South After The Civil War Case Study

After the Civil War, the South was in a state of political turmoil, social chaos, and economic decline. Contrary to popular belief, Northerners did not subject Southerners to unethical or inhumane punishment. The time post Civil War was filled with efforts toward reconstructing the South, yet there is the strong question if there even is a New South. Yes, there was somewhat of a New South economically. No, there was not a New South regarding race relations and social hierarchy. In the 1870’s, the South realized the world still looked at them as the ones who wanted slavery. There was a need to project a new image to the world and to stimulate

Throughout the 19th century, the distinctions between the North and South in the United States were controversial. Prior to the Civil War, the North consisted of business owners and middle-class men. The South consisted of mostly farmers. The North was industrial, using railroads and factories. The South was agricultural, with mostly farms and plantations. The North paid their labor workers. The South used slaves. Not only did their opposing views on slavery and the separation of the two cultures, tensions arose that eventually led to one of the most gruesome wars in history.

After the Civil War, the southern soldiers were going back to devastated cities, destroyed railroads, and many cities were burned to the ground as a result of Sherman’s march from sea to sea. After the Civil War occurred, the slaves were given freedom from their owners, and slavery was banned. That attempt at reconstruction was not a complete fail, but it took a little bit of time for America to give social and economic equality to slaves. There were many attempts made by several different presidents, but not all seemed to work due to the South’s stubbornness. The failure of reconstruction later did not bring social and economic equality to former slaves in the south because of things like the Jim Crow laws and the South’s strong disproval

Lincoln’s plan in 1863 involved issuing Ten- Percent Plan, to offer amnesty to any southerner if they would proclaim their loyalty to the Union and also supported the emancipation of the slaves. If ten percent of the state’s voters in the election of 1860 took this oath to the United States only then could they develop a new state government required to abolish slavery. After this then the state could reenter into the Union with complete privileges such as crucial apportionment to the Senate and House of Representatives (Schultz, n.d). However Republicans within Congress wanted to punish the South so they passed the Wade-Davis Bill which required fifty percent instead of ten percent taking an oath of loyalty. Also if southerners wanted to serve in the constitutional convention or earn the right to vote they would also have to take a second oath called the iron-clad oath which stated they had never

Despite the unexpected hardships the Union faced, the Civil War ended with an overwhelming Union victory. However, due to the context of total war, the South was left in shambles. Following the Civil War was an Era known as Reconstruction-the process of Southern states to be reentered into the United States. What started as a peaceful reconciliation almost ignited a whole new Civil War. Although both the North and the South sparked tremendous amounts of damage, which destroyed Reconstruction the most? The South destroyed Reconstruction due to their strong opposition to the idea of Reconstruction and free civil rights for slaves.

The Civil war caused a lot of destruction and devastation in the Southern United States. Many efforts were going to be needed if the United States wanted to be a strong power. There was a huge push to secure the rights of the newly freed, former slaves and incorporate them more into society. One major factor that led to the reconstruction era was the need for the rebuilding of infrastructure in the South. After the Civil war, much of the infrastructure was unuseable. Also, the US hoped to reorganize and revitalize the Southern states as a whole and bring them back into the Union.

The Civil war was the most momentous and crucial period of time in the history of America. Not only did this war bring an end to slavery but also paved way for numerous social and political changes. The country had already been torn by the negative trend in race relations and the numerous cases of slave uprisings were taking their toll on the country 's political and social structure. The country was predominately divided up into 3 sections, the North, the South, and the West. Each of these groups had different fundamental interests. The North wanted economies depending on farming, factories and milltowns, while the West relied on expansion and development of land for farming and new towns. The South mainly relied on agriculture like

Reconstruction, meaning to rebuild, was a desperate time for the South. Every little thing that they owned was completely destroyed. It all started with the Civil War or also called “The War Between States”. The South wanted to gain control over the government to get rid of laws that they did not support. However, when the North had abolished slavery and made everyone equal, that really upset the South because they wanted to have power over the slaves, but they also wanted more territory, and so they declared war against the North. There was a lot of tension between both sides, they considered each other weak, but the North had way more weapons than the South which gave them a higher chance of winning. The war lasted from 1861-1865. In the

I believe that if the Southern states had been treated any harsher than it would have resulted in a large-scale revolt. Considering that the people of the South had already removed several Republicans from government seats in their states due to their current stringent and hindering laws. Now, if the Republicans started to employ more punishments and fundamental right infringing laws they would leave the South with no choice but to revolt to protect their fundamental civil liberties. Additionally, I feel that if the Republicans would have taken a less abrasive approach towards reconstruction the South's reintegration to the union would have been near seamless.

The first reason the South lost the Civil War is because the South could not compete with the North in terms of manpower. During the Civil War, the population of the South was only a measly 9 million people compared to the North’s 22 million. 3.5 million of those 9 million people in the South were slaves as well. This gives the North a huge advantage as it allowed then to take more risks in the war, and had more men to fight for the dead or wounded. However, this was not the only advantage the North had in the war.

Differences: The North had 22,000,000 troops and the South had only 9,000,000. During the battle the North had twice as many soldiers then the South. But, during the battle the South had about 3,500,000 slaves as their help, during the battle. 92% of the nation’s industries were in the North, very little industrial development, mostly an agrarian economy in the South. The North had 75% of the nation’s wealth banking, manufacturing, and shipping. Most of the wealth in the South was in land and in slaves. The cause for fighting was to preserve the Union at first. Later the emancipation of slaves. The South’s was to gain independence and to protect their way of life including slavery.

After the Civil War, the South was in need of change. They were so reliant on cotton and other agricultural dependencies, and black slaves who worked for little to nothing. Without slaves, all they had was damaged farmland – and nobody to help repair it. The industrialized North was a model for the South. Influential southerners saw what could be, and started to take action.

After the war with the confederate troops and union troops, the confederate lost and the union took over. Reconstruction started right after, it was a crucial thing that happened during this time. Slaves were freed and were living on their own. And they had nothing, they had no food no land and could not settle down. A lot of good and bad things came out of Reconstruction.

During the Civil War, both the North and South had different strengths and weaknesses. For example, strengths of the North were that they had a much larger population than the South, they had more industries/factories to produce more weapons, a better banking system, larger ships, and a better railroad system to transport weapons, etc. to their troops. On the other hand, the South had a smaller population, a small number of factories, less food, and very few railroad tracks. These weaknesses of the South, however, did not mean they didn’t have any strengths too. The South had superior military leadership, they were fighting in familiar territory, and overall had strong, educated college graduate soldiers that went to military school.

After the civil war, the southern states were severely crippled by more than $2 billion of debt. Most of the battles and destruction occurred on southern soil so the South was not in good condition. The Reconstruction was necessary because the South was in poor condition and people feared that the southern states would not rejoin the union and the US would not be the same.