Have you ever knocked somebody down? Perhaps you tackled someone playing football or soccer. Maybe you ran into a person by accident. Hopefully, it was not the result of a fight (unless of the pillow or snowball variety).
Regardless of the reason, after knocking someone to the ground, you have a choice to make. You can pretend like nothing happened and walk away. Especially if you knocked the person down in anger, you can continue to hurt the person on the ground. Or, you can extend a helping hand to pick the person back up.
Your decision will go a long way to determining how the two of you will get along in the future. It's the choice of the victor—walk away, kick a person while they are down, or help them back up.
→ Quick Reflection: The last time you knocked someone to the ground, how did you react? Why?
After the Civil War, the North found itself with the victor's choice. The South was a defeated nation in 1865. Hundreds of thousands of its citizens had died, killed in the prime of their lives. Plantations lay in ruin. The economy was a disaster, made worse by slaveholders finding that two billion dollars of their "property" had just been eliminated via the Emancipation Proclamation.
The North had to decide how to readmit the South back into the Union. After losing 300,000 of its own soldiers to war, the North could have chosen to inflict more damage on the South out of anger, or it could try to heal both sides.
The South had a choice as well. Its defeat meant that it had to rejoin the United States. It could do what the North wanted and change its ways, particularly in its treatment of its newly freed slaves. If the North chose to extend a helping hand, it could take it and work hard to rebuild one country.
Or, it could try and resist. The South was through fighting the Civil War, and slavery was over. However, it could try and rejoin the Union in a way that would let it continue to exist as close as possible to the way things were before the war.
This resource is about the choices that the North and South made in trying to put the country back together. The period from 1865-1877 is known as Reconstruction. This resource will examine some of the basic policies of the government in Washington on how to put the country back together.
→ Quick Reflection: Based on the scenarios above, what should the North and South do? Answer in your notes.