A Look at Reconstruction (Post Civil War)

The effects of reconstruction after the civil war, History 100 level.

A Look at Reconstruction

HIS 105

Abstract

Putting back together any country that suffers a civil war has proved to be a rarity in history. North and South Korea, as with North and South Vietnam, are countries so divided and different from each other it is difficult to believe they once shared the same heritage and culture. The North and South of these countries hold completely different beliefs, society and places on the world stage. These countries, where families are separated and each just a heartbeat from going to war with each other, once were a union. America fortunately proved to be different. With burden of the original sin of slavery separating the North and the South our country went to war. Although most believe the war was fought to undo that original sin of slavery, it was not. Seven southern states succeeded from the union after President Lincoln’s election, more threaten to follow. Lincoln did what he had to preserve the union. The Emancipation Proclamation was a result of preserving that union but it was not the primary reason the civil war started. This paper examines questions about slavery, the war, the president, and reconstruction. It is amazing that with the losses that the North and South inflicted against each other that the nation was able to eventually forgive and heal at all.

The addition of the Fourteenth Amendment was a major historical turning point in that America finally lived up to the true meaning of its origin as a country. Although originally written in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”, the meaning of those words finally read true. The four major parts of the fourteenth amendment state the...