The civil war is considered by many the most important war that our country has endured. During the 5 year Civil War, not only did 620,000 men die, but our nation was left in ruins. It was necessary that our country be rebuilt from bottom up. Abraham Lincoln, said to be the brightest president of his time, had plans and ideas for reconstruction. Unfortunately, these plans were failed to be put in place due to the fact of his assassination on April 14, 1865. Throughout some of the most politically tough years our nation has experienced (1865-1877) lousy presidents were elected, plans and bills failed and succeeded, and struggles with civil rights were prominent everywhere. The United State’s hopeful plans for reconstructing and …show more content…
During reconstruction many things were accomplished, which means that our nation was faced with many positive and negative effects. Some of the positive effects included new opportunities for the common public and former slaves. For example, the common public was presented with its first public school system, new roads and railroads, as well as orphanages for children and institutions for the mentally ill. One of the negative effects of the war was the physically and economically drained south. After the war, the south was in extremely poor physical condition and most everything had to be either rebuilt or restored. This was going to cost sufficient amounts of money that the south did not have. To get the money, the taxes rose and the wages lowered. Many people were without family members that died in the civil war, and the south’s population had decreased drastically. Another lasting effect that reconstruction left on our nation was a dent on the farms and plantations in the south. Many farms and plantations in the south had been ruined. Poor whites and African Americans were at disagreement with rich whites on what the farm land should be used as. Rich whites wanted to restore the plantation system and poor whites and African Americans wanted to create small farms and subsistence farming. Labor was also down. With many men dying in the war, not as many people were left to work on the farms. When the plantations were reopened, many African Americans and poor whites worked on the plantations in exchange for housing, food, clothing, etc. Many good and bad effects were left on our nation from