...Reconstruction and the West Jennifer Bryan HIS /165 December 9, 2015 Dr. J. Randall III Reconstruction and the West The post-Civil War South has been called the “New South”. In what ways did it succeed in reinventing itself? In what ways did it fail? After the civil war the south was devastated, having most of the war fought on its soil the entire infrastructure was wiped out and nearly 23% of its men had been killed in the war. Something drastic needed to happen to deal with the humanitarian crises that was freed slaves with nowhere to go and no background. During this time newly freedmen tried to purchase land if they could and the number of black churches grew. Their new found freedom was expressed in many ways; some bought guns, while others owned dogs, some sought to get married and enjoyed the ability to move and look for family members they had not seen since brought over from Africa. While congress fought back and forth about a reconstruction plan that was either too lenient or too oppressive the south started to rebuild. Eventually, though the south fell in line with the Military Reconstruction Act and were allowed back into the union and back into the political spectrum. Politics aside, while the North had managed to free the slaves they failed to give them the life they had envisioned for them. “1) they did not redistribute lad to freed slaves; 2) they did not provide black people with guaranteed access to education: 3) they did not forbid racial segregation;...
Words: 355 - Pages: 2
...Reconstruction and the West Tajah Rubiera HIS 120/U.S History 1865-1945 January 20, 2014 Nick Weeks Reconstruction and the West The South “Some historians argue that Radical Reconstruction was not radical enough” (HIS 120 syllabus). Many would argue saying that the Radical Reconstruction was not radical enough because it did not “redistribute land to freed slaves, it did not provide black people with guaranteed access to education, it did not forbid racial segregation, and it did not call for absolute racial equality for black and white people” (Shultz, 2012). However, the Radical Reconstruction made some great progress and radically forced the south into submission. It also lead to the adoption of the 14th and 15th amendments. The Radical Reconstruction began when Congress overrode President Johnson’s veto over the Civil Rights bill. This would be the start of many overriding vetos made by the men in Congress. The first order of business was to create and introduce what would be known as the Fourteenth Amendment. This amendment “barred Confederate leaders from ever holding public office in the United States, gave Congress the right to reduce the representation of any state that did not give black people the right to vote, and declared that any person born or naturalized in the United States was, by that very act, an American citizen deserving of equal protection of the law” (Shultz, 2012). After congress passed this amendment it went to the states for ratification....
Words: 1063 - Pages: 5
...Reconstruction and the West HIS/120 Reconstruction * The post-Civil War South has been called the “New South.” In what ways did it succeed in reinventing itself? In what ways did it fail? After the war ended as many as four million slaves were freed. The south had freed slaves and now had a war torn area that needed rebuilding and restructuring. For the next few decades the focus was on creating a railroad expansion and fixing the farm lands. New textile, iron, and steel industries came to be with great success. Farming was a big part of the south and many freed slaves continued to contribute on farm lands for meager wages. The issue with the reconstruction was the newness of the world around everyone. Many white southern slave owners continued with their unfair and brutal treatment of former slaves. With no one around really setting down the new laws many people just did as they pleased. Many people, white and black became homeless and starved to death because there was no system in place to help. Abraham Lincoln was on the right path to fixing the issues the south had after the war. However after his assassination, Johnson took over and pretty much ignored all of Lincolns plans. This was the unraveling of the original reconstruction plan. Johnson had no concern for the freed slaves and their circumstances. This was the unsuccessful part of the reconstruction that seemed to majorly overshadow the small successes. Though the majority of plans for helping the south...
Words: 679 - Pages: 3
...Reconstruction and the West Patrick Tidwell HST/120 October 15, 2014 Paul Bishop Question: How did western settlement, particularly in terms of railroad expansion and farming, lead to inevitable conflicts with the Native Americans? The thought of having two very different societies collide, the bigger stronger is always going to prevail. With Americas rapid expansion into the plains states, confrontations with Native Americans was inevitable, due to their nomadic nature. The Homestead Act of 1862 opened the way for Americans looking for a fresh start after the Civil War, giving 160 acres to families that took part. With these homesteads came farms, livestock, modernization and fences. The idea of cordoning off a section of land was an unheard of concept for Native Americans. According to "Native American Indian Facts" (2014), “Many of the tribes of the Great Plains were nomadic and followed the buffalo migrations which provided their food. These tribes spent a good part of the year living in camps that could easily be dismantled and moved to follow the buffalo migrations”. The Native Americans had been traveling the plains in search of food for generations before settlers even ventured west. When these nomadic Indians came across these fences in their nomadic pursuit of food, they were ignored which led to confrontations with farmers. The transcontinental railroad had a significant impact with Native Americans and the decline of the nomadic way of life. According to...
Words: 885 - Pages: 4
...Reconstruction and the West The post-Civil War South has been called the “New South.” In what ways did it succeed in reinventing itself? In what ways did it fail? The south’s reconstruction failed for many reasons in my opinion. First off many states rejected the 13th Amendment. Furthermore, many of the southern states had no intentions of giving Blacks any type of true freedoms. Many states tried to make the African Americans as property-less as possible. They were not given the right to be on a jury. The second problem was the president and congress was not seeing “eye to eye” on how the reconstruction should be conducted. Many states were electing prominent military leaders along with political leaders from the war. Johnson knew this of course but buckled under the pressure because he wanted to hurry up and get reconstruction completed. The moderate republicans wanted the same things as the radical republicans but did not want to give the southern blacks too much power. They thought that giving the blacks in the south the power to vote that it would give an unfair advantage to the south. However, many moderate republicans did think that the south was too hard on their black populations and wanted some form of regulation. As a moderate republican they did not want to clash with the president or have a social revolution in the south. That is why the in 1865 the congress revamped the Freedmen’s Bureau to give emergency food and care. The south’s...
Words: 356 - Pages: 2
...Reconstruction and the West After the Civil War in the south, the south met many new challenges. The south needed to reinvent its economic, political and cultural environment. In November 1868 Ulysses S. Grant was elected president. Grant would not have won the election without the votes of former slaves who were given the right to vote post- Civil War. Congress passed the 14th and 15th Amendments to protect the rights of all people if born a naturalized citizen to have equal protection of the laws, and the freedom to vote regardless of race in the United States. Congress Reconstruction plan dramatically changed politics in the south (Reconstruction, 2013). Congress provided many programs, such as social services for the people of the south. They opened hospitals, schools, and assisted with the railroad expansion, allowing Blacks to take part in these government programs. The government also improved the lights and telephones systems also the sewer systems. Many industrial jobs became available in the south. Textile, iron, steel, southern coal, oil, and timber industry are just some of the industrial jobs created for the south to assist with reconstruction efforts. The government created new programs in the south the only problem...
Words: 751 - Pages: 4
...Reconstruction and the West HIS/120 The South After the Civil War, the South was pulverized. It had to make huge adjustment to become sufficient again, this was going to take time and allot of money. It succeeded in compositionally and financially to reinvent itself. In about 35 years after the damage was done it succeeded with steel. Southern iron business grew, especially with supplying the Railroads advancements. he Southern economy was engendered and prospered, in spite of the way that it could never thoroughly equal the North in advancements or wages. Without further ado that there were assuredly 4 million liberated slaves living in the South and a monstrous people of poor white people, there was a great deal of terrible work and business visionaries misused authenticity. What kept the South from a robust Industrial change was the frailty of the White men to work adjacent the liberated slaves. State of psyche at the liberated slaves had not transmuted and was disintegrating. Dull Southerners were proscribed from working in current vocations and simply a little rate of White Southerners were utilized in these vocations, thusly advancement couldn't transpire. The South commenced on the right course and for a period of time it looked akin to the Incipient South had climbed yet hate towards the Black Southerners was the mechanical change rout with The South still unequivocally depending after cultivating as the economy stabilizer. Clearly, the Incipient South was...
Words: 734 - Pages: 3
...Reconstruction and the West Reconstruction of the South According to Eric Foner (2008), “even though reconstruction failed to meet the goals of Radical Republicans, painlessly rebuild the South, and give the freed blacks complete rights.” Reconstruction did give African Americans some new chances and a brief taste of a free society. Public schools were instituted; blacks became citizens, and some whites even offered support with the civil rights movement. However, every opportunity that was given to the free blacks was met with much opposition. As a result, more could have been done. The late 19th century was a troubling time, and although freed slaves were negatively impacted, Whites, and Indians were also affected by the economic hardships. Several events occurred which gave me cause to agree with Eric Foner’s description of the Reconstruction as a “splendid failure”. Blacks did not receive all their rights until 100 years after the war. Furthermore, Northern-born white men who moved south after the Confederacy defeat were called carpetbaggers by Southerners, and Southern-born white Republicans were given the name scalawag; Blacks held fewer governmental positions and was smaller than their proportion in the population; Indians suffered from the white Americans’ racism, paternalism, and belief that the U.S. had a “manifest destiny” to control all the land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (Schultz 2012). However, out of all of the ethnic groups mentioned, former slaves...
Words: 830 - Pages: 4
...Unit I: Essay Exam: Reconstruction & Rise of Industry US History Since 1877 Professor Valdenia Winn February 14, 2013 According to Dictionary.com, radical means: 1. Of or going to the root or origin; fundamental: a radical difference. 2. Thoroughgoing or extreme, especially as regards change from accepted or traditional forms. Historians identified Congressional Reconstruction as “radical” because of how the South tried to elude the Thirteenth Amendment. Because of these extreme circumstances the federal government had to intervene, which at that point made it radical to most historians. The root of the problem was slavery and the problem solver was the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The Thirteenth Amendment prohibited slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment established national citizenship for persons born or naturalized in the United States. It also prohibited the states from depriving citizens of their civil rights or equal protection under the law as well as reduced state representation in the House of Representatives by the percentage of adult male citizens denied the vote. The Fifteenth Amendment forbade states to deny citizens the right to vote on the grounds of race, color, or “previous condition of servitude”. Another problem solver was the establishment of the Freedmen’s Bureau, which was there to aid former slaves get on their feet and supervise “all relief and educational activities relating to refugees and...
Words: 963 - Pages: 4
...economy, and society have changed in the areas of federal government activism, agriculture, and industry. Events concerning the government were the radical reconstruction that played a great deal in government activism, the Homestead Act that affected agriculture, and J.P. Morgan which practically save the industry from a complete collapse. The economy’s occurrences and people that helped in maintaining economic levels while also bringing them to a downfall were the interstate commerce, Munn V. Illinois, and the Sherman Antitrust fund. Affairs such as the Radical reconstruction was a form of the federal government activism that worked toward enforcing civil and political equality for the ex-slaves which cause neo-confederates in attempt to make congress desolate the act. Radicals called for another reconstruction which was then called the Military Reconstruction Act, which was to begin political reform and to “suppress insurrection, disorder, and violence. The radical reconstruction worked to gain black suffrage and recognizing native born blacks as citizens rather than a just a lower race of the human species. The Military Reconstruction Act exceeded expectations, the act made efforts to disable neo-confederates, and remove any person in government power willing to disagree. With people fighting against the Radical Reconstruction Act, such as President Andrew Johnson (1865-1869), people continued to make ex-slaves suffer. A freedman said “Give us our land and we take care of ourselves...
Words: 806 - Pages: 4
...and Efficient Maintenance of Low Cost Rural Roads. London: Department for International Development. German Technical Cooperation, (1991). Financing Road Maintenance in West Africa. Eschborn: German Technical Cooperation. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, (1991). Intermediate Means of Transport in - Sub-Saharan Africa Its Potential for Improving Rural Travel and Transport. Washington, DC.: The World Bank. Kodero, K. (2005). PRO-POOR TRANSPORT POLICY Meeting the Challenge in Zimbabwe. Transpolicy, 1. Metschies, G. and Rausch, E. (2000). Financing road maintenance in West Africa. 1st ed. Eschborn: GTZ. Okoko, E. (2011). RURAL TRANSPORTATION AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT: THE INSTANCE OF AKWAPIM SOUTH DISTRICT IN GHANA. International Journal of Economic Development Research and Investment, 2(3), pp.10-24. Oruonye, E. (2014). An Assessment of the Impact of Road Construction on Land Use Pattern in Urban Centres in Nigeria, A Case Study of Jalingo LGA, Taraba State Nigeria. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(10), p.82. Porter, G. (2012). Reflections on a century of road transport developments in West Africa and their (gendered) impacts on the rural poor. EchoGeo, (20). STRATEGIC REVIEW SSATP. (2001). Annex Report. NETHERLANDS ECONOMIC INSTITUTE. The International Bank for Reconstruction and...
Words: 424 - Pages: 2
...The Emergence of Modern America from Reconstruction to an Industrial Power (1865 – 1890) Student’s Name Institution The Emergence of Modern America from Reconstruction to an Industrial Power (1865 – 1890) Reconstruction of modern America was not a missed opportunity because of rapid economic growth and prosperity, unified nation with a powerful government and political and business reforms (Carnes, Mark & Garraty, 2011). During this period in the 19th century, America emerged as an industrial power and agricultural power mostly in the North and the West and not in the South. This phase of reconstruction made America dominate as the World’s largest economic power. America also rose as a superpower nation with one of the strongest governments in the world (Kennedy, David, Cohen & Lizabeth, 2012). Another positive effect of reconstruction of America is that it led to an end of the infamous Trans-Atlantic slave trade. In this trade, slaves were sourced from West Africa and were sold in the slave markets in America, slaves were sold to be exploited as cheap sources of labor, they were treated inhumanely. Reconstruction, therefore, ended this commerce and gave the slaves their right of citizenship. Actually, in 1867 and for the first time slaves were allowed to vote. Reconstruction era also led to social and business reforms in America. These changes resulted in the expansion of government and education, curtailment of excesses, recognition of the...
Words: 365 - Pages: 2
...The Emergence of Modern America from Reconstruction to an Industrial Power (1865 – 1890) Student’s Name Institution The Emergence of Modern America from Reconstruction to an Industrial Power (1865 – 1890) Reconstruction of modern America was not a missed opportunity because of rapid economic growth and prosperity, unified nation with a powerful government and political and business reforms (Carnes, Mark & Garraty, 2011). During this period in the 19th century, America emerged as an industrial power and agricultural power mostly in the North and the West and not in the South. This phase of reconstruction made America dominate as the World’s largest economic power. America also rose as a superpower nation with one of the strongest governments in the world (Kennedy, David, Cohen & Lizabeth, 2012). Another positive effect of reconstruction of America is that it led to an end of the infamous Trans-Atlantic slave trade. In this trade, slaves were sourced from West Africa and were sold in the slave markets in America, slaves were sold to be exploited as cheap sources of labor, they were treated inhumanely. Reconstruction, therefore, ended this commerce and gave the slaves their right of citizenship. Actually, in 1867 and for the first time slaves were allowed to vote. Reconstruction era also led to social and business reforms in America. These changes resulted in the expansion of government and education, curtailment of excesses, recognition of the...
Words: 365 - Pages: 2
...Coordination Meeting Jakarta, 15 November 2010 Current Update of Disasters in Indonesia 1. Disaster events since the beginning of October 2010, ranging from flash floods in the province of Wasior, West Papua in October 4, 2010, earthquake and tsunami in the Mentawai Islands of West Sumatra province on October 25, 2010, when the rehabilitation and reconstruction after earthquake in West Sumatra-30 September 2009 still underway, and the on-going eruption of Mount Merapi in Central Java and Yogyakarta until now. 2. These caused a large numbers of deaths, injured, missing and displaced persons; damages on public infrastructures, impediment on basic services and losses on livelihoods in the disaster affected areas NO 1 LOCATION Flash flood in Wasior, West Papua Province STATUS • Emergency response expired at 15 November 2010. • Assessment of damage and losses have been conducted, with the total damage and losses of Rp 280,58 billion. • Action Plan for the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction is under completion by Bappenas and BNPB. • The emergency response will be expired on the 3rd week of November 2010. • BNPB, Bappenas and local government collaborate to collect and verify data for damages and losses assessment, and soon will prepare the Action Plan for Rehabilitation and Reconstruction. • The priority at present is to provide shelter and promptly distribute humanitarian logistics for the displaced persons • Eruption continues, emergency response...
Words: 2305 - Pages: 10
...as an equal by their victorious partners after WWII, the US and USSR, and the British leaders believed this could be accomplished by the creation of a unified Western bloc in Europe. From 1945 until 1957 with the signing of the Treaty of Rome, Britain was successful in leading Western Europe through leadership in post war reconstruction, economic arrangements, security, and atomic weapons. Britain’s commitment to being a world power as well as their widespread influence overseas also helped the British to maintain a leadership role in Western Europe despite French ideas of British Americanization. Overall, despite occasional moments of weakness, Britain was essentially the driver of the “European bus” from 1945 until 1957 when the British decided they no longer wanted to be on board the European bus. World War II devastated Western Europe both physically and economically but provided an opportunity for Britain to take a leading role in the reconstruction process. Reconstruction became the immediate concern for Britain and their Western European neighbors. Britain’s leading role in Western Europe was sparked by their success in post war reconstruction beginning with their role in the Marshall Plan funding by the United States. The British recognized the need to rebuild Western Europe in order to prevent Soviet Union communist influence. Lord Inverchapel sent a note to the United States stating the inability of Britain to fund Greece and Turkey who were facing threats...
Words: 2292 - Pages: 10
