Reconstruction: A Doomed Idea From the Beginning

             After the defeat of the Confederate forces in the Civil War, and their "acceptance" back into America, something needed to be done to help the newly abolished slaves, and to rebuild and reconstruct the remains of the South. This period after the war was deemed Reconstruction. The main focus of it was to help the ex-slaves establish a life and for the South to accept them as free citizens. But, since the originator of this idea was assassinated, Lincoln, the job was left in the hands of a variety of new people which had their own ideals which often times did not go well with or contradicted the original idea. Most Southerners or Northerners did not accept Reconstruction from the start, and very few supported it; this is what caused it to fail.
             The Civil War's original goal was to preserve the "Union." As the war progressed though, the intentions of the war turned to destroying the South. Since it was strongly dependent on its agricultural economy, the new goal was to destroy their economy so they could no longer afford to continue the war. Destroying their source of labor, slaves, did this. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery at the end of the war, and many of the slaves became free by joining the Union army even before that. This caused the need for some sort of program to help assimilate these new people after the war. Of course, it was not surprising that they were not generally accepted into society considering they were once thought of as property. This is where Reconstruction comes in. Reconstruction was meant to help these ex-slaves to become established citizens and part of society. But many people did not want them to become part of society to begin with. The main support for Reconstruction came from Abraham Lincoln and the Radical Republicans, but many were against it. Because of the lack of acceptance by many of the influential persons of the time, it was tough to make advances fo...

More Essays:

APA     MLA     Chicago
Reconstruction: A Doomed Idea From the Beginning. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 05:19, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/100051.html