Summary: A Failure On All Front

A Failure on All Fronts The ending of the civil war marked the greatest culture shift in the United States since they became independent of Britain. Through Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the passing of the 13th Amendment, all slaves became free upon the conclusion of the war. This was a momentous moment for these new freedmen; however, the switch from a society which for two hundred has relied on slavery to one where blacks and whites are “equal”, caused quite a bit of distress among Southerners. The Radical Republicans of the North were bitter over the last four years of war, and the Southern states secession of the Union. They wanted to punish the Southern plantation owners for the rebellion they incited, but realized they needed to act

The industry bought and cleared the majority of the land in the Gulf States, especially in Louisiana. Land speculation made it difficult for blacks in these areas to make claims, and more often than not, these freedmen ended up working for these firms for minimum wages or through convict leasing. Even though they barred the Confederate plantation owners from buying land, these lumber firms had the same effects except with more disastrous consequences. These syndicates “destroyed a large part of one of the major natural resources of an impoverished region, but also siphoned the profits to other sections of the country instead of infusing them into the southern economy” (209). When the lumber syndicates moved into the South, they took much of the land which could have went to freed blacks, but they also destroyed the environment and had little to no positive effects on the economy. The purpose of the Homestead Act was to protect against large speculation such as this, but it failed to protect against these interests, hurting all in the South. The Homestead Act of 1866 was passed with high hopes of success by all who were involved. It was modeled after an