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the development of racism in America
the development of racism in America
social consequences of the civil war
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The era of the Civil War brought a multitude of changes that would impact the lives of all Americans. After the conclusion of what would be the bloodiest war of the 19th century, several constitutional and social developments were brought into effect. Such constitutional developments included the Emancipation Proclamation and the Radical Reconstruction of Andrew Johnson. To a similar extent, the passage of the 15th Amendment guaranteed all African American males the right to vote, regardless of any previous condition of servitude. However, in spite of many positive constitutional developments that arose during this era, a combination of legal developments such as Black Codes and Poll taxes, combined with negative social developments such as the Rise of the Ku Klux Klan and White Supremacy resulted in an unstable …show more content…
In response to his beliefs about slavery, President Lincoln was shot by James Earl Booth. Furthermore, hate crimes skyrocketed in the South with the rise of White Supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan. During the period that Republicans controlled state governments in the South, groups or southern whites organized secret societies to intimidate black and white reformers. The Ku Klux Klan was an “invisible empire” that burned black-owned buildings and flogged and murdered free men to keep them from exercising their voting rights. In addition, lynchings became prevalent in the South and were an effective way of scaring African Americans from voting. Several policies such as Jim Crow Laws, the Grandfather Clause, poll taxes and literacy tests were implemented in the South as a way of preventing any political activity run by African Americans. The despicable acts of the Ku Klux Klan and White Supremists extended to burning the houses of freedmen, and as a result, they were considered to be worse than slavery
Groups of people soon received new rights. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. It gave black Americans full citizenship and guaranteed them equal treatment. Also, it passed the Fourteenth Amendment to make sure that the Supreme Court couldn’t declare the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional. The amendment made blacks citizens of the United States and the states in which they lived. Also, states were forbidden to deprive blacks of life, liberty, or property without due process. Additionally, blacks could not be discriminated by the law. If a state would deprive blacks of their rights as citizens, it’s number of congressional representatives would be reduced. The Civil Rights Act as well as the Fourteenth Amendment affected both the North and the South.
There are two mind paths to choose when considering the statement that the compromises of the 1800s were not really compromises, but sectional sellouts by the North, that continually gave in to the South's wishes. The first is that the compromises really were compromises, and the second is that the compromises were modes of the North selling out. Really, there is only one correct mind path of these two, and that is that the North sold out during these compromises and gave the South what it wanted for minimal returns. The three main compromises of the 19th century, the compromises of 1820 (Missouri) and 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 each were ways for the south to gain more power so that eventually, it could secede.
From the start of the American Civil War, 1860, until the end of the Reconstruction, 1877, the United States of America endured what can be considered a revolution. Prior to the year 1860, there was a lack of union because of central government power flourishing rather than state power. Therefore, there was a split of opposite sides, North and South, fighting for authority. One major issue that came into mind was of slavery. At first, there were enactments that were issued to limit or rather prevent conflict to erupt, such as the numerous compromises, Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. They did not fulfill the needs of the states, South states in particular; therefore, in the year 1860, the Civil War had commenced. There was the issue of inequality of Blacks in suffrage, politics, and the use of public facilities. However, much constitutional and social advancement in the period culminated in the revolution. To a radical extent, constitutional development between 1860 and 1877 amount to a revolution because of events like the Emancipation Proclamation, Civil Rights Act, the amendments that tried to change African Americans lives in American Society and contributed to get the union together. There is the social developments as well that to a lesser extent had amounted to the revolution because of organizations like the Klu Klux Klan, Freedmen’s Bureau lacking, and discrimination against African Americans that caused progression of violence and white supremacy.
In order to unite the nation, intense dispute had aroused. Through various laws both African Americans and ex-Confederates were affected by the reconstruction period. Although the Reconstruction Era had gained a negative legacy, the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were a breakthrough in the life of African Americans. The continuous development of polices was to reach the intended goal that the Reconstruction Era was sought for, to unify the United States of
Sectionalism can be described as loyalty specifically to one’s section or region. In terms of the United States, sectionalism refers to two major regions, the North and the South. It became a rising issue in the colonies in the 1800’s and undoubtedly aided in the start of the civil war. If one was to ask Northerners, they would blame the South and vice-versa. To be brutally honest, it was a combination of both regions and their extreme sectionalism that inevitably led to an American’s nightmare, a Civil War within the Union.
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.
The second phase of the Civil War was a victory for the south, for their political ideas of former slave owners stayed far after the war. The south was dependent on slave labor and with the slave population now free they had to forcibly change tactics to control this population. Southern whites used legal, political, and violent means to whip the black population into submission. Laws like the black codes were in the south to restrict the black population from becoming a strong community. Common practices like sharecropping crippled the black community’s only field in which they had experience in. Violence from southern whites increased the fear stricken society and crippled their potential for any civil liberties.
Bruce Catton made the statement that when the two sides of the nation went to war they destroyed one America, inventing another, which is still forming in the present. The war changed the political aspect of the country expanding the federal government. While local state governments still exist in the present, its power had, is much more restricted than what it was in the pre-war years. Such examples like the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were passed during Reconstruction; they showed the power that the federal government had in post-war America. Though the amendments promised voting rights and anti-discrimination laws towards African Americans, the federal government forced the Southern States to accept these amendments amongst other regulations to become part of the Union, showing the true power that the government had over the nation and the states. Society and the economy of the nation were have affected the South though farming and sharecropping still existed, life like that of the Antebellum years was over, leading to industrialization to begin to take place in the South. Such social issues as racism still affect and affected the nation well into the mid-twentieth century with the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, which saw its main emphases of events in the 1950s and
Reconstruction was needed and the period following the civil war, the reconstruction period, fostered many significant results and achievements especially for Constitutional amendments. While mending a broken country, the reconstruction period still left many fresh wounds. There was great successes and championships for former slaves and the blacks rights, but their was still lingering thoughts and acts of discrimination towards these groups. Reconstruction produced three amendments defending the people 's rights, yet discrimination towards blacks was peeking to new heights. Laws were not enough to change the hearts and minds of the people, which was at the core of the issue. With the unfortunate loss of the nation’s leader, it would be almost a hundred years later until America had leaders strong enough, in the nineteen sixties, that could change the ideas of racism and
In the post-Civil War time period, many of the people in the United States still wanted slavery. Grant, however, proved that he believed no citizen should be treated unequally, no matter their race. In 1866, he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. It states, “granted citizenship and the same rights enjoyed by white citizens to all male persons in the United States, without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude” (Lloyd web). In his campaign for presidency, one of his promises was to grant blacks the right to vote (“Ulysses S. Grant” web). He kept his promise by signing the 15th Amendment, which states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Even after these Acts were passed, the blacks were still treated very poorly. In 1875, Grant signed the Civil Rights Act of 1875 (“The Civil Rights Act of 1875” web). This act guaranteed blacks equal treatment in public accommodations, such as transportation. It also stated that African Americans would be treated equally in court. As aforementioned, Ulysses S. Grant greatly affected the lives of freed
The populist movement began with a group of farmers who sought out reform against the government for what they considered unfair treatment. For example, big businesses were allowed to have monopolies during this period, which also hurt the average farmer and better shipping rates were offered by the railroad to these larger companies. Under those circumstances, the farmers decided that they needed their own representation due to the fact that neither the Republican nor Democratic Party catered to their needs. For these reasons the agrarians started the populist movement during the early 19th century.
The fifteenth amendment was proposed to congress on February 26, 1869 and was ratified a year later. After the Civil war, the confederate states were forced to ratify the reconstruction amendments in order to be reinstated into the union.3 Charles Sumner, an advocate for equal rights, refused to vote as he believed that the amendment did not take necessary steps to prevent the development of various state laws that could disenfranchise black voters.4 Sumner was correct, by the 1890s many states had adopted legislature designed to keep blacks from voting. The Poll Taxes and Literacy Tests may be the most emblematic legislation of the period. These laws were passed in order to ke...
After the end of American Civil War in 1865, The Thirteenth Amendment was added to the constitution of the United States that stated “Neither slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have duly convicted, shall exist in the United States, nor any place subject to their jurisdiction.” By this no black people could be owned by the whites. In spite of this, blacks were severely segregated in the South. This resulted in the formation of anti-radical movement in the South called Ku Klux Klan organization which represented white supremacy by whipping ...
In the early 19th century there was a large influence of new ideologies. Although, these “new” ideologies were not new, they had always existed, but were just now given a name. An ideology is a set of beliefs about the world and how it should be, often formalized into political social or cultural theory (West &the World G–6). I think that Liberalism is one of the most important ideologies of the early 19th century, and still is today. Liberalism drew significantly off of the French Revolution, the Enlightenment, and their promises. Liberals fought to change society; they wanted to live in a world of individual freedom, liberty. Liberals derive their theories from significant individuals from the Enlightenment such as: John Locke and Montesquieu. These individuals gave liberalist ideals, for example: Locke, helped them adopt ideals about natural laws, rights, toleration, and the application of reason to human affairs, and Montesquieu, said that government powers should be separated and restricted by checks and balances (W&tW p. 582). These ideals led to the start of the age of ideologies, and changed countries drastically. In the early part of the 19th century the ideologies were changing everything, the policies reforms, and completely flip-flopping nations, especially Great Britain, Russia, and France.
In the 19th century most nationalists also believed in liberalism. Liberals saw the people as the ultimate source of all good government. Also, they agreed that the benefits of self-government would be possible only if the people were united by common traditions that transcended class and local interests. Thus, individual liberty and love of a free nation greatly overlapped. One of the most famous liberal nationalist in the 19th century was Giuseppe Mazzini. In 1860, Mazzini released An Essay on the Duties of Man Addressed to Workingmen, and states that a man's primary duty is to humanity and his family, the next duty, following closely, is to his country and to unity. He declares that united, independent countries are the highest order of