American Reconstruction Essay Sample

During the mid 1800s the North and South were fighting over reconstruction. Reconstruction was a period in time after the Civil War to rebuild the United States most of it was the South, but they wanted to bring back states, and give freemen and all black equal rights.

In the South there was this group called KKK and they eventually spread all over but during reconstruction they hung the State Senator in the Grand Jury room to try and scare everyone by basically saying “vote how we want you to or well kill you”, kind of a thing. There was also this man named Colby who was taken from his home and whipped for hours because he voted for the radical ticket and was left for dead once again by the KKK. Colby also believed that no one could make free speech, he just didn't think it could be done. Reconstruction in the South just didn't work because they didn't let it, they were violent and racist.

In the North their government was corrupt so that is already a red flag but they were also pretty racist, maybe not as much as people in the South but it was still bad. In Document C we can see a picture of Ulysses S. Grant in a barrel with rings around it with different corruption events but Grant was blind and just looked past them all, and of course the panic of 1877. Also in Newspapers and basically anything public they would portray blacks as loud, fat and unfit to be in government. The North was acting out and not exactly helping reconstruction happen, and the government being corrupt wasn’t exactly helping their case since they didn't try and fix it when they needed to.

To me it was both the North and South who killed reconstruction but I'm leaning towards the south more because of the KKK just completely ruining any chances of it happening. Everyone there was also really violent which did not help them at all. The south never really wanted reconstruction to happen either way. The KKK hung the state senator, and Colby was kidnapped and whipped and left for the dead because of how he voted. The North and South had their own problems going on and they just added reconstruction on top of it, they both had their reasons but I feel like rebuilding their world or the land they live on would be kinda important so they could live a little bit happier or whatever their version of happiness is.