Effects of Reconstruction Then and Now

Reconstruction after the Civil War is one thing that right now should be one of our main focuses. As Americans, going into Iraq, it does seem that there is reconstruction underway. What is reconstruction? Why is it often difficult? How does reconstruction change both the way people physically live, and their think? Was the Reconstruction of the South is a good or bad thing? In general is Reconstruction a positive thing, if so under what conditions? The reconstruction of the South is one of the most well know periods of any wars reconstruction. This was a time of rebuilding the physical world, and creating new order by which both the North, and the South which was now part of the Union.

Some steps of the reconstruction after the Civil War involved setting all the slaves free, abolishing Jim Crow Laws, and Ku-Klux-Klan attacks. The problem was that President Andrew Johnson and the South were not able to work together very well. Southern Radicals wanted to lead reconstruction one way, and Johnson wanted to lead it his way. The Radicals were more focused on the slaves, while Johnson was more focused on rejoining the Union. Both sides suffered difficulties. Reconstruction meant that they needed to cleanup the mess, find homes for everybody, and for those who did have homes, it meant making a trip back home and readapting.

Johnson, who was not quite the ideal President, and most likely was not very popular having replaced Lincoln. Many Americans had favored Lincoln as he was the man who brought America out of the Civil War. Where as Johnson was just a replacement who tended to make horrible first impressions. As for the Radicals, they faced problems creating new lifestyles for the blacks, and finding ways to help them and the whites adjust to the new post civil war life

"For we colored people did not know how to be free and the white people did not know how to have a free colored person about them."

Most black salves had been slaves since they were very young and had not know how to live outside of slavery. Most whites were not used to having freed slaves around them as this was not the common mindset and would never completely become a common mindset. The biggest problem of this is that because of the idea that blacks were slave bound there were still people who did not and would not accept this idea, leading to a reform of the KKK which is still fairly active today.

Just like anything else, there were effects brought on from the cause being the war and reconstruction. What troubled many people is the actual war itself. Most people today think of going to war and immediately are against it without any thought to the situation or reason as to why war might be considered because of the violence that occurred in Civil War. The worst part of Reconstruction was that people did not want to change their lifestyle. A modern example of this is the way that many Muslims are anti-American because of the way that America has in a way changed many portions of Muslim countries by force; and these changes are changes to the government which in fact is a Muslim government and upsets many people who are very strongly a Muslim in every way, even for those way that have negative consequences. The other side of this is that there are also a lot of Muslims who tend to like a lot of the change in government to their country.

Alexrod, Alan. The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Civil War. Alpha Books. 2003

Rozwenc, Edwin Charles. Reconstruction In the South. University of Michigan. 1952