Reconstructing the Nation
The Civil War ended on April 9, 1865, and the original goal of the North to preserve the Union was accomplished. The task that lay before Lincoln and Congress was to reintegrate the rebellious Southern states into the Union. For many white southerners “Reconstruction was a vicious and destructive experience – a period when vindictive Northerners inflicted humiliation and revenge on a pro-state South.”
In order to prepare for this discussion forum:
Review and identify the relevant sections of Chapters 17 and 18 that support your discussion.
Review and identify relevant information on the linked PBS American Experience site, Reconstruction The Second Civil War
White Men Unite
State by State: Reconstruction timeline
This link will direct you to the full transcript of the Wade-Davis Bill. What does it suggest about the prevailing Reconstruction sentiments in Congress?
Read the section in Chapter 17 which discusses the Black Codes, and the linked site on the Black Codes.
Read the linked document, a selection from The Ills of the South, written by Charles H. Okten, a Mississippi Baptist preacher, and schoolteacher, in which he describes conditions for Black Americans under the sharecropping and crop-lien system.
After you have completed your readings, post your response to ONE of the following questions:
Were the Black Codes another form of slavery?
Sample Solution
Reconstruction (1865-1877) was the effort to reintegrate Southern states from the Confederacy and 4 million newly liberated people into the United States following the Civil War. New southern state legislatures created draconian “Black Codes” to control the labor and behavior of former enslaved people and other African Americans under President Andrew Johnson’s administration in 1865 and 1866. Outrage in the North over the codes weakened support for Presidential Reconstruction, resulting in the victory of the Republican Party’s more radical wing. Radical Reconstruction began in 1867 with the enactment of the Reconstruction Act.
