The After-War Period

The Civil War ended, but the difficult question of putting the country together remained. President Lincoln, when elected for a second term, closed his inaugural address with the following words: "...With malice toward none: with charity for all ... let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan ... to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations".

Lincoln, who was a moderate, tempered, and unvindictive man, wanted the South back in the Union as quick as possible. His plan of reconstruction was based on the generous policy of the government, but it didn't come into action. On April 14, 1864, President Lincoln was assassinated while attending a performance at Ford's Theater. His assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was a Virginian actor embittered by the South defeat.

After Lincoln's death the task of reconstruction had to be accomplished by the Vice President Andrew Johnson – a southerner, who remained loyal to the Union.

Johnson followed Lincoln's reconstruction program, implementing only slight modifications. He appointed new governors for each of the former Confederate states and restored many southern citizens in their political rights. By the end of 1865, slavery was abolished in the United States with the 13^th Amendment to the US Constitution.

The Reconstruction Period

The Period of Reconstruction saw quite a different policy of the government in comparison to Lincoln's plan. After his death a conflict between those, who wanted a harsh peace and reconstruction and those (particularly in the South), who wanted to avoid as much revenge as possible, grew. The two sides opposed each other from 1865 to 1877.

By July 1866, Congress had worked out a plan of the Reconstruction quite different from Lincoln and Johnson's. The plan put through a harsh Reconstruction that would penalize the South for what it had done. Congress also tried to ensure that nothing like slavery would happen again. Congress proposed Amendments 13, 14 and 15 to give freedom, citizenship, and voting rights to American blacks. Southern States could not enter the Union until they ratified the amendments. Congress also encouraged blacks to vote and take up any land available.

Under the Reconstruction Acts Congress had readmitted Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama and Florida to the Union by 1868. The last three states – Mississippi, Texas and Virginia were readmitted in 1870. Though the Union was restored, the South continued to oppose the Congressional Reconstruction.

Many southern whites turned to illegal means to prevent blacks from gaining equality – they intimidated blacks to keep them from voting and didn't allow blacks to get in control of lands; organized the Ku Klux Klan to curb Negro and northern supporters, refused to vote for candidates supporting the Congressional Reconstruction or passed local laws to keep northerners and blacks from voting.

In response to this Congress had to pass an Enforcement Act severely punishing those who attempted to deprive blacks of their civil rights.

The problems of the South were not settled by Reconstruction, the situation grew worse. In 1872, Congress passed a general Amnesty Act to restore Confederate sympathizers in political rights, and gradually southerners began to take part in the government.

In general the Reconstruction proved to be a failure – blacks lost many possibilities, and by 1900 had little political or economic power in the South. During the Reconstruction many blacks moved to the big cities in the North trying to find greater freedom, but there the conditions were difficult and the opportunities limited. Those blacks who remained in the South were forced to obey state laws – "Jim Crow Laws" that segregated blacks from whites. Blacks and whites went to different schools, lived in less desirable places, ate in different restaurants, and were buried in different cemeteries.

A new South emerged after the Civil War – a segregated society, where blacks remained second-class population. Many southern blacks became tenant farmers on the land owned by their former masters, and remained caught in a cycle of poverty well into the 20^th century. The struggle of African-Americans for equality and freedom soon became a national, not only a southern issue.

Task 5. Answer the following questions.

1. How were the new states admitted to the Union in the 19^th cen tury?

2. Why did the patterns of living and settlement in the first western frontier states have much in common with original colonies?

3. Why was it important to maintain an equal number of free and slave states in the Union?

4. What scheme of admission did the Missouri compromise pro vide?

5. What were the main differences between the North and South?

6. What were the major steps leading to the war in the USA?

7. How did the Civil War start?

8. What were the major battles of the Civil War?

9. How was slavery in the USA abolished?

10. What were the main points of Lincoln's plan of the Reconstruc tion?

10. What were the main steps of the Congressional Reconstruction?

10. Did the Congressional Reconstruction settle the problems of the South?

10. Why did the Reconstruction fail?

Task 6. Vocabulary development. State the meaning of the following derivatives and fill in the gaps.

1) cede, secede, secession, secessionist

1. In 1860–1861, after Abraham Lincoln was elected President, seven southern states from the Union.

1. Almost everyone in the North supported the war against the

in the South.

3. Florida was to the United States after the war.

4. Lincoln's election resulted in from the Union.