Reflection
Going through old newspaper sources was very much different from reading a text book generalization. The newspapers were a lot more interesting and more informative about how exactly the Southern's believed and thought about the blacks and the radical republicans. Whereas, the textbook talks more extensively about events, amendments, and the results of these that were happening in the time period and glosses over how each side actually really felt and believed. Also, the newspapers were incredibly biased which could influence how people reading them felt about the "negro" issue, whereas, the textbook is completely unbiased allowing the reader to have their own opinion. The newspapers were somewhat similar to what I expected because i assumed they would be very offensive towards blacks and very against freeing them. However, I was not expecting the newspapers to be outright offensive towards the white republicans and criticize them so much; I thought it would be more passive aggressively. I found it interesting and noteworthy that the Michigan people were not all willing to let the blacks be voted free because they didn't want twelve hundred slaves gaining the ability to vote. This was somewhat surprising because Michigan was a republican state. Also, I didn't realize the full scale of the amount of slaves being freed and knowing Michigan's twelve hundred slaves was actually a very small slave population compared to southern states was very important.
The Reconstruction ended in 1877 because of the Compromise if 1877 where the Republicans compromised if the South would vote Rutherford Hayes into presidency they would withdraw the rest of their troops from the southern states and would let the republican governments that still lasted in the south completely fall.
Sources:
AP US History Notes: The End of Reconstruction
Library of Congress: The Daily Clarion
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