Political Change in Southern America

At the same quantify he offered a pardon to all former Confederates save the highest leaders. Lincoln's chief objective after winning the war was to pound the

southwest back into the Union as quickly as possible and to end the wartime bitterness on both sides.

In 1865, the picture was bleak for randomnesserners. As one AfricanAmerican who came southeasterly observed, "The war had ruined everything; public buildings were destroyed or dilapidated; and nether military rule things had simply been unploughed going. Everything had to be reconstructed" (Warren 275). Despite the war damage the primary resources of the South were not destroyed or fundamentally diminished. predominantly an agricultural region, its farm lands and labor force remained essentially intact. Because the South had never invested much of its wealth in railroads and industries, there were relatively fewer of these to rebuild. Most of the damage was repaired within a few years. New factories, railroads, and businesses were begun which would surpass anything the South had know before the war. In the years to come, the South would more and more resemble the North's change economy and society, with towns and cities rising up among the farms and plantations.

During the Civil War, the ruling class of Southern whites

(big landowners, slaveholders, businessmen, lawyers, and other professionals) had suffered the greatest losses in wealth and property. These aristocrats who had

Debate about the reconstructive memory of the South waged in Congress. A Joint Committee on Reconstruction was set up by the Senate and the House of Representatives. Republicans say-soled the Congress, and those who felt strongly about the South and about equality for blacks were known as Radical Republicans. Among them were strong leaders like Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and Ben Wade.

AfricanAmericans often expressed their views on the need for breaking up the large plantations and redistributing them to blacks, "What is the main cause of the prosperity of the North? It is because every man has his own farm and is free and independent. Let the lands of the South be similarly divided" (Cain 273).

to terrorize blacks so that they would not vote or try to hold on to authority: "Even when the former Confederates were rather firmly in control of Southern state and local governments . . . violence was an important spark of the pattern of life" (Franklin 197).

rising by themselves. Northerners accused the South of perpetuating slavery; Southerners clearly intended to keep the advantages of slavery under the name of freedom.

They could be imprisoned or fined if they argued against the injustice of these laws or for merely insulting a white person. Blacks could be engrossed if they were out past established curfews or if they owned guns. When intelligence service of this mistreatment of blacks reached Washington, President Johnson sent one of his generals to the South on a factfinding mission.

Stamp, Kenneth. "Radical Reconstruction." In Reconstruction in the South. Ed. Edwin Rozwenc. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1972. 4568.

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