The Broken Promise of Reconstruction & the Need for Restitution
TERM PAPER
HISTORY 367
CIVIL WAR and RECONSTRUCTION
Sheldon Teicher
HIST 367
Hunter College
Spring 2013
8 May 2013
THE BROKEN PROMISE OF RECONSTRUCTION &
THE NEED FOR RESTITUTION
The Civil War is the most widely written about event in American history and Reconstruction is the most mis-understood and least appreciated subject within this wider issue. Most people would prefer to escape into the heroic exploits of the battles that were fought than deal with the difficult social problems that the former enslaved population had to deal with.
I am offering this essay since I believe that the African-Americans have been done a great disservice by the Nation. As a people they were forcibly brought to this land, they were enslaved in an illegal and immoral system, and then they were abandoned by that same Nation ostensibly after having their freedom returned. What happened to them was not fair and there is a debt due to them. I hope to show in this paper some of the offenses that I find glaring.
What was Reconstruction supposed to accomplish? Was it supposed to provide a new economic start for the freed peoples? Was it supposed to rebuild and reorder the state governments that had seceded? Was it supposed to prosecute and imprison former Confederate officials? These questions were never fully answered, and for the most part they were never even adequately addressed. Liberals and African-Americans are more sensitive to the burden of the unfulfilled promise of Emancipation and Reconstruction, while so-called “realists” and conservatives proclaim that too much help has already been given (think: “Affirmative Action”).
The truth though, does not lie neatly in the middle between these extremes. Horrific treatment was an unpleasant fact for the enslaved peoples, and they were denied an equal opportunity to enter fully the American body politic. To make matters worse this bitter cup of “denied citizenship” is still too often a fact today. Recently, the
HISTORY 367
CIVIL WAR and RECONSTRUCTION
Sheldon Teicher
HIST 367
Hunter College
Spring 2013
8 May 2013
THE BROKEN PROMISE OF RECONSTRUCTION &
THE NEED FOR RESTITUTION
The Civil War is the most widely written about event in American history and Reconstruction is the most mis-understood and least appreciated subject within this wider issue. Most people would prefer to escape into the heroic exploits of the battles that were fought than deal with the difficult social problems that the former enslaved population had to deal with.
I am offering this essay since I believe that the African-Americans have been done a great disservice by the Nation. As a people they were forcibly brought to this land, they were enslaved in an illegal and immoral system, and then they were abandoned by that same Nation ostensibly after having their freedom returned. What happened to them was not fair and there is a debt due to them. I hope to show in this paper some of the offenses that I find glaring.
What was Reconstruction supposed to accomplish? Was it supposed to provide a new economic start for the freed peoples? Was it supposed to rebuild and reorder the state governments that had seceded? Was it supposed to prosecute and imprison former Confederate officials? These questions were never fully answered, and for the most part they were never even adequately addressed. Liberals and African-Americans are more sensitive to the burden of the unfulfilled promise of Emancipation and Reconstruction, while so-called “realists” and conservatives proclaim that too much help has already been given (think: “Affirmative Action”).
The truth though, does not lie neatly in the middle between these extremes. Horrific treatment was an unpleasant fact for the enslaved peoples, and they were denied an equal opportunity to enter fully the American body politic. To make matters worse this bitter cup of “denied citizenship” is still too often a fact today. Recently, the