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Reconstruction of the south from the souths point of view
Chapter 6 civil war and reconstruction
Chapter 6 civil war and reconstruction
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Many Southerners were opposed to reconstruction because it would allow for African Americans to finally have rights. Reconstruction was supposed to be an effort to bring peace back to the North and South and to reunite our nation back together, but that would not happen if African Americans were allowed to vote. If African Americans had the right to vote the North would have political control over southern states leaving Republican control over the national government. Many white southerners did not believe the African Americans should vote because they were not equally equivalent to the white male. They believe that the right to vote was not in an African Americans nature and it should never be. In Document 1 we learn of a Virginian man stating ‘’ Southern people won’t stand if the North put the Negro and White man as equals.” Reconstruction would also impact the economy of the South very strongly. In Document 2 we …show more content…
learn that Edwin H. McCaleb felt that if slavery would go away gradually the economy could be fine in the South. If slavery were to abolished at once, there would be a famine amongst the people, because of no productivity from the African Americans who were once slaves. Many Southerners believed that if freed African American slaves were released and freed they would pose a threat.
In Document three we learn that W. Gilmore Simms believed that freed slaves would be wondering jobless thieves that would commit arson and murder. W. Gilmore Simms suggested Southerners seek places of rendezvous and to have good weapons to defend themselves with once African Americans were freed. When African Americans began to gain rights Southern States would discriminate against them by not allowing them to purchase or lease any land or property. Document 4 also tells us that for African Americans to work they were required to obtain a license to do work or get a job. State legislation would do nothing to help the African Americans in Mississippi allowing this to happen. In document 5 we learn that propaganda was used to influence African Americans not to vote. If African Americans saw the illustrations they would be influenced to not vote, because they would fear that they could be severely injured, or they may lose their
lives. During Reconstruction Churches and school buildings would be burnt down in Louisiana to try and stop African Americans from getting any schooling. In Document 6 we learn that a church that cost 1,000 dollars to make was destroyed in just one night to stop African Americans from getting an education. Teachers who would assist African Americans in gaining their education would be insulted by Southerners and disrespected for helping. It is learnt that even though African Americans were supposed to be treated as equals during reconstruction they were not. In Document 7 it is said that the Klu Klux Klan made of soldiers of the late rebel armies would terrorize African Americans overthrowing all of their rights. Legislature also refused to enact any laws to suppress Klu Klux disorder. Even though reconstruction was opposed by many Southern States because it gave African Americans rights peace was needed between the North and the South. When The Compromise Of 1877 was made all rights and privileges given to African Americans were taken away leaving African Americans segregated until the 1950s.
Gilmore argues that African American male political participation between 1890 and 1898 represented a movement toward greater inclusion. She claims that African American males in politics strove for the balance of power between political parties in North Carolina, and that the Populist-Republican victory in 1896 kept African American votes in contention and maintained some African American men in political office for a short period of time. There was an agreement between African Americans and whites that the “Best Men,” middle class African Americans, were to be the only African Americans to hold office. This was because by being dubbed the “Best Men,” they had met certain standards and were suitable for office according to the white politicians. The “Best Men” clashed with the South’s “New White Man,” who sought to re-monopolize voting rights and political power, as well as to completely dominate African Americans. Gilmore attributes the “New White Man’s” goals to these men’s bitterness towards their fathers who were blamed for the defeat in the Civil War, southern underdevelopment, and black progress. Nonetheless, African American men rapidly increased power in politics when many positions became publicly elected.
They passed the Reconstruction Act, which was the desperate act to establish newly freed slaves. The African Americans were only reconsidered for their voting right after the Republican majority congress implementing of radical Reconstruction plan. Despite the congress trying to provide equal rights among the freed slaves, southern states other hand was equally reluctant. Congress hardened on Confederate states to implement the mandatory including of the African American in the election process, guaranteeing their voting rights. “Congressional Reconstruction embodied the most sweeping peacetime legislation in American history to that point. It sought to ensure that freed slaves could participate in the creating of new state governments in the former Confederacy” (Shi and Tindall 591). Congress was desperate to provide political rights to freed slaves. As a result of that, they passed the military Reconstruction Act. The military Reconstruction Act guaranteed the right to vote for the African American make, encouraging them to participate in conventions. “The South Carolina constitutional convention -which included 58 men who were once enslaved” (Hillstrom 55). Many states have started eliminating discrimination against freed slaves, and providing equal rights as every white citizen. As more and more state law was more soft towards them, many African American populations were engaging in the election process electing their own people to represent them. “…every former Confederate state elected at least some black delegates, and most states elected African Americans in about the same proportion as their population. A few states even elected a majority if black delegates” (Hillstrom 55). Although, many states were electing African Americans, there were still wide discrimination against elected black officials, in which case Congress has to provide
2- Carl Schurz wrote reports called Reports on the Condition of the South, in 1865 in which he investigated the sentiments of leaders and ordinary people, whites and blacks, from the defeated South. He describes that was not safe to wear the federal uniform on the streets and soldiers of the Union were considered intruders, Republicans were considered enemies. But, even worse was the situation of freedmen in which were expected to behave as slaves for white Southerners. Schurz heard the same phrase, “You cannot make the negro work, without physical compulsion,” (Schurz) from so many different people that he concluded that this sentiment was rooted among the southern people. He related this case of a former slaveholder that suggested blacks were unfitted for freedom, “I heard a Georgia planter argue most seriously that one of his negroes had shown himself certainly unfit for freedom because he impudently refused to submit to a whipping.”
Ida B. Wells-Barnett is an investigative journalist who wrote in honesty and bluntness about the tragedies and continued struggles of the Negro man. She was still very much involved with the issue even after being granted freedom and the right to vote. Statistics have shown that death and disparity continued to befall the Negro people in the South where the white man was “educated so long in that school of practice” (Pg. 677 Par. 2). Yet in all the countless murders of Negroes by the white man only three had been convicted. The white man of the South, although opposed to the freedom of Negroes would eventually have to face the fact of the changing times. However, they took every opportunity and excuse to justify their continued horrors. There were three main excuses that the white man of the South came up w...
... The cause was forfeited not by Republicans, who welcomed the African-American votes, but to the elite North who had concluded that the formal end of slavery was all the freed man needed and their unpreparedness for the ex-slaves to participate in the Southern commonwealth was evident. Racism, severe economic depression, an exhausted North and troubled South, and a campaign of organized violence toward the freed man, overturned Reconstruction. The North withdrew the last of the federal troops with the passing of The Compromise of 1877. The freed slaves continued to practice few voting rights until 1890, but they were soon stripped of all political, social and economic powers. Not until the civil rights movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s were the freedoms that were fought for by our Republican forefathers nearly 100 years before, finally seen through to fruition.
The social history regarding reconstruction has been of great controversy for the last two decades in America. Several wars that occurred in America made reconstruction efforts to lag behind. Fundamental shortcomings of the reconstruction were based on racism, politics, capitalism and social relations. The philosophy was dominant by the people of South under the leadership of Lincoln. Lincoln plans were projected towards bringing the states from the South together as one nation. However, the efforts of the Activist were faded by the intrusion of the Republicans from the North. Northerners were capitalists and disapproved the ideas that Lincoln attempted to spread in the South (Foner Par 2).
Reconstruction is the period of rebuilding the south that succeeded the Civil War (1861-1865). This period of time is set by the question now what? The Union won the war and most of the south was destroyed. Devastation, buildings turned into crumbles and lost crops. The South was drowning in poverty. To worsen the situation there were thousands of ex-slaves that were set free by the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13 Amendment. "All these ex-slaves", Dr. Susan Walens commented, "and no place to put them," The ex-slaves weren't just homeless but they had no rights, unlike white man. The government and congress had to solve the issues present in the south and the whole nation in order to re-establish the South. These issues were economical, social and political. The United States had presidential and congressional reconstruction. Reconstruction was a failure, a great attempt to unify the nation. It was a failure due to the events that took place during this period.
“Although political violence continued in the South…the tide of public opinion in the North began to turn against Reconstruction policies.” Some may think this meant the North was killing Reconstruction but the North can’t help the South if they’re going to keep rebelling and trying to take over. They can’t help people who don’t want to be helped. “In the fall of 1873, even the staunchly [firmly] pro-Grant and pro-freedman Boston Evening Transcript ran a letter…arguing that “the blacks, as a people, are unfitted for the proper exercise of political duties.” In the North’s defense, this was kind of true, since most blacks were uneducated and the Black Codes prevented them from many rights which were needed as politicians. Like the right of assembly. My thesis is correct. Though the North did have some actions that may have impacted Reconstruction in a negative way, most of them were for a reason and made sense.
In studying the Southern defense of slavery, it appears that southerners were defending a way of life. Many believed that the institution of slavery was the lesser of two evils in terms of providing benefits for workers, others believed that it was at the very foundation of a free society to own slaves and still others saw it merely as an expedient means to an economic end. Although one may acknowledge that the South had understandable political, social and religious reasons for supporting the institution of slavery, the fundamental moral obligation to treat all humans as equals supercedes them all.
In the latter half of the 18th century, freed slaves possessed the right to vote in all but three states. It was not until the 19th century that states began to pass laws to disenfranchise the black population. In 1850, only 6 out of the 31 states allowed blacks to vote. 1Following the civil war, three reconstruction amendments were passed. The first and second sought to end slavery and guarantee equal rights. The third, the 15th amendment, granted suffrage regardless of color, race, or previous position of servitude.2 The 15th Amendment monumentally changed the structure of American politics as it was no longer the privileged whites who could vote. For some it was as though hell had arrived on earth, but for others, it was freedom singing. However, the song was short lived. While many political cartoons from the period show the freedom that ex-slaves have for voting because of the 15th Amendment, they often neglect to include the fact that many African Americans were coerced into voting a certain way or simply had their rights stripped from them.
After the emancipation of slaves in 1862, the status of African-Americans in post civil war America up until the beginning of the twentieth century did not go through a great deal of change. Much legislation was passed to help blacks in this period. The Civil Rights act of 1875 prohibited segregation in public facilities and various government amendments gave African-Americans even more guaranteed rights. Even with this government legislation, the newly dubbed 'freedmen' were still discriminated against by most people and, ironically, they were soon to be restricted and segregated once again under government rulings in important court cases of the era.
In 1867 a 2/3 Republican Congress passes the Reconstruction Acts, which abolishes all governments, and in the elections, Republicans have the advantage thanks to black voters. In Tennessee, a radical Republican by the name of William G. Brownlow takes over, and he is a rather savage man. He is very radical and believes that those who fought for the Confederacy are traders, and he shows no mercy on returning rebel soldiers. His paper publishes the names of the soldiers, targeting them for revenge. He ratifies the 14th amendment, and while giving rights to freed slaves to vote, it also stripped former rebel soldiers of voting rights. These drastic changes of course anger many southern trying to hold on to the old ways, and in particular, it angers
Since our time serving together, the state of the Union has changed immensely with the “reconstruction” period starting in the U.S. As an esteemed member of the House of Representatives, you most certainly know about the vetoing of the Wade-Davis Bill. I am not sure which way you were swayed to vote, but I’m torn on the issue. As you know, Mr. Lincoln’s promise in his “Emancipation Proclamation” was my main inspiration to join the war effort. Although I agreed with most of his decisions during the war, his lenient terms of surrender for the Confederate army slightly altered my point of view of the president. Lincoln’s desire to quickly and smoothly reconstruct the Union was understandable, but Lincoln’s ten percent plan for
“The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery” (Dubois 505). In other words, slavery was abolished but racism was still around. Interestingly, the Declaration of Independence’s one-hundredths anniversary was celebrating freedom, but yet black Americans were being treated unfairly and didn’t have certain rights. The election of 1876 almost caused another Civil War in the South. More rights were given to the black Americans and the dream of Reconstruction seemed to be working until the election of 1876, where the new president actually made it so that it almost guaranteed all-white governments would reclaim power in the South (Roden 505). The South was at fault for the end of Reconstruction due to
To begin, civil disobedience had impacted voting. Martin Luther King Jr. once stated, “Throughout the state of Alabama all types of conniving methods are used to prevent Negros from Negro registered to vote despite the fact that the Negro constitutes a majority of the population.” All types of methods are used to prevent them from being able to become registered voters. Whites felt as though blacks should not have the same privileges as them. Blacks meant nothing to the Whites.