Spread Riots

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

With this knowledge Congress passed Major General Benjamin F. Butler quick thinking into a policy, the First Confiscation Act, in August of 1861 which stated that the federal government had authority to seize any property owned by the Confederates which included slaves. By March the following year, an Article of War was produced which prohibited any military or naval services from returning run-away or fugitive slaves to their respective masters, nullifying the Fugitive Acts all together. When the Second Confiscation Act was announced in July of 1862 it “declared ‘forever free’ Confederate-owned slaves who made their way to federal lines or who resided in rebellious territory that fell to federal forces” (Luke and Smith 2014, 14). Also in the bill, was the legitimisation of the “president to utilise ‘persons of African descent’ in any way that he considered ‘necessary and proper for the suppression of the rebellion’” (Luke and Smith 2014, 14). Thus the Militia Act of July 1862, which “gave Lincoln carte blanche” (Luke and Smith 2014, 14) to make use of black resources. Although these acts were issued with the intention of blacks serving as military labour it gave way to many possibilities.

When the civil war ended, the country had to deal with the aftermath. The North and the South had been divided, and since the North won the war, they were the ones who dictated the law. They made new rules without thinking about the impact that they would have on people, and provided no instructions on how to deal with this big change in society. The government passed the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments. The thirteenth abolished slavery, the fourteenth granted citizenship to people born in the US, and the fifteenth allowed black men to vote. These affected the South, especially the thirteenth, since all of their livelihood was built on slavery. Although it was morally wrong, free labor had been the base of the agricultural industry. Once abolished, the South was giving up all of what they had. Gertude Clanton Thomas, the wife of a planter in Augusta, Georgia, said in 1865 that she was “a Southern woman… born and raised at the South, accustomed to the service of Negroes”. Everybody in the South had been brought up around slaves, not knowing any other way of life. Gertude had only

The Civil War tremendously affected Charleston’s economy. After the Civil War, cotton production, a major cash crop in Charleston, decreased dramatically: 4 million bales in 1861, down to 300,000 in 1865. With the destruction of the economic system in the South, farm values diminished 41% after the war, leaving most of the farmers in poverty (Unit4/CivilWargoals). The Confederate currency became worthless in the post-Civil War economy. Charlestonians grew unable to pay to rebuild the city or pay their taxes. The Confederate government paid the small amount of factories in the Southern States that had converted to making weapons, clothes, and bullets for the war cause. Once the war ended, the money became worthless so the factories shut down. The fighting resulted in the destruction of some Southern factories. Both the Confederacy and the Union destroyed ways of transportion, such as railroads and bridges, in order to prevent the enemy from using them to transport soldiers and supplies from battle to battle ("South Carolina and the Civil War”).

By 1863 both sides were experiencing labor shortages, inflation, and dissension. With its superior resources, the Union met the challenge more effectively. Although the cotton-textile industry in the North was hurt, industries directly related to the war effort--arms manufacture, ready-made clothing, and railroads--flourished. The Republicans in Congress were able to act on their idea of "free soil, free labor, free men" and passed the Homestead Act and the Morrill Land Grant Act. Nevertheless, workers suffered during the war as wages lagged 20 percent or more behind price increases. The Southern economy was totally shattered by the war, as railroads were torn up, food-growing regions were occupied by Union troops, and planters continued to try to raise cotton crops. Southern women were forced to revive home production of goods in short supply, but even that was hard to do as Union invasions turned women and children into refugees.

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

When the Civil War began in 1861, the issue of slavery was not the central focus of the war effort on the side of the Union. While it was still important to many in the North, the main war aim of the Union side was to preserve the Union and make sure it remained intact. As the war dragged on and more soldiers died on both sides, Lincoln realized he would need to entirely cripple the already weak Confederate economy, and he did this by making the Emancipation Proclamation, which became effective January 1, 1863. This executive order stated that all slaves in states currently in open rebellion against the United States were free from slavery. By doing this, he caused African Americans in slave states to cross into Union territory and into

The Union blockade did not take full effect for many months, allowing the Southerners time to export their cotton harvest, and reap the financial benefits. Alexander Stephens had a plan at the start of the war that he estimated would net around $800M for the Confederacy, providing a sound financial base for the war effort. Although somewhat optimistic, and affected by practical difficulties, it is fair to say that the cotton crop would have been far better exported than stockpiled or burnt. Secondly, the Confederate government displayed an unwillingness to tax her citizens, preferring instead to print money, and suffer the rampant inflation that resulted. The Union financed its war effort mainly from taxation and bonds, while 60% of Southern funds came from unbacked paper money. The problems associated with this are clear to see: prices rose 100-fold over the four years of war, wiping out southerners' savings, and devastating the economy. The government's reaction to this, the third mistake, was to impress public goods for military use. However, rather than curbing inflation, this merely acted as a disincentive to supply, making essential items increasingly scarce. This, coupled with the poor infrastructure and parochialism of some State governors, meant that the army went hungry in a nation with the capacity to produce plenty of food. Finally, it is argued that the Confederate government should have done more to improve infrastructure and

With no navy to mount a defense, the Southern government was forced to control production of cotton and raise taxes, which only furthered the disillusionment of its population (Perman, 224). Poor Southerners in particular began to see the war as benefiting a section of society that did not include them, as they were not slave owners. They were the very people forced to make the most sacrifices for the war and the government's control of their ability to produce led to bread riots (Perman, 219). Moreover, as enlistment numbers in the Confederate army dwindled, the government had no option but to turn to forced conscription and impressments of slaves, which Southerners viewed as the impounding of personal property (Perman, 221). The realities of war created a conflict that Southerners did not foresee when they had created an aloof central government.

As Confederates used slave labor for military purposes and blacks began to escape to Union lines, this initial policy of ignoring slavery became untenable. By the end of 1861, Union commanders had begun treating escaped slaves as “contraband” of war—property of military value subject to confiscation. Southern blacks themselves took actions that propelled the Union toward ending slavery. Well before Lincoln’s Emancipation Act, slaves saw the war as an opportunity to gain their freedom. Thousands escaped to the safety of Union lines, crippling many plantations. In areas occupied by northern soldiers, slaves refused to work unless paid.

In the South, roughly every 4 out of 10 people were slaves there, and the value of the slaves continued to rise as the war went on. The amount of farmland, cotton plantations, etc. were on the rise and they needed the workforce to sustain those lands. After the end of the war and occurrence of the emancipation, the white slaveholders ultimately sold of parts of their large farmlands to freedmen through the sharecropping concept, retaining their lands, but under a different contract. The emancipation allowed the slaves to obtain lands from their previous white owners, thus forcing the South’s revenue streams to be rebuilt from the ground up. Even though the revenue that the white land/slave owners was severely diminished, through sharecropping and reunification with the union, they were able to slowly recover what was lost as time went

Throughout the South, people were emotionally exhausted and many lives had been shattered. Mississippi spent a fifth of its annual budget on artificial limbs for Confederate soldiers. Many southerners including whites and blacks, were homeless and hungry. Emancipation wiped out billions invested in slavery, which had enabled the explosive growth of the cotton culture for the South. As the economy of the cotton market in the South died, tobacco reduced its production along with sugar power and old rice industries plummeting. Due to the low level economy, it lead to massacres and riots. Massacres of African Americans in Memphis and New Orleans helped motivate Congress to pass the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment extended federal civil rights to protect blacks. Violence directed against southern blacks sparked by black protests over restrictive laws being passed by the new all white southern state legislatures. Black codes were passed in the South, intended to

Protests riots in the United States has proven to an issue for both the country’s financial strength and the unity of the nation. With the presence of social injustices, combined with the increased impact of social media propaganda, protests riots are beginning to reach an all time high. Protest riots destroy individual communities and businesses, jeopardizes the safety of others and taints the protest’s cause by resorting to civil disobedience. Action must be done in order to prevent these random acts of violence from continuing after every social hot topic. The goal is not to prevent citizens from protesting; in fact, this should be encouraged. The goal is to change the way the protests are handled from both the citizens and authority perspectives, in order to prevent these protests from escalating into something dangerous.

The American Revolution played a significant role in lives of nearly every person in America. Most men left their wives, mothers, sisters and daughters in charge of farms and businesses when they left to fight in the Patriot armies. There were many men, who had no farms or businesses, left their women with absolutely nothing to fall back on. This led to a significant increase in the population of impoverished women in several cities and towns. Due to the ongoing war, there were many price increases that these women simply could not afford. Some would riot and loot for food, while others would lead popular protests. “In New Jersey and Staten Island, women launched

During the American Revolutionary Era, women played essential roles in the defiance against Great Britain by boycotting British products and joining the non-consumption organization. During the American Revolution, women served as nurses, cooks, maids, seamstresses, some even secretly enlisted in the Continental Army. From 1825 to 1850, women were fighting for equal opportunities as men and women’s right to vote, the Reform Period. Women’s roles were similar during the American Revolutionary Era and the Reform Movement because during both periods, women contributed to the movements, by joining political protest. Their roles differed during the periods because women during the reform movements, created conventions geared towards women, exacting