History

Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
Course Title
Date
History
Declaration of Independence
Enlightenment Era introduced reason as the foundation for thought and authority as opposed to the retrogressive traditions as well as superstitions. The period led to the rise of tolerance freedom of speech, and individualism. The philosophy of John Locke emphasized government legitimacy anchored on people’s consent to authority, protection of individual rights, and equality of people under the law (Edwards, Kazin, and Rothman 144). The ideas led to the Declaration of Independence. Political thought transitioned from despotism to liberalism and revolution against inequality as well as property theft (Edwards, Kazin, and Rothman 220). Declaration of Independence represented the shifts by promoting government’s protection of people’s right and legitimacy based on the recognition by the people being governed.
Reconstructing the Nation
The events and outcomes of the Reconstruction would have been different had Lincoln led the nation through the period. Lincoln would have prevented the oppression and corruption during reconstruction despite lacking a solid framework by the time of his assassination (Richardson 16). A moderate and lenient policy would have ensued to court loyalty of the South, facilitate allegiance of ex-rebels, and promote emancipation. The president would have champion Confederates to trade black voting rights to amnesty and promote new leadership by cleaning the old order of Confederacy.

Wetta and Novelli argued that a new war with Radical Republicans would have emerged in pursuit of racial justice against disenfranchisement and segregation (32).
After the Reconstruction
I agree with the persistence of racism in both the North and South lay at the heart of Reconstruction’s failure. White Southerners were seeking to regain power and reestablish their supremacy at the expense of the freed black slaves. Both the North and the South lacked the political will to end racial prejudice particularly in the North (Richardson 41). The racial attitudes thwarted the achievement of civil liberties in the pro-slavery regions and universal suffrage. Furthermore, Richardson notes that the North’s domination did not culminate into a solid plan to win the South and introduce a transitional phase of emancipation (6).

Work Cited
Edwards, Rebecca, Michael Kazin, and Adam Rothman. The Concise Princeton Encyclopedia Of American Political History. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011.
Richardson, Heather Cox. Death Of Reconstruction. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009.
Wetta, Frank J, and Martin A Novelli. The Long Reconstruction: The Post-Civil War South In History, Film, And Memory. New York: Routledge, 2013.