Though slave rebellions, and opposition to authority were common in the antebellum south, slavery would have lasted for a greater length if the South had been victorious in the Civil War. If the South succeeded in victory, one can believe that this would have been a great downfall for the slaves and abolitionist who worked relentlessly to free the slaves. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave portrays the mounting tensions of the slaves on Frederick Douglass’s
After the Civil War, “Lives of black slaves had improved greatly and there was hope for emancipation of slaves in those states. However, The Compromise of 1877 took away all hope for slaves.” (Source 8) This “compromise” made slaves’ lives even more difficult than it was before. As soon as progress was being made, this set it back even more than it was before. This was from the perspective of a former Louisiana slave, Henry Adams, “The whole South - every state in the South - had got into the hands of the very men that held us as slaves.” (Source 7) This basically ripped any chance of freedom and equal
A. I believe Reconstruction was a combination of success and failure. America was in the process of trying to put back together the broken pieces of Civil War. It was successful in its ways of trying to build America back up, but had failures that will not be forgotten. A big success was that the 13th Amendment went into effect and legally freed all black slaves, but now there was this large population of people who did not know how to live a normal life, and were still not seen as free people. I believe Reconstruction was a failure in the many ways slaves were not protected the way they should have been.
Prior to the passage of the amendments, the African American slaves were discriminated against because of their race because the white men believed that they were superior to them due to the idea of Social Darwinism. In this policy, the white men thought that they were more evolved than the African Americans. The discrimination continued after the ratification in the institution of Jim Crow laws (legalized with Plessy v Ferguson) in the south which advocated for separate but “equal” treatment for the freedmen. The freedmen also were faced with racial violence through the actions of the newly formed Ku Klux Klan who tried to further their racist goals through intimidation. Racial discrimination did not end following the ratification of the new
One of the most crucial passages that were omitted in the final draft was about the foundation of the colonist’s economy: focused on slavery and how the African-Americans were treated. Many high-powered politicians were divided on the topic; some believed that the plantation system couldn’t survive without a cheap source of labor, but others realized how their newly written proclamation focused on liberty and freedom for all mankind. Jefferson included a passage in his Declaration that would make slavery impossible in America under the new changes. The hypocritical nature of Thomas Jefferson reflects the attitude of the colonists during the Revolutionary War period, while many saw that slavery violated the human rights that they were aiming to fight for, they could not continue to be economically successful without slavery, so they chose to omit a passage in the Declaration that challenged
While Reconstruction after the Civil War seemed to have promise for former slaves, there were still many hardships. President Andrew Johnson’s leniency with the south during this decisive period allowed for there to be debate over what the fate of freed slaves should be. Some believed that continuing to work in the fields they were once slaves in was the best option for blacks because of their past as field workers, while others believed that there were more options for blacks than just farm work as seen in the schools built in the south for the black population by the Freedman’s Bureau. However, the question still remained as to what freedom for blacks truly meant. People’s opinions on what freedom for ex-slaves needed to be depended exclusively on their race and their socioeconomic status.
This was because Abraham Lincoln knew well the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution and the limits of his authority as a President. In conclusion we could say that although the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately free a single slave, it become an important turning point in the war because it reached the hearts and wishes of millions of slaves, most of them African American, transforming the character of the war from a war to preserve the nation into a battle for human freedom. Moreover, the proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union army and navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. So as, by the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom. President Abraham Lincoln was a political genius because of the way he was able to exploit the Emancipation Proclamation and the freeing of the slaves to work for the Union in so many differing and crucial ways.
Using Lincoln’s speeches, historians have been able to draw their own conclusions about Lincoln’s actions and plans towards reconstruction. Readers about Lincoln will be able to understand why he created his plan of Reconstruction after reading the interruptions. Upon further comparison of Lincoln’s plans of Reconstruction and the plan of Reconstruction, readers will be able to understand on the race issues addressed in both plans. Lincoln’s death helped fuel hatred between the north and the south over racial issues that we are still trying to fix today. Lincoln’s death affected the lives of all Americans from the 19th century to present day because he was not able to help the country recover after the Civil War with his views of reconstruction.
In the three decades leading up to the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, the abolitionist movement, through direct actions and sentiment against slavery, sowed radical reactionary responses across the southern slave states. While the actions and views of abolitionists did not reflect the widespread or majority opinion of the free states, the reciprocal effect of the abolitionist propaganda and violent actions led to greater polarization in America over the topic of slavery and its expansion. Additionally, the various actions performed by the northern based abolitionist created an aura of fear and paranoia amongst the ruling slaveholding political elite in the south who increasingly saw the actions as an attack on the southern slave
The founding fathers of the United States built America on the ideals of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, and this applied to each and every person living in the country- not only to a specific racial group. Slavery was abolished with the defeat of the Southern Confederacy in the Civil War, leading to the Era of Reconstruction, in which the primary focus was to reunite the nation and promote of rights of former slaves. Africans Americans were not as free as Whites during this period. Although African Americans were free individuals during the reconstruction period, they did not have complete freedom as their rights were extremely limited due to mistreatment from punishment, segregation, and racism by white supremacists. The rights