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The economic impact of the civil war
Short term effects of the civil war
The economic impact of the civil war
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After the Civil War, the south was destroyed. Much of the war was fought on its own territory. The city houses/buildings had been burned down, rail roads were torn apart, and the fields only had weeds growing from them. The economy had fallen dramatically there was no American money in the south. There happened to be only confederate money left but it was worthless and southern banks were not able to loan money out due to their economic conditions. Making the situation no better, in the last year of the war black people decided to stop producing cotton causing the british to overgrow too much cotton forcing the cotton supply to fall drastically. During the war many African Americans had ran away from their masters home to refugee camps. Although when the war was over and the refugee camps …show more content…
But people who decided to give up their american citizenship to confederacies while the war was going on was not allowed to vote during 1867; the army/ congress gave 703,000 black men, and 627,000 white men the opportunity to vote. After the war numbers of white men came from the north to live and help black people in the south. So when the elections had came the newcomers were candidates and many of them were elected. As a result many black men had been elected and the new state government was controlled mostly by black men and their friends. They were called reconstruction governments. The reconstruction governments wanted to make it better for black people. Mostly for their lack of education before the civil war. Only rich white people were allowed to go to school and poor black and white kids did not go to school. So the reconstruction government made schools all over the south for everyone to attend. However under the American constitution it states all schools must be funded from the money within the state. However the south states did not have any
After the Civil War, the victorious Union enacted a policy of Reconstruction in the former Confederate states. Reconstruction was aimed at creating as smooth a transition as possible for the southern states to re-enter the Union as well as enacting economic and social changes. However, several factors brought about its failure, and as a result the consequences can be seen in the race problems we still have today. In 1862, President Lincoln had appointed temporary military governors to re-establish functional governments in occupied southern states. In order for a state to be allowed to re-enter the Union, it had to meet the criteria, which was established to be that at least 10 percent of the voting population polled in 1860 must denounce the Confederacy and swear allegiance to the Union again. However this was not good enough for Congress, which at the time was dominated by Radical Republicans who fervently called for social and economic change in the south, specifically the rights of blacks. They were especially concerned with guaranteeing black civil and voting rights, and criticized Lincoln for excluding this in the original plan for Reconstruction.
After a war that claimed the lives of more men than that of all other wars combined, much of the country was left in ruins, literally and figuratively. Dozens of towns in the South had been burned to the ground. Meanwhile, the relations between the North and South had crumbled to pieces. Something needed to be done so that the country could once again be the United States of America, not the Divided States of America. The years from 1865 to 1877 were a time of rebuilding – the broken communities and the broken relations. This time period was known as Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a failure on the basis that the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments that were passed should have given protection and freedom to the African American people, instead, it actually hurt them because the laws were not enforced, and eventually lead to the organization of white supremacy terrorist groups.
With the South’s money, they would acquire cotton from the southern states. Also, in the South, there were little job opportunities for whites since slaves had the jobs in the field, unlike the North where jobs were abundant in factories for the unskilled workers. Many of these unskilled workers were immigrants from Ireland and Germany.... ... middle of paper ...
African Americans helped shape the Civil War from various perspectives. Actually, they were the underlying foundation for the war if you think about it in depth. African Americans were slaves and had been dealt with like property since they arrived in America. The likelihood of opportunity for these slaves created an enormous commotion in the South. The issue of equal rights for African Americans brought on a gap between the states. The United States Civil War began as an effort to save the Union, and ended in a fight to abolish slavery. The Civil War, frequently known as the War Between the States in the United States, which was a Civil War battled from 1861 to 1865, after seven Southern slave states proclaimed their severance and framed the Confederate States of the United States. More Americans died in the Civil War than in World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined. Two thirds of the individuals that were killed in the Civil War died of disease. The medical world at the time of the Civil War and advanced disinfectants, did not exist which could have enormously lessen the spread of disease and illnesses. After years of bloody combat that left over 600,000 soldier’s dead and destroyed much of the South's infrastructure, the Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, & the difficult Reconstruction process of restoring national unity and guaranteeing rights to the freed slaves began. By December 1865 the 13th Amendment had abolished slavery throughout the United States (Waldstreicher).
Reconstruction is known as the period after the Civil war. The whole country was separated in two, people didn’t know what to do, the south was completely destroyed, and there were a lot of decisions to be made by the president. It lasted four years, and there was over half a million casualties between the union (North) and the confederate states (South). The north was declared the winner of the war after General Lee surrender in the Appomattox court house on April 9, 1865. The causes of the war was the secession of several southern states, they argued that it was up to them and it was in their rights to decide whether they should make slavery legal or illegal in their own boundaries. But the Union had other things in mind, the union wanted to decide whether or not the states were going to have slaves. This was just to make sure the country was equal on slavery and non-slavery on both sides, but states thought the union was abusing their power and being too strict on them, and that is when they decided to secede. The first state to secede was south Carolina, then they were followed by six other states, among those states were Florida, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. These states got together and created the confederate states of America in February 4, 1861, and the president was Jefferson Davis, they also made a government similar to the one of the U.S. Constitution.
... and slavery left millions of newly freed African Americans in the South without an education, a home, or a job. Before reconstruction was put in place, African Americans in the South were left roaming helplessly and hopelessly. During the reconstruction period, the African Americans’ situation did not get much better. Although helped by the government, African Americans were faced with a new problem. African Americans in the South were now being terrorized and violently discriminated by nativist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Such groups formed in backlash to Reconstruction and canceled out all the positive factors of Reconstruction. At last, after the Compromise of 1877, the military was taken out of the South and all of the Reconstruction’s efforts were basically for nothing. African Americans in the South were back to the conditions they started with.
The Americans of African and European Ancestry did not have a very good relationship during the Civil war. They were a major cause of the Civil War. But, did they fix or rebuild that relationship after the war from the years 1865 to 1900? My opinion would be no. I do not believe that the Americans of African and European ancestry successfully rebuilt their relationship right after the Civil war. Even though slavery was finally slowly getting abolished, there was still much discrimination against the African Americans. The Jim Crow laws and the black codes discriminated against black people. The Ku Klux Klan in particular discriminated against black people. Even though the United States government tried to put laws into the Constitution to protect black people, the African Americans were discriminated in every aspect of life from housing, working, educating, and even going to public restrooms!
African Americans were very questionable at first in the Civil War. The Union Navy had been already been accepting African American volunteers. Frederick Douglass thought that the military would help the African Americans have equal rights if they fought with them. Many children helped in the Civil War also, no matter how old they were. Because the African Americans were unfavorable, black units were not used in combat as they might have been. Nevertheless, the African Americans fought in numerous battles. African Americans fought gallantly. Northern leaders also saw another reason to have African Americans in the Civil War is that the Union needed soldiers. Congress aloud them to enlist them because they thought they might as well have more soldiers.
Reconstruction was intended to give African-Americans the chance for a new and better life. Many of them stayed with their old masters after being freed, while others left in search of opportunity through education as well as land ownership. However this was not exactly an easy task. There were many things standing in their way, chiefly white supremacists and the laws and restrictions they placed upon African-Americans. Beginning with the 'black codes' established by President Johnson's reconstruction plan, blacks were required to have a curfew as well as carry identification. Labor contracts established under Johnson's Reconstruction even bound the 'freedmen' to their respective plantations. A few years later, another set of laws known as the 'Jim Crow' laws directly undermined the status of blacks by placing unfair restrictions on everything from voting rights all the way to the segregation of water fountains. Besides these restrictions, the blacks had to deal with the Democratic Party whose northern wing even denounced racial equality. As a result of democratic hostility and the Republican Party's support of Black suffrage, freedmen greatly supported the Republican Party.
The Civil War marked a defining moment in United States history. Long simmering sectional tensions reached critical when eleven slaveholding states seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. Political disagreement gave way to war as the Confederates insisted they had the right to leave the Union, while the loyal states refused to allow them to go. Four years of fighting claimed almost 1.5 million casualties, resulting in a Union victory. Even though the North won the war, they did a horrible job in trying to win the peace, or in other words, the Reconstruction era. Rather than eliminating slavery in the South, the Southerners had a new form of slavery, which was run by a new set of codes called "Black Codes”. With the help of President Johnson, the South continued their plantations, in essence becoming exactly what they were before the war. Overall, the South won Reconstruction because in the end they got slavery (without the name), they got an easy pass back into the Union, and things reverted back to the way they had been prior the war.
After the Civil War, America went through a reconstruction period which focused on rebuilding areas damaged by the war. For example, before the war landowners used slaves to tend to their crops, but once the war ended landowners ran into problems concerning the productivity of their plantations. With the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments passed, slaves were given freedom, and citizenship of the United States. The freedmen no longer had to work on plantations, but there was no alternatives given to them in order for them to make a living. In the reading, Toby Jones explained, in short, how he worked for his master for four years after slavery was abolished because his master forced him to stay because his master couldn’t afford to let him go. Toby said, “So I goes on working for him till I gits the chance to steal a hoss from him.”
After the Civil War there were some hardships faced by the South.One hardship was that the South's wealth decreased by 48% according to document eight. In document one in 1860 the south had a good amount of wealthy states. But, in 1880 which is after the Civil War all of the Southern states be the least wealthy states.The reason for the major decrease was because after the Civil War there were no slaves.Therefore, making the money drop because most of the money in the South was made by slave labor and by selling slaves. Another hardship in the south was that there was a decrease in agriculture. According to document eight there was a 50 percent decrease in cotton, a 44 percent decrease in corn, and a 64 percent decrease in hay.This was a hardship because agriculture was one of the main source of employment in the south. Also this is a hardship because cotton the south's main source of money was decreasing. In addition, during the civil war there was 260,000 lives lost making the labor force in the south decrease by a third. Finally a hardship in the South was that all of the towns, cities, roads, bridges, mill, and factories were destroyed according to document two. This was a hardship because that meant that the south did not h...
In the south, cotton was becoming a huge success for the southern farmer. Cotton, being a very laborious crop, required the ownership of many slaves per plantation. Unlike the immigrants of the north, slaves were property. Slaves were also much less of a profit. When a slave became ill he could not simply be replaced, he needed to be cared for, after all, this was the plantation owners property. On the other hand in the north if a worker became to ill to work, there were several immigrants waiting for the job.
After Andrew Johnson’s veto, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act, which temporarily divided the South into five military districts and outlined how governments based on universal (male) suffrage were to be organized” (Reconstruction History.com) These laws required all southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment. The 14th amendment stated, ”All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside” (Chrisman, Jerry, and Stanbery Foster III). This granted “Equal Protection” to former slaves before they could rejoin the Union. Radical Republicans thought blacks should be entitled to the same rights and opportunities as whites. Reconstruction achieved many ideal things that people did not think would happen. “Among the other achievements of Reconstruction were the South’s first state-funded public school systems, more equitable taxation legislation, laws against racial discrimination in public transport and accommodations and ambitious economic development programs (including aid to railroads and other enterprises)” (“Reconstruction” History.com). By these achievements of Reconstruction, it created a better life for many people in the
...to do this because mill owners would fend off other stores so that there would be less competition. This meant that merchants could sell goods at whatever prices they wanted to because there was nowhere else to buy them. This would make it hard for workers to purchase goods and get out of debt. The biggest economic problem in the South was that most farmers were tenants and share croppers. This made it hard for workers to become profitable because they were constantly in debt to the land owners. There was still not a lot of opportunity for African American workers. Some industries such as the textile industry offered almost no opportunity for African American but some industries such as tobacco and iron provided some but not a lot. Even with all of the problems and discrepancies, the south still grew economically in the post-reconstruction period of the “New South”.