After The Civil War By William Mason Grosvenor

534 Words3 Pages

During the Civil War, William Mason Grosvenor had commanded the first unit of blacks soldiers to battle for the North. From a firsthand reconstruction perspective, he saw the state and local governments being lenient towards accepting incoming state governments, such as Louisiana, that made little change in the political and economic status of blacks after the abolition of slavery. He also issued the abeyance theory of reconstruction. According to Grosvenor, the North should enforced their laws onto the South where punishing treason would straighten the “rebels” from being destructive to America and if the Confederates states continues to follow their constitution then America wouldn’t bind into one whole nation. Rebels treason because they feel hopeless. Grosvenor argues that there is no legal forms of constitutional obligations that forbids the North from punishing the rebellion (Dudley and Chalberg, 8). The North is not being held back from punishing any of those …show more content…

Punishment is one way to get a point across but not in politics. For instance, the creation of the Ku Klux Klan had caused violent and murderous attack to the people. The Klu Klux Klan would usually drag men and women from their beds, and beat their naked bodies with hickory switches (Dudley and Chalberg, 11). During the reconstruction, political organization build themselves to violently attack and these crimes were not recorded nor sent to court. Despite the viewpoint of Grosvenor, Herman Melville views that the reconstruction should be acceptance. Melville stated that if the South knew secession and slavery was against destiny, it’ll be buried in one grave, and the South’s fate will be linked to the North, and that will compromise the nation (Dudley and Chalberg, 9). Melville believes the North and the South can unite as one during reconstruction if they both accept each other and their