Civil War Analysis Assignment | Get Paper Help

Write a one-two paragraph forum post (1 page) in response to the following prompt:

This week’s material focuses on the struggle to bring back the Union following the Civil War. It was, in many ways, more of a revolution than our War for Independence. That can be seen in the competing approaches to Reconstruction detailed in your Discussion Forum Information.

Using your assigned material and your text, create a post responding to the question: did the South actually win the Civil War? In drafting this post, please focus on the material you were assigned; but remember, to fully grasp that position you should also review the other positions.  Provide specific examples and at least one quote from the material.

Reconstruction Amendments

Historical Context

With the surrender of the Confederate states and the end of the Civil War, Congress needed to set the terms under which the seceded states would return to the Union. After four long years of war, Congress also had to address the controversial issues that brought the nation to war in the first place. These included slavery and civil rights. Congress proposed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution to address the issues of freedom and citizenship, and required ratification of the first two for readmission to the Union.

The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments are known as the “Reconstruction Amendments”.  They were adopted between 1865 and 1870 in an effort to establish equality for black Americans.

• The Thirteenth Amendment, adopted in 1865, abolishes slavery or involuntary servitude except in punishment for a crime.
• The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, defines all people born in the United States as citizens, requires due process of law, and requires equal protection to all people.
• The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, prevents the denial of a citizen’s vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

But passing Constitutional Amendments didn’t address the practical reality of returning the Confederate States to the Union, or the challenges facing North and South alike after the end of slavery. By 1865 there were sharp differences of opinion about the rights of freedmen and the governance of the defeated Southern states among political leaders in Congress and the Executive Branch in Washington, DC. Conflict among Republicans, Radical Republicans, and Democrats led to an all-out political war between President Andrew Johnson and members of Congress.

Radical Republican Plan for Reconstruction material

Historical Context

After northern voters rejected Johnson’s policies in the congressional elections in late 1866, Republicans in Congress took firm hold of Reconstruction in the South. The following March, again over Johnson’s veto, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which temporarily divided the South into five military districts and outlined how governments based on universal (male) suffrage were to be organized. The law also required southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment, which broadened the definition of citizenship, granting “equal protection” of the Constitution to former slaves, before they could rejoin the Union. In February 1869, Congress approved the 15th Amendment (adopted in 1870), which guaranteed that a citizen’s right to vote would not be denied “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

By 1870, all of the former Confederate states had been admitted to the Union, and the state constitutions during the years of Radical Reconstruction were the most progressive in the region’s history. African-American participation in southern public life after 1867 would be by far the most radical development of Reconstruction, which was essentially a large-scale experiment in interracial democracy unlike that of any other society following the abolition of slavery. Blacks won election to southern state governments and even to the U.S. Congress during this period. Among the other achievements of Reconstruction were the South’s first state-funded public school systems, more equitable taxation legislation, laws against racial discrimination in public transport and accommodations and ambitious economic development programs (including aid to railroads and other enterprises).

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