Positive and Negative Impact of Civil War on the United States Essay Example

The Civil War changed and affected the United States in many ways, some positive, and some negative. The documents that I will use to explain this are, document #3, document #4, document #6, and document #7

The first document is #3. Document #3 shows the aftermath of the South's infrastructure after the civil war. I know that after the civil war, much of the South got destroyed and it took a lot of work to rebuild it. This shows one way that the Civil war negatively affected the United States because so much of something got destoryed which is bad. I also know that a positive part about this is that since the South needed the North's help to rebuild, they would have to follow the amendments that abolished slavery and sort of helepd out African-Americans if they wanted the North to help. This changed the United States because it was challenging to rebuild the South, while also focusing on the South joining the Union after they threatened to secede. So this changed the United States because it caused them to fight against a lot of challenges so maybe the North and South were more prepared for what to do in the future.

The next document is #4. Document #4 shows a negative way that the United States was affected after the civil war. This document shows a picture of the Ku Klux Klan. This was a way that African-Americans were negatively affected after the war. The Ku Klux Klan was a white supremacist group that killed and abused thousands of African-Americans after the civil war. The Ku Klux Klan also burned down African-American public schools, houses, and churches. The Ku Klux Klan covered themselves with white sheets as a disguise. This affected the United States in a negative way because I feel like it’s almost backtracking. I feel like this because there were amendments that abolished slavery, and ones that let African-Americans vote (although most of them couldn’t vote anyways). And this is a step forward from before the civil war, and then white Southerners go along and kill African-Americans which is crazy. This changed the United States because in my opinion it shows that anthing can happen because even after laws abolished slavery, and the North was victorious, people still went along and did stuff like this. 

The third document is #6. This document has information about sharecopping. Sharecropping is another negative way that African-Americans were affected after the civil war. It is negative because it was difficult for freedmen to make a living as sharecroppers because they had to give up half of their crop to the land owner so they would lose half their profit. They also had to buy supplies from the landowner so they were giving everything that they were earning to the landowner to survive. Sharecroppers were not making a lot of money because sharecropping made the amount they had to pay to the landowners larger and they were pretty much doing all the work and not making what they deserved. 

The last document is #7. This document shows a positive way the Civil War affected the United States. This is a positive thing because in the document it talks about how schools were made. In #7 it says, “but word was they (the Freedmen’s Bureau) were building one 5 miles away.” This is a positive thing because before the civil war, African-Americans could not go to school and now they could. Another positive part of this document is, “and through recommendations I am now able to go to Hampton College.  I am grateful to God for this much-esteemed opportunity.”  This is a positive because it shows home some African-Americans were even able to go to college. This is a big step up from before the civil war, and changed the United States because, before the Civil War, most African-Americans could not read or write, and didn’t get an education at all and now they are finaly getting an education. 

These 4 documents show how the United States was affected by the war and how there were both positive, and negative things that were going on during the years after the Civil War.