ipl-logo

Effects Of Reconstruction

930 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The reconstruction era success and failures

All Americans are familiar with the Civil war: its purpose, impact, and how it shaped the country. One may wonder, however, was this the necessary path in reshaping the United States? In closer examination, the war and the Reconstruction were quite brutal and messy. Pre-war, the North and South were distinctly divided into the ambitious and modernized North, and the old fashioned and plantation-dependent South, in which both sides radically believed in different values. In fact, many issues, especially slavery, were precariously balanced until everything finally collapsed after the 1950s. America was surely transformed by the Civil War and the Reconstruction and the leaders and ideas during that time, but the positive effects scarcely outweigh …show more content…

Fortunately for the US, President Lincoln had a plan for Reconstruction. The country was unstable as a result of the flourishing North and their functioning industry, economy, and pretty much all aspects of life were going better than those in the South. The emancipation of African Americans mostly just destroyed the Southern economy and generated even more chaos as the plantation system collapsed without the cheap labor. The very broke southerners were not content with the new conditions, to say the least, and their visceral fear of change had made them unwilling to compromise. The main issue with the Reconstruction process was that it did not catalyze America’s journey to equality at the speed one might have hoped. In theory, the African Americans were given rights, but in practice, not really. For example, laws were passed to protect Black male suffrage; although many whites made it too difficult for them to vote and in some instances they were never even given the right to vote, meaning the laws protected nothing. Also Black codes were put in place, adding to the social tension and inequality between the races. In fact, the healing period after the war was unable to deliver just a fraction of the equality that America was built on, and therefore its citizens deserved. Even northerners who morally wanted to abolish slavery did not want them to have equal rights and were not about to give them their 40 mules and an acre. The slaves were technically no longer slaves, but their minimal opportunity held them back from becoming successful and functional members of US society. Sharecropping prevented them from ever actually moving up in economically and socially. As for the big picture, the Reconstruction was a solid attempt in healing the divisiveness, yet it never brought America the justice it deserved, and

Show More
Related
858 Words | 4 Pages

Despite the many years after the Civil War ended in 1865, the war’s significance was still great enough to have caused such controversy with the public over its meaning. In David W. Blight’s Race and Reunion, the meaning of the war changes throughout the period of Reconstruction not due to the misconception of it solely, but due to what we wanted to interpret from the war (or rather, what we remembered from the war that eventually changed over time). Blight argues, “I am primarily concerned with the ways that contending memories clashed or intermingled in public memory, and not in developing professional historiography of the Civil War” (Blight, Prologue). With this being said, the meaning of the Civil War changed through what people felt and

Read More
826 Words | 4 Pages

A few days after the civil War ended, President Lincoln was assassinated and never had the chance to implement his Reconstruction plan.   The Reconstruction Era occurred in the period of 1865 to 1877 under the reign of President Andrew Johnson who was the predecessor of President Lincoln.  Congress was not scheduled to convene until December 1865, which gave Johnson eight months to pursue his own Reconstruction policies. Under his Reconstruction policies, the former Confederate states were required to join back into the Union and heal the wounds of the nation.

Read More
369 Words | 2 Pages

During the period of Reconstruction, there were many positives and there were many negatives. Reconstruction was the North’s attempt to readmit the Southern states back into the Union through a set of steps or requirements. The act of Reconstruction was hotly debated on whether to treat the South with forgiveness or to punish them for starting the war. There were positives and negatives to the multiple Reconstruction plans set forth by the U.S. government, but many could agree that the positives outweighed the negatives.

Read More
281 Words | 2 Pages

In my opinion I believe that the reconstruction was both a success and also a fail. The reason that it was a success was the simple fact that the United States got its name back again. The reconstruction era helped the United States become a unified nation. Another pro from this era was the fact that the North and the South no longer had any form of separation. During this time, three new amendments were added to the constitution.

Read More
838 Words | 4 Pages

The Civil War was a conflict unlike any other in American history. It was fought between brothers, both figuratively and literally, over the ideological structure on which America would be formed. What originally the North believed would be quick victory resulted in a length war marked by a substantial death toll on both sides and more collateral damage to America than ever before. The paradox of the war was that though a battle between governmental ideology, most of the Americans at the time were restricted from suffrage or even morally diminished to the worth of property. Alfred Green touches on the oppressive nature of America during this period.

Read More
1063 Words | 5 Pages

The living legacy of the United States Civil War is a complicated time in American history one finds difficult to describe. The ramification of the war prior, during and after still haunt the current citizens who call The States their home. Tony Horwitz’s book Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War looks at the wide gap of discontent that still looms in the late 1990s. For some southerners, the Confederacy still lives on through reenactments, stories and beliefs. For others in the South, reminders the land was dedicated to the Confederacy spark hatred and spite.

Read More
1147 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More
1128 Words | 5 Pages

Various events took place in the United States of America prior to 1865 that shaped its political, economic and social fabrics. This presentation explores these events while pointing out their impacts to the period of 1865, a period of civil war in the United States of America. Some of the events were positive while others were negative, but more importantly, they shaped the experiences of the people in terms of governance and general politics, not only in the united states of America but to the world at large. The events include the American Revolution, abolitionism movements, constitution and constitution amendments, American civil war, and the assassinations of prominent leaders like President Abraham Lincoln. Readers of this presentation

Read More
745 Words | 3 Pages

The winner has always written the history books. So, it came as no surprise that after the North’s victory in the American Civil War, the South was seen as the villain during the Reconstruction Era, all while the North was innocent and spot-free. The truth, however, said differently. The North was not nearly as innocent in Reconstruction, to the point where the Northern states, as a whole, could have killed reconstruction altogether. Reconstruction, in simple terms, was the effort to bring the Southern states back into the nation and mend the Union as one after the Southern states seceded and caused the Civil War.

Read More
592 Words | 3 Pages

The aftermath of the Civil War caused drastic transformations among the American people between the years 1860 and 1880. Of these changes rose the issues of political and social relations within the nation. The issues of political and social relationships arose among several different groups of people, causing these relationships to drastically change. Through the transformations of public liberty, right of succession, and slavery, the Civil War and it's inevitable aftermath was able to alter the political and social relationships that had been instilled in the fabric of America before the times of 1860.

Read More
415 Words | 2 Pages

They shaped the Civil War by having the Emancipation Proclamation, the fourteenth amendment, and the fifteenth amendment. The consequences would be that at first the newly freed slaves wouldn’t have a place to go, because they never had no money and they didn’t have all their rights yet. The Emancipation Proclamation helped the slaves because they should be free. The Emancipation never really freed any

Read More
1745 Words | 7 Pages

n A The Reconstruction begin as the Civil War had ended, American had fallen apart. It was to repair and renew the North and South but it also damaged the nation. Both sides had deal with vast amounts of damage. The south had suffered the destruction of their factories, railroads, the now worthless Confederate money, and mainly their slave-worked farms.

Read More
594 Words | 3 Pages

You can see how reconstruction was supposed to help the newly freed slaves while the definition of reconstruction says that it was, “ensuring the rights and protection of the newly freed African Americans,” (Terms to know, On reconstruction.) This shows how some of the intentions of reconstruction were supposed to help bring newly freed slaves safely into the society. The newly freed slaves would have been fond of the idea of being brought safely into the society. You can see this again when it says, “Presidential reconstruction began in 1865 with the ratification() passing of the thirteenth amendment freeing slaves, and continued lincoln’s signature of the bill that created the Freedmen's Bureau. The Bureau was to feed both black and whites in the south, establish schools to teach former slaves to read and write, help them find paying jobs, and shield them from discrimination,” (Stage One: Presidential reconstruction 1865 - 1866.)

Read More
1671 Words | 7 Pages

The degree of success in any situation depends on the point of view, especially in history. In American history, the start of the Civil War tested the nation 's bond of unity but changed with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. The executive order drafted by President Abraham Lincoln was both a political and military tactic. Its purpose was to "free" slaves in Confederate lands, meaning the only way slaves could escape was to disobey their masters and flee to the North and join their army as protection. The period between 1865 - 1877 known as reconstruction, an effort to bring peace to North and the South and reunite the nation.

Read More
488 Words | 2 Pages

At first all the African Americans of both sides could do was watch and wait as the Union and the Confederacy fought, but when Abrahm Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and congress passed the act that let people of color enlist they got their chance. At first there were not many enlisters, but with endorsements from Frederick Fouglas and the promise of citizenship enlistment picked up. “By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army. ”(Black Soldiers in the U.S.). Free African Americans were not the only ones to make a difference in the outcome of the way.

Read More

More about Effects Of Reconstruction

Open Document