Who Killed Reconstruction Dbq Essay

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“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” George Santayana stated what happens if we do not learn from our past. After the Civil War the United States wanted to build itself back up. The nation was in rubble because half of the country was fighting the other. That left it in a sad and fallen state. The issue of slavery was a long debated topic. They thought they could get over this and start anew. Reconstruction means the actions or process of rebuilding what has been damaged or destroyed. Did the North or the South kill Reconstruction? That issue is still up for debate. In my opinion, the South killed Reconstruction and stopped it dead in its tracks. The South did not respect the African American’s right to vote and would terrorize …show more content…

They thought they were lesser people and deserved to go back to slavery. Colby later wrote in his testimony to the House, “Some are first-class men in or town. One is a lawyer, one a doctor, and some are farmers… They said I had voted for Grant and had carried the Negroes against them (Doc B).” Colby is again talking about the KKK and what they said to him that night. This quote describes the actions of those rich white men. Why else would they act out like that? They gained power by terrorizing the voters. In the Independent Monitor, on September 1, 1868, there was an image depicting the democratic KKK hanging carpetbaggers (Picture in Doc A). The term “Carpetbaggers” means a Northerner heading South after the Civil War. They usually took important offices and tried to get rid of slavery. That angered the South and the KKK. Though some Northerners had bad perspectives on the Freedmen in the South, so did the people in the South. There is an image about the South Carolina State Legislature during Reconstruction (Picture in Doc D) that shows the African Americans arguing , while the white senators look angry and frustrated with them. Their faces show they are haughty and are looking down upon the newly elected African American senators. This shows they think they are better than

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