In Davis’ coverage of the Civil War and its aftermath, the shift away from acknowledging slavery as the causation of the war struck me the most. \u00a0At the outset, the war undoubtably resulted from the South reacting to preserve its lucrative institution. \u00a0In the years following, southerners abandoned this and focused on the alleged peaceful, harmonious antebellum South. \u00a0 Davis’ claim that, “slavery was ‘in no wise the cause of the conflict, but only an incident'” (Davis 304), revealed the ridiculous reversal of Southerners following the war. \u00a0Sadly, racism allowed for this rhetoric to persist, and Americans “struggled to preserve the revolutionary or ’emancipationist’ meaning of the Civil War” (305).<\/p>\n

Davis began by describing incredible elation of the freed slaves and followed that by detailing the unfortunate lack of consideration they experienced after the war. \u00a0This framework really drove home how Americans suppressed a lot of the revolutionary aspects of the war. \u00a0JANEWTON wrote, “Another reason it was deemed a good war is that the North didn\u2019t unleash ‘full vengeance’ on the states that had seceded and kept blacks from taking over parts of the south” (http:\/\/sites.davidson.edu\/his141\/author\/janewton\/). \u00a0While the North’s forgivingness aided the peaceful reconciliation between the sections, its “willingness to give Southern whites a free hand in defining and presiding over all racial policies” (Davis 300), substantially reduced blacks’ roles in society for decades.<\/p>\n

When Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, he made the war one against slavery and racial inequality. \u00a0Unfortunately, this meaning lost influence during the years following the war. \u00a0Racism permeated the entire country, and the majority of whites were unready to coexist with such a large population of free blacks. \u00a0Nonetheless, I found it remarkable that such strong tensions and hatred existed in this country for so long after such a revolutionary war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Davis’ coverage of the Civil War and its aftermath, the shift away from acknowledging slavery as the causation of the war struck me the most. \u00a0At the outset, the war undoubtably resulted from the South reacting to preserve its lucrative institution. \u00a0In the years following, southerners abandoned this and focused on the alleged peaceful, … <\/p>\n

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