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Module 5: The Civil War Assignment 3/5/2019 Module 5: The Civil War Assignment https://miamioh.instructure.com/courses/95031/assignments/906370?module_item_id=1510717 1/2 Module 5: The Civil War Assignment Due Tuesday by 11:59pm Points 20 Submitting a file upload Available until Mar 5 at 11:59pm Submit Assignment The goal of this paper is for you to demonstrate your understanding of the relationship between slavery and the civil war. This is an expository essay (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/685/02/) and it should do four things: 1. Explain slavery's role in the run up to the civil war. 2. Explain the slave and freedman's roles in the civil war 3. Explain the goals of reconstruction 4. Explain whether or not reconstruction was successful Guidelines The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate your understanding of the course material through exposition and description. This paper should have a thesis statement, an introduction, and a conclusion. It should be well thought out and structured. It is also very important that you proofread your paper to ensure that it is free of any errors. It is often helpful to read your paper out loud to yourself. It helps you to catch sentences that runon or don't make sense. Further, the assignment isn't complete until you conduct your peer review. I assign peerreviews the morning after journal entries are due. You will then have 48 hours to complete your peer review. You must complete the rubric as well as comment on the students writing in order to get full points for peerreview. If you need help finding your peer review watch this tutorial video on peer reviews. (https://vimeo.com/74966153) Formatting Each essay must follow the below formatting guidelines: 1. Double spaced 2. Times New Roman/Arial 3. 12pt Font 4. 1 inch margins 5. Every paper must have a works cited page must be cited in MLA or Chicago Style 6. Entries must be at least 750 words. Writing Support At the Regionals, you can find oneonone help at the Tutoring and Learning Center (http://miamioh.edu/regionals/academics/tutoringlearningcenter/index.html) (MUM 2 JHN) (MUH 102 REN). The Regionals Tutoring and Learning Center also offers online writing help. If you have a draft ready two days in advance you can submit it to this form 3/5/2019 Module 5: The Civil War Assignment https://miamioh.instructure.com/courses/95031/assignments/906370?module_item_id=1510717 2/2 Total Points: 20.0 Expository Essay Rubric Criteria Ratings Pts 5.0 pts 5.0 pts 5.0 pts 5.0 pts (https://miamioh.formstack.com/forms/online_writing_tutoring) . And a tutor will give you some feedback. They will get it back to you within 48 hours. You can submit your paper up to three times! This is a great service and I wish more students would take advantage of it. At Oxford, the Howe Writing Center (HWC) (http://miamioh.edu/hcwe/hwc/index.html) recognizes that all writers have more to learn and supports Miami students including students on the regional campuses. Thus, I encourage you to schedule an appointment for academic, personal, and professional writing at any stage in your writing process—whether you are brainstorming ideas, revising first drafts, or polishing final drafts. The HWC offers live online appointments (http://miamioh.edu/hcwe/hwc/appointments/realtime/index.html) (via video or chat) and written online appointments (http://miamioh.edu/hcwe/hwc/appointments/written response/index.html) (via Google Docs or email). For more information, please visit the HWC website (http://miamioh.edu/hcwe/hwc/index.html) . ____________________________________________ LATE WORK IS NOT ACCEPTED! Ideas and Content Must have a strong thesis and demonstrate an understanding of material 5.0 pts Full Marks 0.0 pts No Marks Connections Make connections to other material and/or ideas within or outside of the course material. 5.0 pts Full Marks 0.0 pts No Marks Grammar, Mechanics and Formatting 5.0 pts Full Marks 0.0 pts No Marks PeerReview 5.0 pts Full Marks 0.0 pts No Marks CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION.docx CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION The road to Civil War was most definitively laid in the stormy 1850's (Franklin, 1974:208ff). In this decade, a series of events made war almost inevitable. First was the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law which made the fugitive guilty until proven innocent, denied his/her testimony and was retroactive. It gave the abolitionists another opportunity to expose the viciousness and recalcitrance of slaveholders and slavery advocates. Secondly, in 1854 Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act which repealed the Missouri Com promise of 1850 which prohibited slavery in the Kansas- Nebraska Territory. This increased the bloody struggle in the territory and foreshadowed larger battles. Thirdly, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott case (1857) that neither free nor enslaved Africans were citizens and had no right whites were bound to respect. Fourthly, John Brown, a white radical abolitionist attacked Harper's Ferry in 1859 to gain arms for at least 500 slaves and wage a war in the South. Although Black abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman thought correctly that his move was premature and unwise, he became a martyr of the abolitionist movement and foreshadowed the coming war. The final straw came with the election of Lincoln whom the South hated and whose election they saw as an abolitionist vote. CIVIL WAR. The Civil War began with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumner, S.C. in April 1861.Although many factors can be cited as causes of the Civil War, the question of slavery and by extension the question of the future of Africans in America stand at the core of its causes. The Civil War is important in Afro-American history not only because it led to their emancipation, but even more important, because they fought heroically and in great numbers in the war and played other significant roles in i t. As Quarles (1969:296) states, African Americans ''took stock in the adage that they who would be free must themselves strike the blow." Thus, they took up arms and became self-conscious agents of their own liberation. At first the whites resisted, feeling that: 1) to call and depend on Blacks implied their inadequacies; 2) arming Blacks meant arming potential rebels; 3) serving in the armed forces would change the social attitude and status of Blacks and thus pose a problem for white rule and power. They also pretended to doubt the fighting qualities of Blacks, but this was irrational and based more on racist ego-needs than evidence as the war would prove. By the summer of 1862, after a series of military defeats by Union forces, Congress passed the Confiscation Act and the Militia Act which opened the way for Afro-Americans - free and freed - to aid the war effort. Moreover, Lincoln, seeing the indispensability of Afro-American participation in the war, if it were to be won, issued in the same year The Emancipation Proclamation. The Proclamation was not a blanket declaration of freedom for all enslaved Africans, only for enslaved Africans i n states and parts of states in rebellion against the U.S. government. Loyal slave states like Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware were exempt. Moreover, it did not grant freedom, only "declared" it, a declaration totally unenforceable. For the Proclamation was declaring freedom for enslaved Africans in the Confederacy, a land which had already rejected U.S. jurisdiction and was at war with it to defend its decision. Its value was as a propaganda document to appease abolitionists and Radical Republicans, give the war the moral character it lacked and contribute further to the rebellion and flight among enslaved Africans which had already reached a high level (Quarles, 1953:117). Africans, anxious to fight for freedom, respect and better status and role in society, enlisted in large numbers and served in various capacities. In addition to serving as regular soldiers and sailors, they served as guides, scouts, intelligence agents, engineers, nurses, surgeons, chaplains, construction workers, teamsters, cooks, carpenters, miners, farmers, commandos and recruiters. An estimated 186,000 Africans participated as soldiers and 29,000 as sailors accounting for 25% of U.S. sailors. The real number of participants is probably much higher but was disguised by many mulattos being registered as whites. Moreover, Blacks served in every theatre of operations, fought in 449 engagements, thirty-nine of which were major battles and won seventeen Congressional Medals of Honor on land and four on sea. These achievements were made inspite of vicious racism exhibited in treatment, pay and time differentials, poor equipment, bad medical core, excess fatigue details, wreckless and hasty assignments and the no- quarter pol icy of the South against Block soldiers. The Civil War ended April 9, 1865 with the surrender of Gen. Robert E. Lee to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. The end of the war and the Union victory was important to both Afro-Americans and the nation as a whole. For Afro-Americans, it was an end to slavery which had lasted almost 250 years. Secondly, it represented a victory won only as a result of their entry and heroic participation in the struggle which was not only to free them but win respect and a new status in society. Thirdly, it meant the beginning of a new struggle to secure economic and political rights which did not automatically come with emancipation. For the nation, the victory meant the federal government had clearly established its sovereignty over the states, freed the South from a morally indefensible and politically and economically backward system and thus opened for the South and the nation a new era of economic growth and political change - as well as the problems which accompanied this process. RECONSTRUCTION. The period of Reconstruction (1865-1877) represented for Afro-America ns "the best of times and the worst of times." I t was a time of great leaps forward and hope and great disappointment and betrayal (Log an, 1954). For the U.S., it represented a time of great possibility to realize its ideals of freedom justice and equality for all. Bu t after a strong start it betrayed its own ideals and failed in solving the problems the post- war period posed, i.e., the problems of Reconstruction. These problems were essentially: l) rebuilding the South's economy on the basis of free labor and its industrialization and reintegration in the national economy; 2) politically subduing and transforming the South; and 3) integration of the freed Africans into the social fabric, especially in the South and protecting them from reenslavement, exploitation and abuse. Out of these problems, only the reintegration of the South economically and politically was really achieved. This took place on the South's own terms and included the betrayal and sacrifice of the Afro-American (Harding, 1981). However, early events seemed to suggest an alternative out- come. The Freed man's Bureau was established by Congress in 1865 to guide and protect the freed Africa ns. I t was to: l) set up schools for them; 2) provide medical services, 3) write, supervise and enforce their contracts; 4) manage, lease and sell them confiscated an abandoned land; 5) resettle them; and 6) provide them legal assistance and protection. Moreover, Congress passed three cornerstone Amendments directed toward integration of Blacks in the social fabric on the basis of equality. i.e., the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Essentially, the Thirteenth freed them: The Fourteenth made them citizens, and the Fifteenth gave them the right to vote. Also, Congress passed the 1866 Civil Rights Act (CRA) declaring Black s citizens again; the 1870 Civil Right Act to expand and strengthen the 1866 CRA: and the 1871 CRA which sought to establish equal rights in public facilities and also passed the 1871 Enforcement Act which outlawed white terrorist societies like the Ku Klux Klan. However, economically, Congress did not give Blacks the sup- port they needed and they were essentially reintegrated back into the southern economy under semi-slave conditions as share- croppers. Whites, never accepting the freedom and equality of Afro- Americans, passed Black Codes, patterned after the antebellum slaves codes which made "the control of Blacks by white employers...about as great as that which slaveholders exercised" (Franklin, 1974:241). lnspite of the general assumption among Blacks that the federal government would give them lots of forty acres, and the tacit encouragement given this assumption by the bill which created the Freedman's Bureau, the government never did, thus posing one of the main problems of Black economic adjustment. For with no land of their own, the majority of freed Africans slowly but inevitably returned to the plantation more or less at the mercy of the employers. Moreover, those who did go to urban areas were met with crippling discrimination and severe exploitation. Black carpenters, bricklayers, painters, blacksmiths and other skilled workers were strongly opposed by white artisans in their employment efforts.