Reconstruction Period Reconstruction (1865-1877) Was Term Paper

" The more the freedmen resumed the habits and postures of slaves, the better the planters were able to accept the new system.

Thus reconstruction even with all the good intentions of some people was still a major failure. It had failed to bring the kind of peace and freedom for blacks that it was intended to. Since the blacks had become more or less accustomed to being treated as chained men, it took them a long time to accept freedom in true manner. The transition was slow and highly painful. It wasn't easy to shift power to the masses and it certainly took a long time to bring an end to slave mentality. Rights were not granted easily and even after equality had been established on paper; it was not completely given in practice for a very long time.

References

Reconstruction., the Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition, 01-01-1993

Eric Foner, a Short History of Reconstruction, 1863-1877, Harper & Row Publishers, December 1989

Trotter, Joe W., Reflections on the African-American experience, Vol. 29, Journal of Social History, 02-05-1996, pp 85(6)

Otto H. Olsen, Carpetbagger's Crusade: The Life of Albion Winegar Tourgee (John Hopkins Press, 1965). http://www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/procamn.htm

http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/camilla/cam016.php

Olsen, Carpetbagger's Crusade at 197

Quoted in Paul M. Gaston, the New South Creed: A Study in Southern Mythmaking,22.

Quoted in John C. Calhoun II, "Life and Labor in the New South," in the Transformation of American Society, 1870-1890, edited by John a. Garraty, 27.

Ann Hairston to Bettie Hairston, Jan. 22, 1870, Hairston and Wilson Family Papers, SHC......