Post Civil War Reconstruction Essay

1147 Words5 Pages

When individuals ponder everything that went into the making of our nation, there is a plethora of different events to consider. Regardless of how many events, good or bad, have occurred in American history, all human beings alike tend to look at our history with tunnel vision—only focusing on the good. Our citizens, past and present, everyday people to politicians, either fail to acknowledge the existence of our historic downfalls or they manipulate these downfalls into something justifiable. Even more so now than ever, when bad things occur in America, they get purposely swept under the rug and forcefully shoved into the depths of the closet. The reconstruction that occurred post-Civil War is no exception to this aforementioned flaw. The …show more content…

Just because people choose to overlook the negative aspects of reconstruction does not mean they did not occur. Freedmen were indeed given land to live on post-Civil War, which followed the premise of reconstruction. However, when the land was stripped from them, the steps on the path of reconstruction ceased. Even though President Andrew Johnson followed a path of reconstruction, he was reconstructing the nation to his own personal liking, not for the betterment of the nation and all its people. Due to the fact that mistreating African Americans was still a normality post-Civil War and during Reconstruction, the KKK, a group founded on racism, came to be. All of the aforementioned negative aspects of Reconstruction far outweigh any positives, and counteract the meaning of Reconstruction itself; the destruction that occurred is plaguing our nation to this day. It is time for the nation in its entirety to acknowledge the destruction that happened in place of reconstruction, so that we can once and for all move on, and forge forward on a path of actual