My Own Reconstruction Plan after the Civil War

After the great battle of the American Civil War was fought, and the North won, a bigger battle still had to take place; reconstruction. Reconstruction after the war was not going to be easy, and it was not. What was the primary goal? What should be done to ex-confederates? Free Blacks? How should this reconstruction take place? Many of these questions were solved by the government, but how well? Reconstruction could have gone very differently, and that is what I intend to show. I will develop my own reconstruction policy for the United States after the American Civil War, dealing with several critical points, and the overall re-integration of the south into the Union. My policy is based on equality for the South and North, and making sure that a political balance and a balance of economic power was restored as much as possible.

First of all, what is the primary goal of reconstruction? To successfully bring the United States back together, one issue at a time should be addressed. Taking on the issue of reconstruction, and the issue of civil rights at the same time was too much to take on at once, and to assure that both issues were addressed fully and fairly, they needed to be taken on one at a time. So, it only seems logical to start with the issue of reunification, as the nation must first be unified before the issue of civil rights can be addressed. Reunification would not be easy. I think reunification should have been done at the state level. Each state would apply to become a state of the union once again. They could do this once a state ratified a new “Reconstruction” amendment. This amendment would permit the Southern states to join the union once again, as long as they agreed to all federal laws, and as long as a 2...

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...o stress on Southern citizens, it would be a waste of money and time. The troops could spend this time training, instead of wasting it. The money that would need to be spent to feed, house, and cloth them would be huge, and the nation needed to devote all of its money to helping the south get back on its feet, not by paying soldiers to stand around.
While I think that reconstruction was not done as good as it could have, I don’t think I could have done better. It’s very difficult to reunify a union, especially one as fragile as the Unites States. I think that what was done was probably for the best, and of course it’s impossible to go back in time and change it, but if I had the option I would let it happen just as it did. After the war, we saw a huge growth in American industry, and I think to some extent it was because of the way reconstruction was handled.