History 371

Devine

Spring 2014

Questions on Emancipation and Reconstruction

Why were southern plantation owners in particularly bad financial shape after the Civil war?

Why could “freedom” be both a blessing and a curse for African Americans right after the Civil War?

Why was it so difficult for the freedmen to escape oppression and make a life for themselves after the Civil War?

What had poor southern whites lost as a result of the Civil War?

Why did Lincoln propose a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery rather than just having Congress pass a law ending it?

Why did the assassination of Lincoln make it less likely that reconstruction would be easy on the South?

Why were the changes the Radical Republicans proposed for the South so radical?

Why were most Americans reluctant to support the Radical Republicans’ plans for the South?