Reconstruction

During the Reconstruction there was a lot of issues going on. Even though they were trying to fix their country, there were a lot of wrongs coming out of it than rights. At this time the slaves were free but I wouldn’t call it that. They weren’t free. They still weren’t treated equally. In fact some died because of a certain group of people that terrorized the country. They were called the Ku Klux Klan. But overall it wasn’t a calm time. It was chaotic and terrible.

One of the goals for the Reconstruction was making the North and South a whole. The South as you may know was pro-slavery. Well that was taken away from them obviously. But that opinion wasn’t the only thing that was opposite from the North. Basically, both sides believed in different things. So to combine both sides into one whole, was going to be a challenge. Of course there was some resistance on the different sides but they had to try to work together. Especially when they were trying to give rights to the former slaves, the South didn’t take that well. Before, they had it their way with all of the slaves at their fingertips. But now that was taken away from them. And of course to me, that’s a good thing. Those people went through so much and they finally had a chance to have a life like everyone else. It wasn’t until a while that they were fully accepted. I just think that it’s sad that it took this long for them to have the opportunity to have a life of their own and to be treated equally. But, you can’t change history, neither would I ever if I even had the option. I believe everything happens for a reason.

So, it was great that Americans were getting somewhere by freeing the slaves, but it created another problem. There were still people who of course was still against the choice of letting the slaves free. So they started to retaliate. How did they you ask? An organization started to come about called the Ku Klux Klan. This is my second time learning about this part of history and it sickens me. But anyway, what this group would do is basically dress in all white and pointed hoods that covered their face and terrorize the country by mostly killing or torturing the Blacks. Some luckily were not killed but others were not so lucky. Do you see why this would sicken me? These people were just like you and me but they were treated like they were monsters. The group at first of course started off small but shortly grew enormously. It’s terrible that these people joined this group let alone killing people!

While they were trying to solve the issues that were arising there were amendments that were made. These basically are just rights and “laws” that the people in our country have to follow. The 13^th Amendment abolished slavery. That of course was a key that unlocked a lot of other issues which was getting everyone on board with that. The 14^th Amendment basically just dealt with a handful of post-Civil War issues. The Civil War wasn’t that long ago during this time and it didn’t solve that much and just basically destroyed our country to the point where we needed this Reconstruction time. The 15^th Amendment protected the right for voting. So basically it let race or color not matter and anyone can vote whether they were White or Black. Which I think was something that should have happened a while ago because it’s not necessary to start segregating people who are just like each other. There are many more amendments to this day but these were the ones that were made during this time. Also, there was something called the Enforcement Acts. These Acts were just made to enforce the three Amendments that I talked about.

There was something spectacular that was made. It’s not so spectacular today because it’s quite popular. It was a mode of transportation. The Transcontinental Railroad was made to speed up transportation and communication. This railroad ran from Sacramento, California to Omaha, Nebraska. The Promontory Point was where both sides met and connected the two sides of the railroad. Of course there was bigger and better things that were made so it wasn’t that big of a deal but during that time it was something that made improvements on America.

Overall, some good things came out of the Reconstruction, but there was mostly bad things. It was not the best times in history but it is history, so we should learn from it. Today, we have new issues. But it’s basically just repeated history. So how about instead of repeating, we go down a different path and learn from our past mistakes. Anyone with me?