Slavery between Civil War and Reconstruction Period - Admission/Application Essay Example

 Slavery between Civil War and Reconstruction Period 3. How might subsequent US history have been different if, during the Civil War and Reconstruction, the plantations of the South had been divided, and ex-slaves had been given plots of land and the means to farm them? The year 1865 witnessed the conflicts, slavery being one of them, that underpinned the relationship between the southern and northern states of the United States degenerate into an armed confrontation. Even after the cessation of hostilities, abolitionism was still a hard pill to swallow for the South. Several legislations were passed, largely fueled by the Republicans, to ensure the freedom of the slaves, among them the 13th Amendment, the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Bill of 1875, which prohibited segregation, to ensure slave freedom although the last law was eventually struck down by the US Supreme Court in 1883. More importantly, Congress created a federal agency called the Freedmen’s Bureau to assist the economic survival of the blacks during their transition from slavery to freedom (Reconstruction: The Second Civil War). The federal government’s main problem was what to do to the four million-black population after the Civil War. A land reform constituting land distribution in the south among slaves would have made more impact on US democracy and changed modern world for good. The problem, it seemed, for the institution of such an idealistic program was the possibility that the unity of the south and north states would have been more difficult to achieve. On March 3, 1865, the Freedmen’s Bureau was established. It was a government agency set up by the federal government and whose sole function was to assist the slaves who were freed after the Union’s victory in the Civil War in 1865. It was supposed to be a bureau of refugees, freedman and abandoned lands and was to exist only for one year after the war. Basically, the agency’s function can be divided into five types: “relief work for both blacks and whites in war-stricken area; regulation of black labor under the new condition; administration of justice in cases concerning the blacks; management of abandoned and confiscated property, and; support of education for blacks (Freedmen’s Bureau). Congress’ goal in creating the Freedmen’s Bureau was to ensure that the freed slaves were economically independent to be able to stand on their own during their transition from slavery to independence (Smith 24). The abundance of land, and their cheapness, was not a problem during the Reconstruction Period and immediately before that. In 1861, vast plantations in Port Royal, South Carolina were abandoned by their owners when the US Navy landed on their shores and slaves who remained were allowed to till the land. The following year, the Davis Bend, a 10,000 acre-plantation was likewise abandoned and taken over by slaves. In 1865, General Tecumseh Sherman, a Union Army general, apportioned sea islands and a part of the south coastal region of Charleston to freedmen and immediately some 40,000 former slaves took over about 400,000 acres of land. Abandoned land, almost 850,000, also came into the hands of the Freedmen’s Bureau, which began distributing some of it. In South Carolina, a plan to buy and sell land, on long-term credit, to make more than 14,000 black families to own homestead permanently was being mulled. In addition, Thaddeus Stevens, a Republican member of Congress, proposed the seizure of 400 million acres of land from the richest owners of plantations and to distribute 40 acres to each freedman for free and sell the remaining 90% in not more than 500-acre lots, the proceeds of which was to benefit the war veterans (Martin & Yaquinto 42). Although the abundance and price of lands were not a problem then, the federal government, especially President Johnson, seemed to have been bothered by the effects that a massive and comprehensive land reform would have on the southern whites. After all, there were contentions that the Civil War was largely underpinned by fears of a seceding south. Perhaps, to protect the gains of the Civil War, Johnson leaned more towards the interest of the southern plantation owners than to that of the blacks. Thus, in 1865, President Lyndon B. Johnson rendered the land grants null and void and Congress itself had refuse to give in to proposals for the expropriation of big plantations for the benefit of the freed slaves (Smith 25), rejecting, in effect, Stevens proposal. There was an apprehension in the legislature that such a measure would further antagonize and exacerbate the losses already suffered by south plantation owners who were already damaged by the dismantling of the slave-constituted labor force of the south. In addition, the members of Congress rationalized that slaves, who were already freed, should be left on their own to determine what was good for them in accordance to the principle of laissez-faire. There was also the fear that too much intrusion of government into issues of the private lives of freedmen may open the floodgates of unfettered government interference in the private affairs of its citizens (Smith 25). To make matters worse for the freed blacks, the federal government auctioned the land that the freedmen had held in Port Royal to investors and speculators and the Davis Bend property was returned to its owners in 1878. President Johnson ordered that all land previously distributed to the freed slaves be returned to their owners and the blacks who attempted to hold on, were removed by force (Martin & Yaquinto 43). The failure of the federal government to institute a viable economic reform for the freed slaves reopened them to more oppression by the southern whites when the reconstruction period ended as many of the advances that were gained during the period were gradually diminished, were reversed, or were totally lost after the end of the era. In the 20th century, for example, the slaves lost the right to suffrage and were relegated again to the lowest social and economic strata as the southern states enacted laws that violated federal laws, and engendered a new form of white supremacy (Martin & Yaquinto 43). According to William Edward Burghardt du Bois, a well-known historian, the plan of distributing 40 acres of land and a mule to each of the freedmen materialized would have realized real democracy in the US and made a difference in the world. He admitted, however, that it was almost impossible for the government to institute such a scheme under the political and social circumstances present during the Reconstruction. The book American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, on the other hand, posits that emancipation and suffrage could not have on their own truly emancipate the blacks during the Reconstruction Era but should have included land reform, in conjunction with rapid education and abandonment of discrimination, to have fully liberated and made freedmen economically independent (Myrdal & Bok 224). A meaningful land reform by the federal government during the Reconstruction Era would have made a large difference to American history subsequent to that era. Blacks would have gained economic independence, and perhaps, gained not only economic stability but wealth considering that they had gained the necessary expertise in agriculture in big plantations. Coupled with rapid education and other structural support from the government, the blacks would have been less susceptible to white supremacist laws as they would not have to work for the southern whites. American history would not have been peppered by black-white conflicts that characterized the 19th and 20th century and had peaked in the middle of the latter century with the Civil Rights Movement. As authors Myrdal and Bok pointed out, the federal government under President Johnson could have used tact and ruffled less feathers if federal funds as well as taxation schemes had been used to pay southerners for the loss of slaves and lands to make slave emancipation in the US have more impact not only to the freedmen but to the world and the future of America as a whole. References Reconstruction: The Second Civil War. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/states/sf_timeline.html Freedmen’s Bureau. Infoplease. http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0819595.html Martin, Michael & Yaquinto, Marilyn. (2007). Redress for Historical Injustices in the United States: On Reparations for Slavery, Jim Crow, and Their Legacies. Duke University Press. Myrdal, Gunnar & Bok, Sissela. (1996). An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, Volume 1 Black and African-American studies An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, Contemporary Austrian Studies Transaction Publishers. Smith, Tony. (1995). America's Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century. Princeton Studies in International History and Politics A Twentieth Century Fund Book. Princeton University Press. Read More