Essay On The Causes Of The Civil War

The physical conflict of the American Civil War ended in 1865, followed by an era known as Reconstruction. In the late 1860's and through the 1870's, the United States was poised for a dramatic transformation towards a new nation that was "wholly free" (Foner). Many Americans were hopeful of a newfound, equal status for blacks as the outcome of the Civil War. But freedom from slavery, for which the bitter civil war was fought, was not so simple in practice, and a series of compromises returned blacks to a subordinate status, denying them the basic rights of education and suffrage through a new system of racial inequality. The conflict of warfare may have ended, but it was replaced by deeply-ingrained ethical conflicts about the differences

Blacks' expectations of new freedoms afforded to them were simple. Henry Adams, an emancipated slave from Louisiana, said it very concisely in 1865: "If I cannot do like a white man, I am not free". Black families were reunited across the country and they found common passions in religion and fighting for more opportunity for education and the right to vote. Expectations were high, and former slaves were ready to claim the rights they had previously been denied

The very core structure of the Southern system relied on slavery, and the task of changing many of the entrenched institutions was daunting. Land distribution had to be tackled, the issue of labor had to be solved, and the question of rights had yet to be determined. President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's Vice President at the time of his assassination, was a stubborn man who championed states' rights and held deeply racist attitudes. His actions, rather than moving the country in a new direction, rather served to entrench existing institutions, making the improvement of the black condition almost