Civil War – Consequences
· 530,000 people died – larger than those in WWI & WWII combined
· abolition of slavery mounted to 1 billion dollar of ‘confiscated’
property
· w/o southern states to block, the ‘union’ passed important
measures aimed at assisting US western expansion – Homestead Act &
Pacific RR Act
· Republicans focused on economic & industrial policies (also,
came to represent patriotism & national unity)
· The USA prior to Civil War was a plural, after a singular (from
the USA do to USA does)
Reconstruction
· Lincoln & Johnson wanted to accept the southern states back on
the most generous terms possible
· One could not try each individual offender in the south of treason
· So, once a certain portion of the population took an oath of
loyalty, the state could return and receive a pardon
· Republican Senator Charles Sumner felt these ‘ways’ were too timid
· He wanted more attention on the slaves and their rights
· Former slaves should have all the civil rights that whites held –
including the right to vote
· Proposed Federal supervision – i.e. troops w/ bayonets to assist
in the change
· Black Codes helped Sumner’s point be understood
· The Black community became, in effect, collectively the property
of all southern whites
· Black school houses began being burned by 1866
· in New Orleans, US Army had to halt uprisings against blacks
· In Louisanna, 3000 blacks were killed between 1866 – 76
· KKK emerges w/ former Confederate veteran soldiers