Era Of Reconstruction: A Narrative Analysis

The Civil War caused the United States to make a decision at the crossroads between freedom and slavery. With the highest number of casualties in any American war, this painful conflict would push the United States to come to a clear answer on where it stood. As Abraham Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free.” The shaky ground that the United States stood upon would need to tumble before it could begin to reshape and rebuild itself. Both sides (the Confederacy and the Union), would suffer losses and America as a whole would suffer economic hardships and tensions lasting hundreds of years. Overall, the Civil War was a huge step in changing the
An “Era of Reconstruction” (578, Shi) as our America: A Narrative History textbook calls it, lasted a little over ten years and aimed to fuse the nation back together while also integrating the four-million freed slaves with those who had enslaved them for hundreds of years. Lincoln’s plan was to peacefully rebuild the nation, allowing “10 percent of those who...swore allegiance to the Constitution and the Union” (583, Shi) to join back, although many people had other ideas of how the nation should come back together. The Freedman’s Bureau was created in 1865 as a means to “assist freedmen and their wives and children” (584, Shi). It gave a hopeful outlook to freedmen; providing education, work contracts, land, medical care, food, clothing, and many other necessities needed in building up a living and a home. With much discrimination still occurring in the nation and restrictions made against the freedmen, reconstruction went to Congress. Congress created three Amendments: the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. These amendments banned slavery, allowed every born and naturalized person a citizen of the United States, prevented people from restricting others to vote based on their color or previous servitude, and overturned the Dred Scott Case. Congress hoped that these amendments would finally clear up any doubt or loopholes regarding the freedom of African
While many freed slaves found homes, land, and were ultimately free, they still faced tension, abuse, and terrorism from those who had formerly enslaved them. In “The Late Convention of Colored Men” published by the New York Times, a group of freedmen addressed the issue of being free yet not having independence, asking for protection from the Union, declaring that in the South, “loyalty is only ‘lip deep’” (New York Times, 445). Many Southerners felt that despite freed slaves being free, they were not the supreme race as were the white Americans. Thus, a group called the Ku Klux Klan arose in an effort to smother the ember of hope for the freedmen. The personal account of Harriet Postle tells of some of the terrors ensued by the Ku Klux Klan where the group, “ran the child back against the wall, and ground a piece of skin off as big as my hand” (Postle, 455). The Ku Klux Klan wanted to shut down freedmen and their supporters, and did so by hurting, scarring, and even killing. In the “Testimony of Lawson B Davis” a former Ku Klux Klan member, the atrocities and inner working of the group are revealed. “Those who belonged to the League were to be visited and warned...If they did not... they were to leave the country, and if they didn’t leave they were to be whipped; and if after this they did not leave, they were to be killed” (Davis, 456). After the Civil War, the reaction to the