division, President Lincoln was shot, the Ku Klux Klan arose, and agriculture plummeted. The greatest lesson is American’s fought for justice and overtime American’s of color are getting the respect they deserve. Our country was drastically crippled by the Civil-War, however, without it, our country would not be as strong, diverse, and equal rights for