Post Civil War Life - Essay Example

Introduction

According to History, the Civil War in the United States began in 1861, sequencing decades of tensions between the southern and the northern states regarding slavery, the westward expansion, and the states' rights. One of the War's accelerating factors was the election of Abraham Lincoln on the antislavery platform of the New Republican Party in 1860 since it made the seven southern states secede and form the Confederate States of America (History). Another factor was the growing abolitionist sentiment by the North following their opposition to slavery that had been extended to the new territories of the West. At the same time, southerners saw the abolition of slavery as a threat to their economy's backbone. As per (History), the Civil War, which was commonly known as the War between states, finally ended up on the surrender of the Confederate in 1865 after the deadliest and most expensive War ever fought in the U.S. soil, leaving 620000 soldiers out of 2.4 million killed, with millions killed and the South ruined. The War, which was a war to end slavery, therefore, ushered in the reconstruction era to redress the inequalities of slavery, political, social, and economic sectors that affected the racial minorities, women, immigrants, the poor, and working-class women.

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Unfolded Revolution

In the decades before the Civil War, there had been unfolded social and economic revolution in the North that bad shifted its financial from small craft and subsistence ventures to destructive industrial enterprises and high-level banking, leading to the creation of the industrial working class (Hintz). As a result of the revolution n, there was the international unrest and strife, paving the way for immigration, which subsequently triggered mass starvation and diseases, especially among the poor at the rich's expense. Similarly, before the Civil War, the U.S. class structure was based on race. The lowest position on the social ladder belonged to the black Americans who were considered racial minorities (Hintz). The black Americans were subjected to slavery, and despite slavery existing in the South, non-white persons in the North were not considered citizens of their communities. Hence neither had any official standings nor the fundamental rights that living in the U.S. had to offer. In the whites' eyes, immigrants and African Americans were a potential threat to their advancement and social, economic positions.

The South represented the elites who owned lands in the North and subjected the poor Northerners into slavery by working in their plantations. The South extracted profits from the cash crops as they extorted the lower classes who could not grow their won foods since many men were serving in the South (Hintz). Food was, therefore, a representing factor that drove tensions between the elites and the non-elites. Simultaneously, the fear of outsmarting the whiles in the realms of advancements and social, economic positions informed the primary reason for denying African Americans their citizenship rights and being considered in the lowest ranks in the ladder. They were thereby subjected to slavery by the wealthy and influential whites who were land and slave owners (Hintz). Until the beginning of the Civil War, men and women from the North started rebelling the acts of slavery by the South, coupled with championing for equal rights for African Americans.

Women’s Place

According to the Digital Scholarship Lab, women’s place in the post-civil War changed, especially those in the postbellum South, who started changing. By 1892, an editorial was published on the accurate index on the change in women's behaviors. The publication indication that women had started taking men’s roles as they were interested in the things that men did. Most women also got involved in politics and workforces as they began to understand how unrewarding and dreary unrewarding the reality of life was primarily for the Southern women.

As per Digital Scholarship Lab, another reason for women’s involvement in the labor force following the Civil War was that most of them had lost their husbands during the War; hence, they had to take the responsibilities of earning income themselves. Besides, women found new ways of supplementing their income by performing jobs like sewing, selling butter, and butter taking in borders as they accepted odd jobs. Therefore, the post-civil War provided opportunities for women stemming from state federation for women's clubs that subsequently broadened women's interests besides allowing them to get involved in their communities. Like men, women advocated for their rights like reforms in health, education, projects of city bureaucratization, and other vital civic improvements.

Similarly, the post-civil War saw success on immigrants in the quests for championing their rights as they responded to the call for arms in extraordinary numbers as most U8Union armed forces were immigrants (Doyle). Most immigrants and their sons amounted to almost 43% of immigrants. The U.S. armed forces gave the North and added advantage, thus making them win the War. However, their participation in the War was not of much success since their roles as soldiers were ignored in the narrative of the brothers' War fought on the American soil by American soldiers (Doyle).

Racial Minorities

Most immigrants had sacrificed their jobs to fight for the union voluntarily; hence, the War's winning was a success to them since it represented an epic contest for their future of being freed from labor against slavery and equal opportunities against the aristocracy and aristocracy the privileged. After the War, the immigrants were also successful in the notion that they now have freedom of expression. They thought against the government was oppressive and for democratic self-government against the dynastic rule (Doyle). Therefore, immigrants were successful in the War as they were able to wage the battles lost in the World, since, to them, the War was for the cause of all nations, not just for Americans. The post-civil War hence saw the policy of immigration policy and their settlement patterns (Meyers).

Moreover, the place for racial minorities changed in the post-civil War following the abolition of slavery that was initially meant for African Americans. According to the Minority Rights Group International, reconstruction, the period after Civil War saw the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth Amendment in the U.S. Constitution that guaranteed the racial minorities the rights and freedoms to vote and be considered as full American citizenship. The racial minorities subsequently joined the political system where they were elected to congress, were admitted to schools as the whites, and could easily intermarry with the whites. Finally, as per the Minority Rights Group International, the racial minorities following the Civil Rights Act's passage in 1875 could easily access accommodation and public facilities without being discriminated against on previous servitude, color, or race. The equal rights had also gained support from the upper levels of government, thereby underscoring the blacks' gains to the senate and congress.

Conclusion

Finally, According to Digital History, the poor's place also changed with the post-civil War as post-civil most freedmen received the land of forty acres and a mule as payment and the means to work on it as payment for their generations of unpaid labor in the South. Besides, the planters and the former slave's economic lives were transformed as new labor systems emerged to replace slavery. After the Civil War, affirmative action measures helped establish a sizeable African American middle-class for the first time.

Works Cited

Digital History. "America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War." U.H. - Digital History, 2003, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/exhibits/reconstruction/section3/section3_intro.html.

Digital Scholarship Lab. "History Engine: Tools for Collaborative Education and Research | Episodes." 2008, http://historyengine.richmond.edu/episodes/view/3382.

Doyle, Don. "The Civil War Was Won by Immigrant Soldiers." Time, 29 June 2015,
http://time.com/3940428/civil-war-immigrant-soldiers/.

Hintz, Mathew. "Class Conflict in the Union and the Confederacy." Essential Civil War Curriculum, 2020,
http://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/class-conflict-in-the-union-and-the-confederacy.html.

History.com Editors. "Civil War." HISTORY, 15 Oct. 2009,
http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/american-civil-war-history.

Meyers, Michael. "U.S. Civil War." Immigration to the United States, 2015,
http://immigrationtounitedstates.org/435-us-civil-war.html.

Minority Rights Group International. "African Americans." Minority Rights Group, 19 June 2015,
http://minorityrights.org/minorities/african-americans/.