Causes of the War

            Differing views on slavery are one of the major reasons for the civil war. The balance of slave and Free states and as that balance was thrown out of order by the compromise of 1850, Missouri compromise, and the rise of popular sovereignty. The fugitive slave acts helped the south but were easily countered by personal liberty laws and the Underground Railroad. These factors caused the anger of the southern states and soon would lead to secession.

            Another of the main reasons for the secession of the southern states was the states rights issue. The south would very much have liked to stay under the articles of confederation, where as now they where governed by a strong federal govt. of the constitution. The tariff of abominations was one particularly alarming issue of states rights where john c. Calhoun used the nullification theory to declare the tariff void within his borders. This almost led to secession but was stopped after the threat of violence by Washington.

            The election of Lincoln in 1860 was the straw that broke the camels back in the secession of the south. Lincoln won most of his fame from the Lincoln-Douglas debates. When Lincoln won the election over Stephen Douglas and the other two candidates the south felt it lost its voice in government and politics and continued to succeed.

Major Battles and Leaders

            Jefferson Davis was the leader of the Confederate States of America. He was a graduate from West Point and a Mexican war veteran. He tried to organize and make the confederacy more powerful after he took power. Stonewall Jackson was a confederate general who served in the Mexican war and was a west point graduate. He fought in several battles but suffered friendly fire and died of pneumonia.

Fort Sumter was the first battle of the civil war and was caused by a miscommunication. Lincoln told the south he was only sending supplies, but the south didn’t believe him and bombarded the fort led by Henry Farley. No one was killed in the attack but this initiated the civil war leading to recruiting on both sides.

The battle of Antietam was the bloodiest battle of the war the confederate general Robert E lee was ambushed. Lee was a distinguished general getting his status from many battles and service in the Mexican war as well as being a top graduate at the United States Military Academy. There was no clear winner of this battle the union did not destroy the Lee’s army, but the invasion of Maryland was ended. Lee’s men only survived due to superior tactics showing an advantage of confederate leadership.

            The battle of Vicksburg was between Union Ulysses Grant and Confederate John C. Pemberton. The battle led on the union side by Ulysses Grant; he was a distinguished veteran of the Mexican war and a graduate of West Point. He led the union army across the Mississippi river and had them hiding in the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. The besieged them for forty days before the garrison surrendered this and the confederate defeat at Gettysburg is considered as the turning point of the war.

            Sherman’s march to the sea was a devastating blow to the south. They destroyed many railroads and transportation rail ways as well as burning Atlanta. They also captured the city of savannah, while on the way there they pillaged and burned the countryside. This was led by union general William T Sherman, an outstanding military genius as well as a businessman, educator, and author.

            The battle of Gettysburg had the largest number of casualties in the American civil war. The first two days of the battle were very even with both losing many men. On the third day the union retreated to the top of cemetery ridge, they had the obvious advantage and mowed down general lee’s army, but the confederates kept coming and when the battle was over there was no clear winner but the north took the lead.

Contrast in the North and South

The Emancipation Proclamation and Gettysburg Address

            The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order given five days after the battle of Antietam. Given by Abraham Lincoln it proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million slaves and immediately freed 50,000 salves, but didn’t give them citizenship. It greatly affected northern and northern controlled slaves but did nothing for slaves owned by the confederacy.

            The Gettysburg address was also given by President Lincoln on Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg. The address was a speech to encourage the soldiers and helped to make the rest of the war possible.

A Soldiers Life

            The soldiers life was a hard one but food was one the most important aspects. They ate jerky, crawdads, eggs, hardtack corn chowder, and they roasted any small birds they could get. The only things they had supply wise was Guns, blanket rolls, dog tents, eating utensils, tin plates and cups, canteens, and maybe a few personal effects. The soldiers were also tormented by disease caused by contaminated water. They suffered from diseases like typhoid, malaria, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. There medicine wasn’t much better than there diseases, there doctors new little, and often used unsterile equipment, or just plain didn’t know what they were doing. Most battlefield wounds were treated with primitive surgery or amputation. These resulted in bad infections so most soldiers refused surgery.

The Life of a Black Slave

            Black slaves where already being recruited as cook, janitors, and firemen on navy boats but weren’t actually recruited into the army until after the Emancipation Proclamation. Then most of the slaves recruited where southern slaves who gladly joined to help their cause. They were supplied almost as good as the northern whites but did have less, whereas in the south they did not start recruiting blacks until one month before the end of the war. The black troops of the south were very poorly supplied and where treated badly.

    The Appomattox Court House

            The Appomattox Court House was the place of the battle of the Appomattox Court House, where the confederacy surrendered on April 9th 1865 after they were cut off on their escape plan to get to North Carolina army after abandoning the confederate capital. A treaty of surrender was made between Grant and Lee. Grant made a generous treaty allowing them to not be imprisoned or prosecuted for treason as well as take home their horses and mules to carry out the spring planting. They also gave Lee’s starving army rations.

Presidential Reconstruction VS Congressional Reconstruction

            This happened in the period of Reconstruction which took place in the southern United States from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until 1877. There was to kinds presidential which was a reconstruction plan that included bring back confederate states into the union and to outlaw slavery and then congressional which is a plan for reconstruction opposed by Lincoln and vetoed by him after it went through congress which wanted to pay loyal owners and demanded civil rights for freedmen, such as measures ensuring suffrage.

The war in Iraq is perhaps one of the most criticized war in the history of America. It was not only met with critics outside the US, but also from the home front. It was a war that gained absolutely no legitimacy. At least in Afghanistan they had an excuse and the world supported them then. It was waged on the pretext that there would be weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, but it turns out, there was not a single weapon found. There was no excuses for the United States. The Iraqis were not involved in 9/11, Osama Bin Laden was not hiding in Iraq, Iraq did not finance 9/11 and nothing could be traced back to Iraq.

Except Britain, nobody helped the US in its war in Iraq. NATO had made it very clear that it would have nothing to do with America’s whims and fancies. In fact, France was dead against having a war waged in Iraq. The only countries who would give some form of assistance were the Kuwaitis and the Saudis.

Operation Iraqi Freedom as they called it, launched in 2003, was a military success no doubt. The preceding 1991 Gulf War had already rendered Saddam Hussein’s Iraq absolutely crumbled. Many of his soldiers had abandoned and surrendered to the Americans, their weaponry was captured or destroyed and his economy crumbled due to the crippling sanctions put against him and his regime. It would be wrong to claim that it was easy to invade Iraq, but nevertheless, it was made easier due to the weakening of the Saddam regime.

The real problem, however, started when the Americans secured Iraq militarily and had managed to remove Saddam from power. The problem was the after-effects of the war and the reconstruction of Iraq.

To begin with, the war started off with disapproval. George Bush managed to get the legitimacy to invade Iraq by a small margin. This created a sense of disagreement.

Iraq had already been attacked to its limits and the war had made it all the more worse. On top of that, America made several mistakes when it came to Iraq and the post-invasion revival was a nightmare precisely due to this reason.

To start with, the invasion was not planned well. Militarily speaking, the invasion went well and the country was secured in the hands of the Americans. They had planned to enter Iraq, find the Weapons of Mass Destruction and find Saddam Hussein. What would happen after America and its allies invaded Iraq was not considered. The plans for reconstruction wasn’t given enough priority. It was all about the military campaign.

Secondly, they did not get the right people for the Iraqi reconstruction. This was a Republican war, not an American war. The Democrats back in the United States was not on board with the idea of invading Iraq. The Iraqis had made it all the more difficult by not complying with the UN completely. When they did invade Iraq, the people that were recruited for the reconstruction were people who toed the line of the Republican party and not real experts. Middle East experts and Arabists had clearly warned the Republicans not to invade Iraq and that is precisely what the Republicans did.

This is perhaps the biggest reasons of America’s failure in Iraq. We see people who were in their 20’s who had just graduated college with absolutely no experience in their fields. Right then, they are assigned herculean tasks like setting up stock exchanges, figuring out their healthcare system and overhauling it and other such big tasks.

Thirdly, the lack of communication between the White House and the Americans on the ground in Iraq was another problem. President Bush had assigned Paul Bremer as the governor of Iraq on behalf of the Coalition Provisional Authority which was in charge of the Iraqi reconstruction. The White House bestowed all powers on him and they trusted him. He did not inform the White House about every single decision he took. He just took them and informed the White House later. This also caused some amount of friction between Paul Bremer and the Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield and Colin Powell as well.

He made some really controversial decisions which could have been avoided had Bremer properly consulted the White House and its panel of experts. Especially the decision where he disbanded the Iraqi army through a CPA order. Had it not been for this decision, then perhaps the insurgency in Iraq wouldn’t have been so bad today.

As a result of that decision, many soldiers in the Republican Army of Saddam joined the insurgency. It was a very dishonourable and disrespectful decision and as a result, the soldiers joined the insurgency to fight the American rule. Had the army remained in place, then it could have been used to fight the already existing insurgency.

Fourthly, the decision to impose democracy by invading it was a mistake made by the Americans. Iraqis were not prepared for democracy, the experts had warned the Republicans about this and they ignored it. They needed this as an excuse to invade Iraq so that they could bring “democracy, liberty and freedom to the people of Iraq”. All of it sounded really good to people and made it sound just. The Iraqis were used to autocratic rule for years and years and suddenly thrusting them with democracy was not a wise move. Besides, as we have seen, the power sharing arrangements were a mess and to date, they haven’t been able to get consensus.

All these mistakes by the Americans have cost them dear and their war in Iraq is more or less a failure.

Copyright © 2011 Ashwath Komath

http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/face_soon_revealed_1_1001764

Simon of Sudbury was a 14th-century former Archbishop of Canterbury who was beheaded by angry peasants but has had his face revealed to the world 630 years after the event.

http://taf.live.mediaspanonline.com/assets/109805/Simon–608-x-506-.jpg

This medieval cleric now stares dumbly at visitors to the Sudbury Church St. Gregory’s in Suffolk, where alongside the original skull, the amazingly detailed 3-D model is on display permanently, next to the skull from which it was recreated.  

http://simonofsudbury.weebly.com/3-dimensional-clay-facial-reconstruction.html

People seeing this sculpture have understandably compared the face to that of Shrek, the bishop obviously quite a big man, as University of Dundee forensic artist Adrienne Barker commented. He had been Bishop of London and Chancellor of Salisbury before being made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1375, crowning King Richard II in 1377 at Westminster Abbey.

In 1340 named Lord Chancellor of England, mild-mannered and gentle Simon became hated by peasants who felt him guilty of putting the third poll tax on their shoulders, Simon meeting a grisly end during the Great Rising of 1381.

http://simonofsudbury.weebly.com/3-dimensional-clay-facial-reconstruction.html

Rebels participating the Peasant’s Revolt stormed the Tower of London, dragging him to Tower Hill, beheading him and placing their trophy on a Tower Bridge spike. A Sudbury man allegedly rescued the head and returned to the village in a barrel of brine.

Simon had his body buried in Canterbury Cathedral, but the head has always been kept at St. Gregory’s Church.  Barker did CT scans of the skull in order to properly reconstruct the archbishop’s face, making a cast before sticking in wooden pegs, at desired tissue lengths on the corresponding points, which she then covered with layers of clay, making the final touches simulating skin and tissue.

Facial features like ears, nose, lips, eyelids and eyebrows and ears were modelled in accordance with the skull shape, the odd-shaped skull relatively small for a man his age, yet he was actually quite a large man, or so it appears. Fascinating really, seeing this iconic figure of ancient times resurrected in this way.

http://simonofsudbury.weebly.com/3-dimensional-clay-facial-reconstruction.html

The Civil War began when seven states broke away from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America with Jefferson Davis as their president. Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia joined South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Virginia had to be different, for West Virginia remained with the Union, and East Virginia seceded to the Confederacy.

It was the bloodiest war in American history, and fought entirely on American soil, it resulted in about 600,000 deaths.

In 1860, Abraham Lincoln took office and made it clear his main concern was preserving the Union, not ending slavery.

Southern politicians referred to cotton, as ‘King Cotton, when the Civil War began, cotton made up 60% of American exports roughly 200 million a year. The Confederates used Europe’s reliance on American cotton and refused to export cotton to Europe which they thought would force them to intervene and end the war, instead Europe turned to India and Egypt for their cotton needs.

On April 18, 1865 the Civil War ended with the Confederate army surrendering. The deaths of Americans who died in the war were in the thousands – 617,000 approximately. It was just about the same number of all other wars combined in America.

The 13th Amendment was passed on January, 1865. It abolished slavery in the U.S, and at the end of the war, four million African Americans were free. Former slaves by the thousands traveled the south searching for separated loved ones. Former slaveholders faced emancipation with rage and despair.

Men and women, black and white in the North and South began the work of rebuilding the shattered union and creating a new social order. This period in time was called Reconstruction, it held many promises and disappointments. This was the beginning of a struggle that still exists today in many states, as well as parts of the world.

Two new amendments were added to the Constitution. The 14th Amendment passed in June 1865 granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States.

The 15th Amendment was passed on February 1869, it guaranteed no American would be denied the right to vote because of race. Many African Americans this right was short-lived. After Reconstruction they would be denied their legal right to vote in many states until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

As embroiled as Barak Obama is currently in the Nation’s worst Debt Crisis in it’s history, The President would do well to call upon the Spirits of the many Black Political Predecessors, whose talent, tenacity and drive made great contributions to America’s Federal Government. Here’s an inspiring list of many great African Americans who have served well:

Thwarting the aims of the Ku Klux Klan, the secret society of White terrorists seeking the restoration of White Supremacy in the southern states, Joseph Haynes Rainey (1832 – 1887), the first Black seated in the U.S. House of Representatives, enforced the 1871 federal which curbed the Klan’s activities. Ebenezer D.Bassett (1833 – 1908) The country’s first Black Diplomat and dean of the American Diplomatic Core. Appointed minister to Haiti and the Dominican Republic by President Ulysses S. Grant based on letters of recommentations from, among others, his Yale University Professors. Hamilton Fish, U.S. Secretary of State, “wished one-half of his ministers abroad performed their duties as well as Mr Bassett”

Robert Smalls (1839 – 1915) One moonless spring night, the crew of the Confederate ship Planter docked at Charleston Harbor for some R and R. One crew member had smuggled his wife and two children aboard and carried out his bold plan to highjack the vessel and escape to the North with a few Civilian friends. Smalls succeded in delivering the vessel to the Union Navy. Officers said “…Robert Smalls is superior to any seaman to have come into our lines!” Smalls was awarded $1,500 and appointed a U.S. Navy Pilot. Smalls was elected to congress from South Carolina, ser ving until 1887.

Blanche Kelso Bruce (1841 – 1898) Born in slavery on a Farmville, Va. plantation, Bruce climbed to prominence on his intelligence and ambition, receiving his early tutoring from his master’s sons tutor. Arriving in the State of Mississippi with only 75 cents, Bruce climbed the ladder of public service; Tax Assesor, Sherrif, School Super and Alderman. The Mississippi State legislature elected Bruce to the U.S. Senate in 1874 and he took his seat when barely 34 years old. Archibald Henry Grimke’ (1849 – 1930) In 1874, Grmke became the ssecond Black to led earn a law degree from Harvard. Grimke’s political experience led to President Grover Cleveland to appoint him Consul to the Dominican Republic from 1894 to 1898. Grimke was able to make a significant impact as a lawyer, editor,author, consul and civil rights leader.

It would be George H. White (1852 – 1918), bearing witness to the discouraging story of the Black rise to political power during reconstruction after the American Civil War and the loss of that power to southern Whites and Jim Crow, who prophesized the coming of Oscar S. DePriest (1871 – 1951) DePriest became both the first 20th Century Black to be elected to congress, and the first Northerner. DePriest acquired the nationallypower that political patronage brought in Chicago as part of Mayor William (Big Bill) Thompson’s Political Machine. In 1928, he would become the first Black Congressman since Reconstruction. In 1934, DePriest lost his Congressional seat to another Black man, Arthur W. Mitchell, who was swept into office as a supporter of Democrat  Franklin D. Roosevelt.

When Massachusetts voters elected Edward W. Brooke (1919 – ) to the U.S. Senate in 1966, they voted on his record, not his race. If race had been a determining factor, Brooke would have never become the first elected u.s. Senator in our history. Brooke became the first black to sit in the U.S. Senate in this country. He won his seat by a margin of 400,000 votes! Yvonne Brathwaite Burke (1932 - ) Had only 2 factors against her above average good looks, intelligence and ambition; she was Black and she was a woman. After 2 years of volunteer work for Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey, she defeated six White men in the Democratic primary race for the State of California’s General Assembly, although called a Communist and a Black Militant. Burke retired after a successful Congressional career in 1979.

Barbara Charlene Jordan (1936 -  ) In 1956, Jordan graduated magna cum laudae from Texas Southern University in Houston, with a major in political science and history, and with a reputation as a winning debater. In 1972, Jordan moved onto the national scene, winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives and becoming the first Black congresswoman from the Deep South. As a Committe member, Jordan became nationally known and was among the first of those who signed impeachment articles against President Richard Nixon in 1974.

Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (1908 – 1972) Lest we be remiss, and forget; This unconventional and sometimes controversial Negro Leader left his mark on a large number of labor and education reforms. Powell was elected to Congress in 1944, suceeded in creating a large political machine of his own. Powell was outspoken about discrimination, and spent 26 years fighting racial bias on all fronts. (See 1964 Civil Rights Ominbus Bill, signed by Lyndon B. Johnson) Powell was a leader who defined Black Power as “a dynamic process of continuous change toward a society of true equals.” Would that Obama might call on a double dose of all these Spirits!

Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox courthouse assured the federal government supremacy over the established states. Before the war the republicans were a majority in congress and after the victory over the south, they were politically dominant giving the north advantage over the south in terms of new developments such as Freedmen’s Bureau. Clash between Johnson and congress ensued when he passed the Black Codes as freedom of the blacks in the south hung in the balance. Black votes led the republican candidate Ulysses S. Grant to victory in the bloody shirt campaign in 1868 because they believed that he won the war for them liberating them. Carpetbaggers who came to the south under federal protection made money of the reconstruction leading to the era of good stealings where corruption ran rampant. Towards this time many tried to get rich and one such scandal was the credit mobilier where the union pacific railroad company hired their own to raise dividends, which hindered economic growth undermining the government. The civil war impacted many people’s lives as the Grant’s eight years of presidency was marred by business corruption leading to dislike of political parties and even further splits namely the Liberal republicans. It also led to the first depression, deflation and inflation after the war where thousands of businesses went bankrupt. Due to the inflation hard silver money was issued by congress, which failed and led to gold standards; then exchanged from Greenback to gold assured the Democrats victory over the finance. This was called the Gilded age because of the instability of the house and party, which premiered the next election in 1876, which was won by Rutherford B. Hayes. During this time because of the second industrial revolution, industries of oil and steel began to grow; businesses became complex organizations and the Transcontinental was built. Over all despite the scrapes, the civil war helped the north to increase in new developments as politically and economically strong.

During the times of reconstruction and the gilded age, both the north and the south faced difficulties as they both had to convince each other to trust themselves in matters concerning finance and politics. The presidents who were in office during these slow and productive yet perilous years did not could not work in unison with congress to complete the reconstruction, as their rash policies caused much distrust between the south and north leading to new problems rising from old wounds. Scandals during president Grant’s term caused by far the worst effects of the war as many tried to get rich involving any methods further, hampering progress. The economic crisis of 1873 further sank Grant’s presidential term in to the quick sand as economic anarchy was on the brink of release with thousands out of jobs. While these plagued the north, southern supremacists used formed their own chains of violence such as the Ku Klux Klan, which terrorized the blacks who voted and also white republicans. Cotton was no longer king but was dethroned and the south had to find new ways to form their economy. Southern racism with merged with political corruption and economic collapse in 1873 paralyzed the south. Reconstruction was hated and thus havoc was wreaked as the south issued law after law like the Black codes to subdue freed blacks from voting giving the north an advantage because of the extra votes. Despite all these maladies, the nation united to form a leading power by the time of the Spanish -American war proving to the world what it aspired for.

Grant’s victory over Lee sealed the fate of the south. With the federal government in charge and the north dominating, the south received what it asked for. The collapse of the confederacy left the south with nothing but a decimated government and charred cotton fields. The Democrats before the war were a handful in congress and after it, they were virtually had no representation since they seceded from the union. Thus when Johnson became president it seemed the south had a chance but one of the key political effects of the war was putting the republicans from the north in congress, dampening the hopes of the southerners. Since Abraham Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation abolishing slavery, three and a half million slaves were freed resulting in utter political and economical chaos. When Johnson continued Lincoln’s reconstruction plan biased for the south, republican congress dismissed it; an example of one was the Black Codes. Meant for the regulation of Black political and economical activity, the codes issued by Mississippi, which was sanctioned by Johnson; but was rejected by congress that knew and expected their votes in the upcoming elections. With all the slaves free, vast pompous plantations were depleted of labor force injuring the south because of the lack of mechanical industrialization like the north. New developments for the betterment of the south were hampered because of the 14th and 15th amendment and the birth of the KKK led by Nathan Bedford Forrest.  But despite these problems northern carpetbaggers came to invest in the south and started to build an economy. The civil war, led to the abolition of slavery which in turn led to Tenancy and sharecropping as a new method of jobs. Transportation was increased by the compromise of 1877 as the south was promised a transcontinental railroad. New developments were slower in the south because of the racial tensions; which caused them to distrust the government and weakened the economic strength. With the republicans winning the presidential campaign, the southern democrats had no chance improving their conditions; which form the time period of 1865 to 1900. jose

Over all from the time period of 1865 to 1900 new political and economic developments were made, as with out which America could not have entered on the forefront of the world scene in world war one. Even though it seemed as if problems exceeded solutions, new developments were made in the north and south both politically and economically which solely were derived from the civil war. The civil war had led to a renewed start for America consolidating it territories once and for all. Key amendments such as the 13th 14th and the 15th were sanctioned by the states and despite the hardships it succeeded.  With out a civil warm, American would not have been what it is today- a super power.

I.  The Problems of Peacemaking

            A.  Aftermath of War & Emancipation

                        1.  South desolate & destroyed – whites w/o slaves & broke

                        2.  Black southerners: 3-1/2 million homeless freedmen.

            B.  Competing Notions of Freedom

                        1.  Black desire for independence from white control

                                    a.  own land

                                    b.  legal equality                       

c.  own churches

                                    d.  have their own schools

                        2.  Whites wanted local autonomy & white supremacy preserved

            C.  Freemen’s Bureau

                        1.  distributed food & aid to former slaves

                        2.  established schools and hospitals

                        3.  settle blacks on land of their own when possible

                        4.  handle civil complaints and protect freedmen’s rights

                        5.  Was it successful?  Why, why not, or mixed reviews?

II.  Plans for Reconstruction

A.     Conservatives – abolition only change

B.     Moderates – abolition & some assistance & rights for freedmen.

C.     Radicals – abolition, equal rights & federal protection for freedmen, land reform,

disenfranchisement of Confederate whites

D.    Lincoln’s plan (1863)

Was to give general amnesty to southern whites as long as they pledged loyalty to the government and accepted the abolishment of slavery

E.     Wade-Davis Bill (1864)

Said that governors had to be looked over by the president, hold a constitutional conference, and then they would be accepted back

It was passed by congress but vetoed by Lincoln

F.     Johnson’s plan (‘til Dec. 1865) – a.k.a. “Restoration”, or “presidential Reconst’n”

Adopted lots of ideas from the wade davis bill

III.  Radical Reconstruction (after Dec., 1867)

A.     Black Codes (pp376-377) –

1. officials could arrest unemployed blacks

2. fine them

3. hire them out to other loaners

4. prevented them from leasing farms

B.     Congress responds to Black Codes, & overrides Johnson’s vetoes (1866)

Civil Rights Act of 1866 – declared blacks as citizens and gave permission for federal government to get involved

C.     The 14th Amendment –

1.     Citizenship for Af-Am

2.     What fraction of states must approve?

3.     Ascension of Radicals

D.  Congressional Plan for Reconstruction (1867) – pp378-379

1.     15th Amendment – forbade people from forbidding someone to vote based on race

2.     Tenure of Office Act – passed by the radicals, the president couldn’t take any civil rights worker out of the government

D.    Impeachment of Andrew Johnson (was he convicted by the Senate?)

No.

IV.  The South in Reconstruction

A.     The Reconstruction Governments

1.     Scalawags – republican southern whites

2.     Carpetbaggers – northerners who looked to the south as a place of progress

3.     Freedmen

a.     Freedmen in politics – were involved but didn’t hold positions

b.     record of Reconstruction governments

B.     Education

Public schools were started. There were black academies. Over 10% of the black children were educated

C.     Landownership and Tenancy

1.     Land Reform Thwarted

2.     Still some land reform

a. white lost

b.

                        3.  Rapid Growth of Sharecropping

D.    Incomes and Credit – the “Crop-lien System”

Most people were in debt

E.     The African-American Family in Freedom

Wanted to be recognized as married

V.  The Grant Administration (1869-1877)

            A.  The Soldier President

1.     How was Grant elected in 1868?

Easily, as a republican but was nominated by both, the republican and the democrat parties

2.     Problems in his administration

Credit mobiller

Whiskey ring

3.     Election of 1872 & “Liberal Republicans”

Green back question

Liberal republicans were created soley to make sure grant wasn’t reelected

B.   The Grant Scandals

            1.  Credit Mobilier

the company who made the union pacific railroad got millions from it so to keep people in congress quiet they gave them some stock, but congress investigated and found out who those people were

3.     The “Whiskey Ring”

Some officers were forging documents to get out of paying taxes

            C.  Republican Diplomacy

                        1.  Purchase of Alaska

                        “Seward’s Folly”

                        2.  “Alabama Claims” Resolved

                                    done by Fish.

VI.  The Abandonment of Reconstruction

A.     Southern “Redeemers”

1.     The KKK

Terrorized blacks

2.     The Enforcement Acts

Prohibited states of voting descrimination and government was able to persecute those who didn’t obey the law

B.     Waning Northern Commitment

C.    The Compromise of 1877

D.    The Legacy of Reconstruction

1.     Lasting Contributions

2.     Limits

VII.  The New South – whites & the Democratic Party, & how the South altered some of the

                                    ways the framers of the Comp of 1877 had hoped.

A.     The “Redeemers” (or “Bourbons”) & “Home Rule”

B.     Industrialization & the “New South”

1.     Railroad Development

2.     Worker Exploitation

C.     African Americans & the New South – Booker T. Washington’s message:

B. T. Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise Speech”

D.    The Birth of Jim Crow

1.     Civil Rights Cases of 1883

2.     Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

3.     Black Disenfranchisement (& Jim Crow Laws)

4.     Ida B. Wells

After the Civil War in 1865, Congress began Reconstruction in the South. This, among other things, had in mind giving rights and citizenship to former slaves. Such amendments as the 13th, the 14th, and the 15th aimed to cement into the Constitution African American rights and suffrage. In 1877, Reconstruction ended as Rutherford B. Hayes took up the presidency, as part of the deal that allowed him to take the presidency was that he would withdraw federal troops from the South. With these troops gone, the blacks no longer had any friends in the South – and so the South did with them as they pleased. It really is difficult to claim that the blacks were better off after the Civil War.

                The result of the end of Reconstruction was the birth of the “Jim Crow” system in the South, whose immediate affects were numerous. The loss of black rights and suffrage, though not officially announced, meant that any black that attempted to assert his/her rights faced unemployment, eviction, and physical danger. There, naturally, was also a reduced voter turnout for blacks at the polls as those that voted faced the possibility of death. Given the loss of political power, blacks were now also forced into sharecropping and tenant farming. Former slaves now found themselves serving their former masters who were “landlords” and “creditors,” and in constant debt to them.

                Long-term results of the “Jim Crow” system in the South were also numerous. Informal separation in the years after the Civil War later turned into systematic, state-level laws that authorized segregation in the South and overall racism towards blacks increased, both of which would last for over a century. Segregation was later enforced in the Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), provided that whites and blacks had equal but separate facilities – needless to say, the equality condition was not upheld. The South also passed literacy requirements for voters, voter-registration laws, and poll taxes to ensure that blacks would be unable to vote. These removed the possibility of a black politician for nearly a century to come.

                The sharecropping system was so difficult to overcome due to the fact that it favored the whites. It was, in essence, no different from the master-slave system in the pre-Civil War South. Largely, the only difference now was that the tenant or sharecropper could face eviction if he/she did not meet his quota (before, the slave faced whipping). The sharecropper also faced manipulative merchants and storekeepers – through a “crop-lien” system; storekeepers extended credit to small farmers for food and supplies and as an exchange received a portion of their cotton harvest. This system could easily be abused in favor of the merchant/store keeper – and it was – which could then keep the sharecropper in a permanent debt.

                Immediately after the Civil War, blacks were certainly better off. They had just received their freedom, and not long later they received citizenship and its associated rights, suffrage, and help with education. They also had federal protection both politically in Congress (the Republicans were their friends, and they also had black senators and congressmen) and locally with federal troops. However, with the end of Reconstruction, they lost most, if not all of these benefits. To begin with, blacks after the Civil War were never economically independent – the end of Reconstruction and the birth of the Jim Crow system made cemented this fact. Now, they no longer had rights due to the fact white Democrats were in power in the South, and could in no way assert their rights.

            Andrew Johnson’s relationship with Congress and the South played a part in his impeachment. Part of the problem with the relationship with the President and the republicans in congress was the fact that the President was a southern democrat who had no interest what so ever with working in compliance with the northern republicans of congress and had no real intentions of continuing reconstruction as intended by Lincoln. Johnson’s relation with the radical republicans can be summed up by “His radical foes denounced him as a trickster, a culprit, a man touched with insanity, corrupted with lust, stimulated with drink” (pg 8).  There was a constant tension between congress and the President. Because congress at the time was mostly comprised of radical northern republicans the government was in a constant battle, an internal turmoil; a republican congress verses their democratic president. A major issue was reconstruction, and both sides had a different idea on the matter. Because of the resistance between the two, the president vetoed all that was presented to him by congress. The president’s relationship with the south was different and was divided. He himself came from the white working class. He hated rich southern land owners, which is why they had to beg to be readmitted. While he hated these people he shared many of the same beliefs that the former slaves should not hold too much power, or rise up so much so that they take away from the working class whites. While he favored with the south it was with only parts of the south. These relationships contributed to Johnson’s problems with reconstruction due to the fact that the country was not on the same page in trying to reconstruct the country. Like the fact that was stated before that Congress and the President had different views on reconstruction. Because he was against congress “disapproving bills” and Johnson literally became the force stopping the ability for the reconstruction aimed for by Lincoln.

            Reconstruction would have differed if Lincoln was still alive and was not assonated, due to the Lincolns way of thinking. He would have based his decisions and decided the best course of actions that were best for the country as a whole and that would help reconstruction because he believed “public opinion in this country is everything.” (pg 3) Much of what congress wanted to do and the bills they wanted to pass were denied by Johnson. If Lincoln was alive most likely more of the bills presented by congress would be passed and enforced. This is because Lincoln was a republican and congress was trying to create a type of reconstruction that Lincoln would have approved of and supported. If this was the case congress and the president would not be separated and reconstruction would not have to be derived from pure congressional reconstruction. Reconstruction would have held on to its promises. By this I mean when the land that the landowners lost was given to the freedmen. However while Johnson was president this did not last; he allowed for former landowners to take back their land, betraying the promises to the freedmen.

It had been the intention of Abraham Lincoln to reunite America by letting the South back in with no repercussions at all except for a simple loyalty oath, which was literally like going to city hall and taking a quick test. Forgiveness. That was the name of the game. As bitter rivals of Western Europe and Manchuria and such watched to see what kind of catastrophe our “absurd” vision of freedom and democracy could bring out, Sherman’s raid towards Atlanta was the “You Didn’t Catch Hussein” of their day. To a lot of people, we lost even though we won.

This made every northerner decide “what the hell, we might as well tear the South a new one and make all the tools slaves”. Everybody except Lincoln. And this is why when John Wilkes Booth killed Lincoln, he did more damage to the South then even Lincoln did.

With the South in ruins, Congress would immediately separate the old Confederacy into five regions, with Union soldiers overrunning each one. They stood on street corners in Jackson and Baton Rouge and Tallahassee with loaded bayoneted rifles, ushering the people along on their way. 

Almost every local and state election in the south was rigged in favor of black candidates who the union soldiers would offer free bodyguard service to. Sometimes a black dude would point at white dudes in suspenders who looked at him wrong and go “beat his ass”, and then it would happen!

For Congress it was simple — revenge.

Andrew Johnson will not play ball.

And so they impeach him.

Congress replaces Johnson with Ulysses S. Grant, whose alcoholism had only gotten worse since accumulating two wars worth of traumatic memories in Mexico as a young lieutenant and in the Civil War as the top general following H.W. Hallack in 1864. Grant didn’t feel like getting out of bed most days now. And so, Congress would operate unheeded with old war buddies of Grant’s into building a south consisting of pounding the shit out of the last remaining “seccesh” element like bug spray.

The problem is…these antebellum folks never went away, and worse, blacks were very seriously taking over their cherished state governmental regimes.

The KKK formed.

The Black Codes were made.

Sharecroppers could become slave-owners again simply due to the fact that blacks had almost nowhere else to go. This was why it never mattered to northern tools that slaves were about to be freed and need work — all you had to was not hire them anyway.

Reconstruction was a joke. Congress would take hefty bribes from whiskey dealers which is why every thriving legal industry in the old south today is essentially a) whiskey distilleries and b) cigarette factories.

People wonder why blacks didn’t simply leave the south. Well, there’s tools all over YOUR neighborhood, right? Are you planning on moving anytime soon?

So around now it’s 1877 and all the Union troops go home. What a great time to do so.

Now with the South in ruins and blacks making a mass exodus up north as well as 2 million Irish immigrants due to a fungus that contaminated their potato crop back home, America saw it’s first incidence of white flight. No suburbs yet…instead they would go out west to these new territories that had lots of space. The western United States at this time, since the gold rush and the exploratory expeditions of the Oregon Trails, was populated before it was developed and governed. At first it seemed like a welcome difference from yet another place where a bunch of dorks come and spend all day preaching and setting stupid rules. But the west would grow lawless and nasty. Loose towns would be formed with appointed sheriffs who were raised in the town and would quickly grant all their friends access to everything the way Grant was. People would routinely try to shoot the sheriff but leave the deputy alone as to give the next in line to run the town a reason to cower as he did so. This is why Bob Marley shot the sheriff, but did not shoot no deputy.

The American West was also the last stop for nearly the entire remaining Native American population. The young were put in nativity camps and made to cut their hair, taught English customs, and given Christian names.

1890

Next up for Dork Vomit was  to try to funnel away all the gold for themselves by turning the rest of the country onto “silver”.

Yet silver was in fact usable, and thus it became a way for poor people to fight the rich politically. Silverists vs. goldists. Or something like that.

Some places would not accept silver. Well la-dee-da you smelly gold-digging creatures from the 19th century.

Politicians for these last twenty-five years had made alot of empty promises. The military-industrial complex had taken the form of a salesman posing as an agent, what with industry collapsing, and the military still reeling from their best soldiers’ homes being burned down by Sherman. And so they would come up with a plan — bring the South back into the spirit of fighting for Washington…by aiming to loot another country’s possessions on account of nothing except them having different color skin.

The South was aboard. Yeeee-haah!!!

And thus the Spanish-American War.

Spanish territory in the South Pacific.

It was not a popular move. And thus, though acquiring Guam, the Phillipines, Hawaii and Western Samoa…McKinley would be shot by a man named Leon Czogolz who more than proudly explained his motive — this was no longer a country he could believe in.

The message, coming from an assassin of a president, would be intentionally ignored. And thus it was perhaps no surprise or wonder that McKinley’s successor would be the most imperial-minded territory grabber that ever entered the White House…Theodore Roosevelt.

End of Part 6 of 25