After the Civil war (USA)
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By 1860 about 4 million slaves were living in the US. Most of these people had been brought to the United States from Africa. Most of the individuals residing as slaves worked in agriculture, including cotton plantation, a key industry in the southern states. The enslaved people had few rights and were often subjected to harsh and violent living conditions. However, abolitionists vehemently criticized the slave institution and the extreme conditions that African Americans were going through. Their fight for the freedom of the African Americans led to the Civil war that eventually brought to an end the institution of slavery. After the end of the Civil war, the country passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments that were also termed as the civil war amendments. These amendments were aimed at ensuring that there is equality for the freed slaves.
There are critical rights that these amendments brought to the United States. The 13th amendment banned slavery and involuntary servitude except in the cases where it was a punishment for crime. It is this amendment that set the stage for the end of slavery in the country. The 14th amendment changed the definition of a citizen into any born or naturalized person in the US (Burton 2019, 10). Thus, the change brought an end to the Scott V Sandford (1857 supreme court ruling that disallowed African Americans from being citizens of the US (Burton 2019, 10). The 15th amendment allowed all the citizens of the US to vote. Thus any regulation that limits one from voting based on their gender color, race, or past servitude was eliminated. Together, the three amendments brought an end to slavery, allowed all African Americans to be citizens of the US, and eventually gave them the right to vote.
However, these amendments’ passage was not an easy feat as the southern states were not ready to end the institution of slavery. To keep them segregation of African Americans and Whites, they passed the Jim Crow laws (Ross 2016, 273). The Jim Crow laws were state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation. The directions were meant to marginalize African Americans by denying them the right to vote, hold jobs get the education or other opportunities. Individuals that recited these laws face arrest, fines, and violent death, and jail sentences.
In trying to ensure that African Americans followed the regulations, several organizations emerged. One of these was the Ku Klax Klan. The group started in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, a private club for Confederate veterans (Ross 2016, 273). Slowly the group grew into a secret society that terrorized African Americans and seeping through the white southern states. The groups were responsible for the lynching and killing of the thousands of African Americans that were resisting white supremacy. During the Jim Craw laws, African Americans joined movements that agitated their rights (Ross 2016, 273). Groups such as the KKK felt that these individuals did not deserve any freedoms and thus focused on killing anyone involved in these movements. Despite these killing, the African Americans persisted, and the Jim Craw laws came to an end at the beginning of the reconstruction era.
In conclusion, the abolitionist movement was critical in America as it provides a chance for African Americans to be part of the mainstream society. The end of slavery was orchestrated by the 14th, 13th, and 15th amendments. Through these amendments, African Americans were given the right to be citizens, vote, and even be treated fairly.
References
Burton, O.V., 2019. The Creation and Destruction of the Fourteenth Amendment Duringthe Long Civil War. Louisiana Law Review, 79(1), p.9.
Ross, M.A., 2016. The Supreme Court, Reconstruction, and the Meaning of the Civil War. J. Sup. Ct. Hist., 41, p.275.