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Oscar Marquez

Williamson Paige

AP U.S. History

November 7, 2019

Reconstruction After the Civil War

Escalating the sectionalism that circulated throughout the northern and southern region of

the United States in the nineteenth century; the controversy regarding African Americans’

position within society provoked a secession, comprising of southern states, to formulate their

own government, namely the Confederate States of America, therefore, the Union, supported by

northern states, was reluctant to allow its dismantling. Subsequently, this altercation prompted a

Civil War from 1861 to 1865 with the success of the Union, however, the post-war results were

devastating, as the southern region of the United States suffered immensely due to a large portion

of male casualties and complete destruction of the southern infrastructure which ceased the

productivity of the southern states. Following the Civil War of 1861 to 1865, the Union was

strict in enforcing the assimilation of African Americans into society, including the imposition of

legal rights such as the Thirteen Amendment to the United States Constitution, and others, in

order to secure equality and a reasonable opportunity for prosperity for both black and white

subjects. Despite the efforts to establish improved relations between southern whites and African

Americans, the prejudiced attitudes against black people obstructed the attempts to reconcile

both races, therefore, social turmoil persisted within the south. In 1990, an American Historian

named Eric Foner, published a book, ​A Short History Of Reconstruction​, in which he writes

extensively on the social and political issues regarding the Northerners attempts to establish
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equality for blacks within the white dominated southern states of the United States, during the

reconstruction period following the Civil War. The author, Eric Foner, remarks that the entire

social structure of the south required complete reconstruction to infuse African American into

the social classes, however, Southern whites were unwilling to admit the emancipation of slaves

and their assimilation into society since the southern economy largely depended on slave labor

within plantations and they presumed that blacks were incompetent in enduring the demands of

the market. The author, Eric Foner, states, “ … economic rationality, internal self-discipline,

responsiveness, to the incentives of the market-could never, planters insisted, be applied to

blacks.”(pg. 60)

The process of reconciling former slave masters and former slaves was a complex and

lengthy operation managed by northerners which required substantial social change that

consisted of various compromises between the southern whites and blacks to appease their

contradictory demands, however, sustaining a desire for labor from black subjects. As a

consequence of the Civil War, the employment of white males significantly decreased, including

the employment rates of blacks, since the casualties of white males led to a decline of jobs

available and blacks were exercising their legal rights as citizens in which they reduced the hours

worked in a plantation, therefore, the production and profitability of the south dwindled, so a

general concern ensued among planters. According to Eric Foner’s book, the northerners who

migrated southward for economic purposes, expected to establish a plantation of staple crops and

yield substantial profits, however, they succumbed to debt and developed southern prejudiced

attitudes towards the blacks due to their refusal to perform work for a white plantation owner.

For example, the book states, “... Northerners hoped to introduce, involving closely supervised
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work and changes in customary planting routines, challenged the more irregular pace of work

preferred by blacks and their desire to direct their own labor… Northern planters sounded and

acted more and more like Southern.”(pg.62) This phrase indicates that northerners who migrated

to the south for economic opportunity were unable to achieve their goals since blacks refused to

work according to a white plantation owners’ commandments.

Concluding the Civil War, the Union imposed a military organization, The Freedmen’s

Bureau, to protect the legal rights of emancipated slaves and assisted them by providing food and

education to promote their transition from the social position of subjugated blacks into a position

of autonomy which enables them to purchase their property and pursue an individualistic

lifestyle. A major responsibility of the Freedmen’s Bureau was to establish a productive labor

system within the southern region of the United States that both the white plantation owner and

the ‘freemen’, emancipated slaves, can conform to policies that prevent the exploitation of slave

labor and to preserve the rights granted to blacks in order to resume the economic activity in the

south. “Its responsibilities can only be described as daunting; they included introducing a

workable system of free labor in the South, establishing schools for freedmen, providing aid to

the destitute, aged, ill and sane, adjudicating disputes among blacks and between the races, and

attempting to secure for blacks and white Unionists equal justice from the state and local

governments…”(pg.64) As a result, a wage based system of labor was constructed in the South

in which black people received currency in exchange for their labor. In addition another labor

system was sharecropping in which a landlord provided a person with territory to establish a

farm and produce crops, while the responsibility was imposed on the sharecropper and at the end

of the year, the profits were divided according to their contract.

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