Ken Burns' "Forever Free" Essay

Introduction

America's civil war broke out in 1869 when Abraham Lincoln was president yet his intention was only to bring back states southern states into the union. The president's stand at the outset of the war was that the southern states could not break out of the union and that they were traitors for attempting to leave. According to Lincoln, the union was justified to try to bring the rebel states back into the union. Lincoln knew that it would be a difficult war to win, so he had to come up with some logical of reasons grounded in the democracy to motivate his army into providing a broader context in fighting the war.

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The Emancipation Proclamation

Slavery was a hot topic in the northern region especially Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri. This region allowed slavery but stayed loyal to the union. Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation which freed the slaves. It was a huge risk as it could have turned the northern regions against them. To avoid this, slavery was allowed to the areas that were loyal to the state. This move, however, changed how both sided interpreted the war.

Thanks to the emancipation proclamation, the union gained moral ground. It was a very strategic move from the president which would have helped him win the war - bearing in mind that ending slavery deprived the southern region of the European support, who did not support slavery. At first, the abolitionist elements of the northern areas were very vocal on the need to set slaves free. Eventually, this enthusiasm died, and they became like the people of the south who did not care about the plight of the African American slaves. Lincoln thought that it would also motivate the slaves to fight against the south to seek their rights. This vision came true as some Blacks slaves who were freed from the north even joined the Union Army to free their fellow slaves who were still held captive in the south. This further calmed things down in the north as the large-scale recruitment into the Union army mitigated hard feelings against the blacks.

The southern region considered binding the issue of slavery a formality. The south had initially pushed for secession and tied bondage to their economic system. They identified themselves as slaveholders and for this reason they had convinced a large population of the south to vote for secession in 1861, which they succeeded. However, not all the southern states voted for the secession. For instance, Georgia seceded narrowly by a few pints. Tennessee and Virginia had to vote twice as the first votes had failed. It was then that Lincoln called for an invasion into the south.

The average Confederate soldier, who voted against secession was a poor white who came from a family that did not have slaves. To the southern people who were not slaveholders, having a slave or not was the same; so they did not care about blacks, just like their counterparts in the north. It then dawned on them that a great war that was threatening to their culture and economy was coming. The proclamation ended any chance of Europeans joining the war. The southern region then had to fight and win this war solely on their own upon a significant depletion of the white army and black labor workforce!

President Lincoln would have loved if the preservation of the unity of the north and south regions had been peaceful instead of using violence. In the first years of the war, Lincoln said that he would compensate slave owners if they give them up. It was a strategic movement aimed at winning over some slave states and make it hopeless for them to continue fighting. However, the south could not give up slavery, and the north could not accept compensation. The last resort was to achieve this by military conquest.

Consequences and Importance of the Civil War

The civil war had many consequences; political, physical, social and economic. Physically, more than 600,000 lives were lost, and a lot of property destroyed in the south, especially cities and plantations where slaves used to work. Economically, the south was left struggling to get back on its feet. Even before the war, the south had few factories as it had chosen agricultural economy and depended on slavery. In a nutshell, recuperating from the loss of a war was a problem because of physical destructions and shattered psyches.

In the social perspective, slaves achieved their freedom. The reconstruction era gave blacks political and economic benefits. The reconstruction era threatened to end the South's racist culture, but the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and dynamic political atmosphere in Washington gave the whites back the dominance against blacks. The south developed a nostalgia for the slavery and confederacy. Politically, the south became determined to uphold white supremacy over the Blacks. For this reason, they voted democrat for the next 100 years until there came President Johnson who supported blacks to vote.

The constitution changed significantly. The 13th amendment ended slavery, the 14th guaranteed equal right and the 15th made it illegal to restrict anyone to participate in an electoral activity by color or race. Though the court had ordered, the African Americans are granted equal rights, on the outside whites, continued to mistreat them. To the African Americans, this was not enough. And so they pushed for full citizenship. A Gettysburg campaign forced the governor of Pennsylvania to accept thousands of blacks to work in the union before recruitment in the army. Pennsylvania delayed to give the African Americans full rights and was reluctant in implementing the 15th amendment. African Americans took further action to unlock their dreams. With the help of Octavius Catto, who has served in the military during the war and mobilization of their counterparts in the military service, the African Americans supported the drive to vote in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, Octavius died in a polling station.

Pennsylvania segregated streetcars and railroads and this agitated Harriet Tubman who was evicted from one and injured. Her protests won the victory and streetcars became desegregated. This triumph became a grudge, and eventually, parts of Pennsylvania started experiencing discriminations in education, employment, and housing. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was determined to end segregation. In 1883, the court ruled the Act unconstitutional on claims that the state governments had no power to stop such discrimination in the private institutions. African Americans kept on pushing until 1886 when they were made full citizens. However, the rejected civil rights act kept African Americans as second-class citizens until 1964 when the civil rights act became restored.