Civil War Dbq

The Civil War is often referenced as a turning point in the social structure of the United States and it became a defining moment of governing for the future of the country. The Civil War was fought to determine whether the country would have individual state rights or one governing body for all. The war also was fought to abolish slavery, which would end this country’s reign as the largest slaveholding country in the world. The North and South fought bitterly over these ideas and issues. In the end, the North won; abolishing slavery, but implementing the South back into governance and incorporating laws and freedoms proved to be an immense challenge. Especially, with almost 4 million ex-slaves.
Following the defeat of the south in 1865, the

Although the laws did not target blacks, the number of blacks arrested for these crimes was far more than the number of whites. The system of blacks being arrested and put into labor was known as ”convict leasing” (Slavery By Another Name: Background Information, O’Brien, pp. 1-6). The southerners in command of this system realized they could lease thousands of black convicts to planters and factories for a small sum. The lease of the black convicts ultimately gained more revenue for the planters because the convicts were cheap. The “convict leasing” system disregarded all civil rights set out by Abraham Lincoln and is one of the many reasons Reconstruction failed in the area of civil rights. The South also incorporated “disguised” slavery. The idea was brought up when the method of labor known as sharecropping arose. This system is defined by the farmers who work in the fields, receive a portion of the final harvest. This attracted many of the freedmen’s attention because rather than working for wages for white people, African-Americans wanted to start a lifestyle, so by receiving portions of crops for free, is much more appealing. However, this system is parallel to slavery, because the sharecroppers were living in shacks on their white, bosses property; while not being paid. The most ironic about this, is that the freed blacks are picking cotton. (Sharecropping, Gale) “Some Southern blacks worked for wages, which many saw as a recognition of their newly free status. Men looked for work either to the fields they had tended while slaves or to the tobacco and iron factories in cities like Richmond, Virginia, and Atlanta, Georgia. Women faced a more limited range of paid jobs, with most finding employment as domestic maids or in related work like washing, nursing, or cooking. Yet because the South long suffered from a continued shortage of currency, such wage work