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The Civil War and Reconstruction Period

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After the North won the civil war, the South was very devastated. So the government had started Reconstruction led by Radical Republicans. However, Reconstruction failed. There were many reasons such as economics, racism, and political arguments. Because of these reasons, Reconstruction failed. Actually before and after the cilvil war, whites were racist. According to congressman Benjamin Boyer, he said the freedmen were mentally inferior. Most of Southerns agreed about that. (Doc#1) The former federal government made a paramilitary group and named Ku Klux Klan. KKK intimidated Freedmen for no reason, but KKK thought that they absolutely had a reason to kill Freedmen. KKK existed everywhere so they just bothered Freedmen because Freedmen's skin color was black. (Doc#2) Later the Southern states adopted the law which was called ‘Black Codes’. This law was supposed to stabilize social chaos and maintain public peace. However, in fact, This was actually effected by the instinctive fear that Southern whites were afraid of blacks’ prosperity and it was against emancipation of slaves. This made that freedmen were no longer slaves. They could not vote and get married with whites. Whites totally wanted to separate Blacks from Whites. (Outside Information) After the Civil War, slaves became freedmen. However, their life was still very bad and even treated in the way, similar as slaves. This was because white Southerners got voting rights again. Both political parties had different goals, so it caused they argued a lot. Congress passed an act, which resort the majority of ex-confederate officer. The restoration of voting rights to the Southerners, indirectly giving them control over the rule again. They tried a vote tax for the poor and then the freemen would not be able to vote. They were even illiterate and the whites could over vote them. Blacks were again segregated. They could not enjoy their freedom: they still lived like slaves.

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