civil war2

A detailed Summary of civil war2

The American Civil War is quite possibly the defining moment in American history. The experiment of democracy was put to the absolute test and the population responded accordingly. It is debatable whether or not this was a revolution. Scholars have wrestled with this issue for many years.

A revolution is a change in power from the old order to a new order. A revolution must be both external and internal. This means that the underlying social situation must change as well as the obvious political situation. In my opinion I do not believe that the American Civil War fits these criteria.

The American Civil War was not a revolution in the external sense. The economical and political structure of the North and South was not significantly changed. The economy of the pre-war North was highly industrial. Those that argue that the war was a revolution say that the North experienced an industrial explosion after the war, which in turn altered their economy. This did not happen. While the North did experience a time of prosperity after the war, their economy did not experience any major change in direction. Many technological advances that were implemented during the post-war years had already been introduced years befo

The black codes were implemented shortly after the war. These laws were the beginning of the legislation that limited the rights of the newly free. These laws directly undermined the federal laws and were upheld by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The case, U.S. v. Cruikshank, directly negated the 14th amendment. It said that the 14th amendment did not extend rights to the individual. This allowed the black codes to continue and later the Jim Crow Laws to be legal.

During the years of Reconstruction the South was supposed to be rebuilt to resemble the north economically, politically, and socially, but this did not happen. When the soldiers left the South in 1877, the newly free men had no chance of voting, practically no civil rights, and were for all practical purposes still slaves to their former masters. The Civil War caused no lasting fundamental changes and thus was not a revolution.

The governments of the North and South did not change fundamentally either. The pre-war North was solid Republican. Throughout the war it remained Republican. After the war it was still Republican. The South remained solid Democrat as well. Even after the war when the Democratic Party was stripped of its power, its weakness did not last long. The party reformed and still had support from its constituents. The Democrats quickly began influencing policy and even won a few court cases that basically gave the South free reign over its new citizens.

The blacks right to vote was rendered virtually non-existent by the decision in

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