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Reconstruction in America

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The period of reconstruction in the south was a period of social reconstruction on a scale not previously seen in American history. The Reconstruction era occurred after the Civil War period, and lasted from 1864 to 1877. The Reconstruction period brought upon an era of Martial Law, a change of social consciousness towards slavery and the rights of African Americans, a New South with closer ties to the North. Emancipated Slaves, Northerners, and White Southerners all had different opinions towards the New South and the new found freedom of the emancipated slaves along with the various concepts of freedom. “We believe our present position is by no means so well understood among the loyal masses of the country, otherwise there would be no delay in granting us the express relief which the nature of the case demands...if duty ratified, can go no further; neither touch, nor can touch the slave codes of the various southern States, and the laws respecting free people of color consequent…are presumed to have lost none of their vitality, but exist as a convenient engine for our oppression…” (“Address from the Colored Citizens of Norfolk, Virginia, to the people of the United States” 407). Many freed slaves after the end of the Civil War still had the feelings of being oppressed by the new governments of the South, largely in regard towards the black codes. Many African Americans felt their new found freedoms were being largely ignored, especially by their Northern neighbors “The people of the North, owing to the greater interest excited by war, have heard little or nothing, for the past four years, of the blasphemous and horrible theories formerly propounded for the defense of human slavery, in the press, the pulpit…” (407) Many also believed that they were treated as second class citizens compared to their white counterparts in the New South, and that the emancipation

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