Many Americans and people around the world remember the Civil War for a number of reasons. Some will argue that Northern victory in the war preserved the world’s first democracy. Others argue that the Civil War did not weaken the United States; it merely exposed the flaws in government and where it could be made stronger henceforth. Often, many forget that the Civil War affected the fate of nearly four million Americans, or slaves, as they were then labeled. The leaders of the Reconstruction were tasked with piecing a nation back together while keeping the idea of justice in mind. The Reconstruction had a somewhat successful beginning but unfortunately its potential in integrating freedmen into Southern society was never fully realized. Subsequently, African Americans, specifically southern African Americans, truly lost the American Civil War. The Southern Restoration undid the work of the Reconstruction, eventually pushing African Americans to the brinks of southern politics where they would remain until the late twentieth century.
The leaders of Reconstruction made progress in offering African Americans a standard of education essential for furtherance of slaves. The Civil War turned Southern society, for nearly 250 years Black slaves had been enslaved and now they were free. Even more drastically, the tradition of Southern aristocracy was destroyed, physically, politically and even economically. The first years of the Reconstruction were actually successful; in 1867
In “Reconstruction Revisited”, Eric Foner reexamines the political, social, and economic experiences of black and white Americans in the aftermath of the Civil War. With the help of many historian works, Foner gives equal representation to both sides of the Reconstruction argument.
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.
Reconstruction was a time period of major change in the United States of America for both African Americans and White citizens. After the Civil War, the reconstruction process started out as a failure, but over the years turned into a huge success because of how African Americans were able to live normal lives. Overall, Reconstruction was a success because freedom and growth of equality for African Americans was increased greatly.
“During reconstruction, some 2000 African American held public office, from the local level all the way up to the US. Senate, though, they never achieved representation in government proportionate to their numbers.” The term Reconstruction Era or Radical Reconstruction in the context of the history of the United States, has two senses: the first covers the complete history of the entire country from 1861 to 1877 following the Civil War (1861-1865); the second sense focuses on the attempted transformation of the Southern United States from 1863 to 1877. Also, the period from the end of World War II until the late 1960s is often referred as the Second Reconstruction. One of the most important aspects of the Reconstruction 1861-1877 and second reconstruction 1945-1968, was the active participation of African American community in the political, economic and social life of the South.
The Reconstruction of the United States was an experiment in interracial democracy. The Civil War victory by the North brought to a close the establishment of slavery but, in turn, opened Pandora's box. The questions and answers pertaining to economical, political, and social equality for freedmen had yet to be addressed on a practical level. The Southern states, still bitter from defeat and economic stresses, strongly rejected the societal transformations thrust upon them. The Northern states' focal point remained on the necessary political powers by which to enact constitutional amendments, therefore empowering the federal government with the capabilities to enforce the principles of equal rights. On paper, slavery was abolished, but in reality, African-Americans were once again enslaved on a ship without the security or knowledge of what the next port held for them. The Civil War had not truly ended. It was still active under the guise of Reconstruction, but now coats and flags of many colors existed, and battles were merely fought on alternate battlefields. A war of ideas lacking in substantial practicality resulted in repetitious battles being won and loss. The motivating forces that set Reconstruction into motion were for the most part the North's quest for unification among states', and the emancipation of slaves. However, the primary objective of Reconstruction was to grant political, economical, and social opportunities for the freedmen. The
As David Blight says in his novel, Race and Reunion, after the Civil War and emancipation, Americans were faced with the overwhelming task of trying to understand the relationship between “two profound ideas—healing and justice.” While he admits that both had to occur on some level, healing from the war was not the same “proposition” for many whites, especially veterans, as doing justice for the millions of emancipated slaves and their descendants (Blight 3). Blight claims that African Americans did not want an apology for slavery, but instead a helping hand. Thus, after the Civil War, two visions of Civil War memory arose and combined: the reconciliationist vison, which focused on the issue of dealing with the dead from the battlefields, hospitals, and prisons, and the emancipationist vision, which focused on African Americans’ remembrance of their own freedom and in conceptions of the war as the “liberation of [African Americans] to citizenship and Constitutional equality” (Blight 2).
American Reconstruction began in 1865 at the end of the civil war. The period's main focus was to rebuild the country after war by enacting and changing many key pieces of legislature in the American government. One divisive factor that needed to be addressed was how much representation African Americans deserved in America. During the reconstruction period, African American rights were extended through various new amendments and working opportunities, however, these rights did not last long as they were undermined by black codes and sharecropping.
In 1865, the United States government implemented what was known as Reconstruction. Its’ purpose was to remove slavery from the south, and give African-American’s the freedom in which they deserved. However, the freedom that they deserved was not the freedom that they received. With documents like The Black Codes restricting them from numerous privileges that white people had and the terroristic organization known as the Klu Klux Klan attacking and killing them, African-American’s were still being oppressed by their government as well as their fellow man. Slavery may have been abolished, but African-American’s were not yet given the freedom and rights that their white counterparts took for granted.
During the time of Reconstruction, the federal government did little to help the people of America as a whole, they concentrated on bettering African American lives and “reconstructing” the South. The focus during this time period was to protect the rights of African Americans, which had long and hard been fought for. The federal government made it their priority to ensure equal rights among all black people. Also, the readmission of the Confederate states was essential to the federal
As a country, America has gone though many political changes throughout its lifetime. Leaders have come and gone, and all of them have had their own objectives and plans for the future. As history has taken its course, though, almost all of these “revolutionary movements” have come to an end. One such movement was Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a violent period that defined the defeated South’s status in the Union and the meaning of freedom for ex-slaves. Though, like many things in life, it did come to an end, and the resulting outcome has been labeled both a success and a failure.
The reconstruction era was a difficult time for the African American slaves from 1865 to 1877 because the slaves were freed and there were no jobs for them, had very little or no education, and had very limited opportunity in the south. Reconstruction was one of the most critical periods in American History. The Civil War changed the nation tremendously, and most importantly by bringing an end to slavery. Reconstruction was a period of great promise, hope, and progress for African Americans, and a period of resentment and resistance for many white
During reconstruction the United States was divided on social issues, presidential campaigns were won and loss on these issues during this period. The struggle for development of African Americans and how they initiated change in political, economic, educational, and social conditions to shape their future and that of the United States. (Dixon, 2000) The South’s attempts to recover from the Civil war included determining what to do with newly freed slaves and finding labor to replace them. The task of elevating the Negro from slave to citizen was the most enormous one which had ever confronted the country. Local governments implemented mechanisms of discrimination to combat citizenship
The Reconstruction era was put into effect by Congress in 1866 and lasted until 1877. Reconstruction was aimed at reorganizing the Southern states after the Civil War. The reconstruction plan granted the means for readmitting the southern states into the Union, and tried to come up with the methods by which whites and blacks could live together in a non-slave society. America's position as a country was established on principles of freedom but those beliefs were weakened by slavery. At the end of the Civil War, many blacks felt that they were entitled to start collecting the benefits that had been denied for so many years. Being able to vote, own land and have a voice in political affairs were all goals that they believed were reachable.
The erasure of black people from the historical narrative and memory of the Civil War and Emancipation Era resulted from social prejudices and racism, that was transformed into political action and neglect in regards to the rights of African Americans after Reconstruction. The mythos surrounding the war’s purpose and outcome, actively and deliberately altered by differing organizations, people, and groups, changed the political response to the treatment of African Americans. As noted by the historian Jay Winter, “Nations do not remember, groups of people do. Their work is singular and never fixed.” After the abolition of slavery in 1865, there was no inevitable outcome that would lead to the massive disenfranchisement of black Americans after Reconstruction. Rather, collective memory and the deliberate, active attempts to erase or downplay the roles that black men and women played; as soldiers, as dynamic political participants, as direct proponents for changing the old system of slavery, and finally, as citizens of the United States, led to the political violence, oppression, and terror that arguably still exists today.
I am a Southerner. I love the South. I love parts of my heritage - food, football, music, comedy, storytelling, folktales, all things fried, religion and crazy church stories, big Sunday dinners, taking long naps during the summer - I could go on, but I think you get the picture. One of the things I intentionally left off is the years of oppression, and all that came as a result, of African-Americans. I did not oppress them, but it does not give me the right to ignore the plight of those whose long family histories are a result of what occurred long ago. If white southerners can call losing the Civil War “The Lost Cause,” then I reckon the African-American population can call their oppression something just as