Ar-1 Reconstruction

AR-1 Reconstruction

During the time between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the beginning of the Civil War, the term "Reconstruction" was coined basically meaning "the reunification of the nation" which was in turmoil. Although it began with a simple meaning, at the end of the Civil War in 1865, it developed into a much more complex idea: it was more than just reuniting the nation, but having a total transformation of the South. Both the social and economical aspects needed to be addressed and altered. For many of the colored slaves in the South, "reconstruction" meant freedom from slavery and a chance to become a freed man with basic human rights, but it also meant that a new type of oppression would be upon them.

The meaning of Reconstruction as the reunification of the nation is represented in the political cartoon "Columbia--'Shall I Trust These Men,...'" In this cartoon we have the southern people on their knees groveling to Columbia as the Union. The South had to claim allegiance to the Union in order for the Reconstruction to occur.

The total transformation of social and economic aspects of the South is represented in the interpretive essay by Elizabeth Rauh Bethel, "Promised Land." Each of the southern states was required to draft a new state constitution. It was only then that the state was qualified for readmission into the Union.

Freedom from slavery for the colored people is represented in a letter from Jourdon Anderson. In this letter he writes to his former master, Colonel P. H. Anderson about his offer to work again for him as a freed paid worker. Mr. Anderson has trouble trusting the colonel and tests him by asking for back pay while he worked as a slave for him plus the interest over the years. He feels now as a freedman he is doing well and will only return to the plantation if he will give him an advantageous reason.

The oppression upon the newly freed men is represented in the political cartoons by Thomas Nash. They show the whites acting supreme over the Blackman although they have been given the same basic human rights by the Civil Rights Act of 1865 and the Fourteenth Amendment. In one cartoon it shows three white men stepping on the back of a colored man while in the background a black school and an orphanage burns while another black man is lynched. In "To Thine Own Self Be