Argumentative Essay: Gideon Jackson's Fight For Freedom
At Appomattox Courthouse, General Lee laid down his arms, and then it was all finished (prologue). Gideon Jackson, a former slave, is a strong man, full of integrity who had taken up arms with the north to fight for freedom. After the war is over, Gideon returns home to Carolina, the Carwell Plantation, and his family, Rachel, his wife, Jenny, the youngest, Marcus, the middle boy, and Jeff, the oldest. The Carwell Plantation is closed up, all the overseers are gone, and the slaves left alone. The former slaves stayed in the only homes they have known, the old slave quarters, planting crops to sustain themselves. All men over twenty-one years are called from Congress to vote. The vote is either “For a Constitutional Convention” or “Against a Constitutional Convention.”. Along with the vote, a delegate is chosen by ballot to represent the people in the
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The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments established a new vision of equality before the law, regardless of race, as the definition of American citizenship, and of the national government as the protector of the fundamental rights of all Americans (Intro X). Powerful words on paper, and if they would have been acknowledged by those whose prejudice against blacks was stronger than the acceptance that they are an individual people with rights, it is possible reconstruction may have lasted and our history as a country would have been much different. How would the country (or the world) be if reconstruction would have been a success? How would it have been if the Ku Klux Klan had not decided that white supremacy was the only way? I am disappointed that hate and racism are still so prominent in society today and not just whites against black, or blacks against white, it is everyone. History repeats itself, this is a known fact. Unless we do something, learn from past mistakes, and make the world a better place for our
The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments established a new vision of equality before the law, regardless of race, as the definition of American citizenship, and of the national government as the protector of the fundamental rights of all Americans (Intro X). Powerful words on paper, and if they would have been acknowledged by those whose prejudice against blacks was stronger than the acceptance that they are an individual people with rights, it is possible reconstruction may have lasted and our history as a country would have been much different. How would the country (or the world) be if reconstruction would have been a success? How would it have been if the Ku Klux Klan had not decided that white supremacy was the only way? I am disappointed that hate and racism are still so prominent in society today and not just whites against black, or blacks against white, it is everyone. History repeats itself, this is a known fact. Unless we do something, learn from past mistakes, and make the world a better place for our