Eric Foner free essay sample

The most important chapter in this reading is when goner talks about how freedom means different things to different people. Fonder explains the two different types that people think about freedom. The first way people think of freedom is by protecting individuals from authority. The second is to make choices freely without anyone concerned about you. This part was important because no one was use to this concept so it took time to get this in their head. As these different kinds of freedom were put into peoples heads, their revisions were spurred on by social conditions.The exclusions of freedom are central to defining who is able to enjoy it, no matter of class, race, and gender. Expanding freedom was a big part of what was going on during this time; people just couldnt watch the news and tell what is going on. The black codes tried to restrict their freedom as long as possible. We will write a custom essay sample on Eric Foner or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Today every man is created equal because Of these sat naiads that were Set long ago. The union winning the war was a major role in defining freedom. By the union winning it expanded the power of the federal government.Giving them more control to enforce freedom among enslaved African Americans. The south wanted to keep slavery as long as they possibly could. The women were happy that the blacks were now considered citizens and were free and able to vote, but now they felt left out and believed that they should have their own rights too. Women did not have the right to vote until 1920. Blacks were allowed to vote in 1870, so it took a while for women to have the right to vote. During the reading it reviews the constantly changing view on the subject of he Reconstruction.The postwar Reconstruction period has been viewed in many different lights throughout history but one fact remains true, that it was one of the most violent, dramatic and controversial times in Uses history. Eric Fonder talks about the way the Reconstruction was a period of intense, corruption and manipulation of the freedman. After mentioning the old way of thinking before the sasss, Eric goner reveals the reason for this train of thought, the ignored testimonials of the black freedman.People attending schools before sasss were learning about certain carpetbaggers, scalawags, and the Radical Republicans. According to the historians before the event of sasss revision, these people are the reason that the white community of South banded together to overthrow these black governments and restore home rule. While this might have been true if it was not for the fact that the carpetbaggers were former Union soldiers, Scalawags emerged as Old Line Whig Unionists. Eric Fonder wrote the lines in his thesis The New View ofReconstruction to show us how completely of target the historians before the sasss revision were in their beliefs. Agree with the Eric Boners belief that the Reconstruction was not extreme enough to accomplish what was originally proposed by President Lincoln, complete emancipation of all slaves, complete racial equality, and forty acres and a mule. What happened was that the ex-slaves became tangled in a some sort of no-mans land where they were not slaves anymore but could not be considered really free since the freedman did not receive the American ideal of equal citizensh ip.