Reconstruction

Reconstruction

The aftermath of a long, hard war can be as arduous as the fighting itself. Such is the case with Reconstruction, one of the most volatile peacetime periods in American history. Rebel armies may have surrendered, but the Confederate people did not. The Republican Party in the North may have triumphed, but its power was not unrivaled. Black slaves may have gained their freedom, but they did not enjoy equality. The often violent political, social, and economic struggles that came to characterize Reconstruction should compel any student to consider it an extension of the Civil War. The effects of Reconstruction contributed to segregation (Jim Crow laws) and intense race conflict through most of the twentieth century. Reconstruction, like the Civil War, left a deep imprint on American society and culture.

Reconstruction scholarship exemplifies the period's restlessness. Historians have gone from condemning Reconstruction as a harsh form of punishment to praising it as a noble, albeit failed, experiment in racial justice. In the early 2000s, scholars usually took the middle road, seeing Reconstruction as the product of countless participants whose motives reveal a complex mixture of idealism and self-interest.

Regardless of the various schools of thought, the general purpose of Reconstruction was twofold: The establishment of loyal governments in the former Confederacy, and the assimilation of over four million freed black slaves into American society.

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