AFTER THE WAR

The Civil War helped transform the nation's economy and way of life. The war effort required more factories and better transportation systems. The years after the war are called Reconstruction.

The most important long-term effect of the war was the end of slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation had made a start toward freeing the slaves. Then, in 1865, Congress passed the Thirteen Amendment to the Constitution. This law said that slavery was abolished everywhere in the United States.

Within a few years after the war, Congress added other amendments to the Constitution. They promised blacks the same rights as whites. The Fourteenth Amendment said that all Americans had equal rights as citizens. The Fifteenth Amendment said that no one could be kept from voting because of race. These amendments became part of the law of the land.

Lincoln's Vice President Andrew Johnson became the new President, and he tried to carry out Lincoln's plans. But Congress thought he favored the South and demanded harsher laws to punish the southern states trying to force Johnson out of the Presidency by impeachment. Johnson stayed in office but could not stop Congress from passing the laws it wanted.

Until 1877, parts of the South were controlled by the United States army. Raising cotton depended on slavery, and about four million black slaves had been freed by the war. But they could not make a living in the war-torn South. The farmers had no money to pay workers. And the ex-slaves had no money to buy a farm. Finally, the system of sharecropping began to be used, when a farmer let a worker live on some of his land and farm it. Sharecroppers, in return, gave the landowner part of their crop.

But the system was not good enough, as very often, after sharing the crop, there was nothing, or almost nothing, left. There was no real land reform, plantations were not broken up, and most blacks still owned no property

Many southern whites who had ruled blacks and meant to keep it that way, were angry about the new freedom for the black population - the right to vote and be elected to office, which, to some extent, was carried out, mostly in the North. They formed groups called Ku Klux Klan. The members of this organization were dressed in white, with white hoods over their heads, they took the law into their own hands, they caught black people, dragged them through the streets, and hanged them. Lynching, or hangings committed by mobs, became common. To give racism more power, Southern states passed laws to keep blacks from voting - for example, by imposing taxes and literacy requirements. By the early twentieth century, every Southern state also had laws enforcing segregation - blacks and whites were separated in schools, parks, trains, hospitals, and other public places.

Reconstruction was a time of bitterness and sorrow; however, it was also a time of growth and change. Gradually, many of the large plantations were sold, and the land was divided to make smaller farms. Some northerners came to buy land or start businesses. Cities and industries were started - mills for making cloth, iron, steel, and lumber were other important industries. All over the South, cities and towns were growing.

Big changes took place also in the West. Railroads were built across the Great Plains, and the railroad companies were given huge stretches of land with the right to sell land to settlers. They collected fares from passengers, charged money for carrying freight or goods, and they sold land. Transcontinental railroads joined East and West. The Central Pacific Railroad Company, the Union Pacific, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Company and others provided thousands of jobs.

New methods of farming the Plains were used. One new invention made it easier to farm the sod. It was the steel plow which could easily slice through the thick prairie sod. Wood was scarce, so pioneer settlers built their first homes out of blocks of sod.

New types of wheat were brought from Europe. By the 1870' the wheat grown by the pioneer farmers was turning the Great Plains into the nation's "breadbasket."

1. What was the name for the years after the Civil War and why?

2. What new amendments were added to the Constitution?

3. What problems did people in the South have?

4. What was sharecropping and how did it work?

5. What did racism reveal in the post-war country and how did it manifest itself?

6. What new industries started in the South?

7. What was the role of railroad companies in bringing changes into the post-war life of the country?

8. What new ways of doing things made it easier to settle on the Great Plains?

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 721