APUSH Essay
Pd. 4 APUSH DBQ Essay
Prompt: In the quote above, Abraham Lincoln expressed his goals for the reconstruction of the country as the Civil War came to a close. Analyze how successful reconstruction programs and political actions were in achieving Lincoln’s goals.
Abraham Lincoln, a man renowned for his involvement in the civil war and the reconstruction that followed the war’s lambasted segregation of brotherly blood, held an ideology regarding reconstruction that he wished to be upheld nationally. Lincoln’s bias, with its roots in the core of early humanistic values and union preservation, called for the national synthesis of the North and the South in the presence of benevolent and humanitarian efforts that would strive to “bind up the nation’s wounds.” However, regardless of Lincoln’s idealistic view of reconstruction, the events that followed his assassination, whether they were of political or social affiliation, generally served to contradict Lincoln’s peaceful philosophy on a grand scale. The first four words of Lincoln’s second inaugural address mention a lack of malice towards anyone during the process of reconstruction. This element of Lincoln’s reconstructive ambition had been disregarded and left as no more than an idealistic extremity following the actions of radical republicans and, on the opposite end of the spectrum, southern whites. Following the civil war, radical republicans insisted on the involvement of martial law in America’s southern, formerly confederate, states. With this, the southern states had been practically subjugated by the will of extremist republicans who vouched for the punishment of those who supported the Confederacy, thus displaying the North’s contempt for Southern actions. However, the neglect to Lincoln’s words persisted in the South as well as the North, with southern whites exhibiting malevolence towards blacks and northern whites to such an extent that they would commit atrocious acts in the name of white supremacy.
Prompt: In the quote above, Abraham Lincoln expressed his goals for the reconstruction of the country as the Civil War came to a close. Analyze how successful reconstruction programs and political actions were in achieving Lincoln’s goals.
Abraham Lincoln, a man renowned for his involvement in the civil war and the reconstruction that followed the war’s lambasted segregation of brotherly blood, held an ideology regarding reconstruction that he wished to be upheld nationally. Lincoln’s bias, with its roots in the core of early humanistic values and union preservation, called for the national synthesis of the North and the South in the presence of benevolent and humanitarian efforts that would strive to “bind up the nation’s wounds.” However, regardless of Lincoln’s idealistic view of reconstruction, the events that followed his assassination, whether they were of political or social affiliation, generally served to contradict Lincoln’s peaceful philosophy on a grand scale. The first four words of Lincoln’s second inaugural address mention a lack of malice towards anyone during the process of reconstruction. This element of Lincoln’s reconstructive ambition had been disregarded and left as no more than an idealistic extremity following the actions of radical republicans and, on the opposite end of the spectrum, southern whites. Following the civil war, radical republicans insisted on the involvement of martial law in America’s southern, formerly confederate, states. With this, the southern states had been practically subjugated by the will of extremist republicans who vouched for the punishment of those who supported the Confederacy, thus displaying the North’s contempt for Southern actions. However, the neglect to Lincoln’s words persisted in the South as well as the North, with southern whites exhibiting malevolence towards blacks and northern whites to such an extent that they would commit atrocious acts in the name of white supremacy.