The Civil War and its Aftermath

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The Civil War and its Aftermath
The civil war that occurred more than one hundred and fifty years ago not only reshaped the US but also redefined the aspect of citizenship. Although the battle was fought over slavery, it was not always on behalf of slaves. It is worth to note that this paradox often causes misunderstanding concerning the real cause of the conflict. Irrevocably, the civil war transformed the political, social, economic, and constitutional landscape of the country to a greater extent, more than any other event before. Many of these changes were immediate and dramatic as the US became more aggressive, dynamic, and more prominent internationally. Black slaves were emancipated based on the 13th Amendment recommendations (Coclanis 515). The conflict also promoted national unity with the forcing of the rebellious Southern states back into the Union. The government undertook the tasks of job training, education provision, legal protection, and deeding land to former slaves. Precisely, the Civil War augmented the prospects of the accomplishment of the country’s ideals of equality and freedom.
Although many people assumed that the scar of slavery had been terminated with the end of the Civil War, oppression still existed in the form of sharecropping. Due to the absence of independent credit system, the sharecropping system allowed planters to lease their land to tenants in exchange for a share of the crop. The system encouraged resilience among tenants who worked extremely hard to realize the biggest harvest and remain tied to the land.

The high-interest rates associated with the system, unscrupulous planters, and unpredictable yields often kept tenant farm families severely indebted (Coclanis 520). They were usually forced to carry over the debts to the next planting season. What is more, laws favoring landowners complicated the ability of tenants to get themselves out of these debts. Sharecropping constituted a new form of slavery whereby wealthy landowners exploited black tenants with unfavorable terms.
Work Cited
Coclanis, Peter. A. The American Civil War and Its Aftermath. The Cambridge World History of Slavery, 2017, 513-539.