The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln in Pennsylvania is termed as one of the most influential speeches in the history of America. In the speech, he invoked the principles of equality for all humans and stated the right to freedom form independence together with the preservation of the Union that was created in 1776. It was ideal for self-governance. Soldiers killed in previous battles were quickly buried in graves that were poorly marked. Lincoln during the dedication of cemetery stated that the Civil War was a test of whether the union set in 1776 would survive. The great task for the Americans remained to be ensuring that a new nation is born, “with government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”. The issuance of the preliminary proclamation by Lincoln in 1862 was to warn that he would order the emancipation of all slaves in all states which had not ended their rebellion against the Union until 1863. Southerners got enraged and envisioned a racial war. The proclamation was meant to free slaves from their masters and join the efforts of the entire American fraternity in fighting for freedom and thus broadening the goals of the Civil war.
Reconstruction was aimed at getting the South back to its feet economically. So many damages characterized the era as cities were razed. Freeing slaves crippled in the farms was a major problem (Foner, 268). The South resented the Northern intrusion and led to the reconstruction policy failing. Reconstruction’s objective was to bring equality for the black Americans after the civil war but it was resisted by the southerners who never abided to the laws passed to free the slaves. The common segregation practices common in the era exacerbated the regional tensions between the two regions. This situation remained unresolved and the assimilation of the African Americans largely failed into the larger culture and fabric of society revealing the segregation of the American democracy without freedom as blacks were not allowed to vote. The slaves in south remained uneducated, unequal and unsuccessful as they did not own lands.
Jim Crow laws encompassed the prohibition of interracial marriages and laws that enforced the doctrine of separate but equal. This greatly prevented racial integration on all public places that in turn saw the construction of racially segregated restaurants and schools. These laws started being effected after the legal end of slavery in US in 1800s. These laws were applied in all federal government workplaces and in traffic also were whites were granted the rights to drive under all circumstances. These laws robbed the blacks the right to vote by regarding them as 2nd class citizens. Most of the Jim Crow laws were overhauled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Work Cited
Eric Foner. Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction.Vintage Books, 2006 - History - 268 pages
