Failure to Repair
The Civil War was one of the greatest tragedies that America has ever faced. Because of this war, the nation suffered enormously and the economy went into a downward spiral. Reconstruction was an effort to ‘repair’ the nation after the Civil War when leaders began to try to step up and restore the crippled country. Its objective was the restore the North and South, politically, socially and economically and to allow the South to return to the union. President Lincoln wanted to let the South come back and pay for their actions but republicans wanted to force the, south for causing the war by leaving the Union in the first place. Reconstruction was a success in the sense that is restored the United States as a one again unified …show more content…
But many southerners still treated blacks on their plantations as slaves, using violent punishments such as whipping and talking down to them as if they were inferior. Esteban Monotejo, a runaway slave, recounts a plantation owner he once worked for after the abolition of slavery, “No one liked him. He said the workers were cattle and he kept the same views he had during slavery. Once he ordered all the workers (to have cards) … the cards were slips of paper… with the workers address on. Anyone caught without his card would got a good belting across the shoulders” (Brink 43). Many black Americans decided to return back to working on a plantation for pay, however the white supremacist attitude many southerners had prevented any progression to be made during the Reconstruction period. Plantation owners did not see black Americans as what they truly were…Americans, they still saw them as property with little to no worth that southerns held little to no respect for. Reconstruction was forcibly imposed on the southern states by the government and, as a result, racial attitudes in the south didn’t really evolve during this period. When the government stopped implementing Reconstruction, many southern states quickly went back to their previously way of living before the Civil War
The Civil War was one of the greatest tragedies that America has ever faced. Because of this war, the nation suffered enormously and the economy went into a downward spiral. Reconstruction was an effort to ‘repair’ the nation after the Civil War when leaders began to try to step up and restore the crippled country. Its objective was the restore the North and South, politically, socially and economically and to allow the South to return to the union. President Lincoln wanted to let the South come back and pay for their actions but republicans wanted to force the, south for causing the war by leaving the Union in the first place. Reconstruction was a success in the sense that is restored the United States as a one again unified …show more content…
But many southerners still treated blacks on their plantations as slaves, using violent punishments such as whipping and talking down to them as if they were inferior. Esteban Monotejo, a runaway slave, recounts a plantation owner he once worked for after the abolition of slavery, “No one liked him. He said the workers were cattle and he kept the same views he had during slavery. Once he ordered all the workers (to have cards) … the cards were slips of paper… with the workers address on. Anyone caught without his card would got a good belting across the shoulders” (Brink 43). Many black Americans decided to return back to working on a plantation for pay, however the white supremacist attitude many southerners had prevented any progression to be made during the Reconstruction period. Plantation owners did not see black Americans as what they truly were…Americans, they still saw them as property with little to no worth that southerns held little to no respect for. Reconstruction was forcibly imposed on the southern states by the government and, as a result, racial attitudes in the south didn’t really evolve during this period. When the government stopped implementing Reconstruction, many southern states quickly went back to their previously way of living before the Civil War