Whether the Wade-Davis Bill was a positive or negative is, of course, a matter of opinion. In any case, President Lincoln killed the bill by pocket veto. One thing that can be said for certain is that the bill's provisions were good for African-American men in the South, as they would have been allowed to vote. This step, viewed as remarkably radical in 1864, would not be fully undertaken until the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment over five years later. It would also have been a positive for the Republican Party, which would have benefited from the vote of newly-enfranchised freedmen. The group that would have certainly viewed it as a negative would have been Southern whites, fifty percent of whom in each state were required to take a loyalty oath to the Union before readmission of their state was possible. Lincoln ultimately refused to sign the bill because he favored a more conciliatory approach toward the readmitting the Southern states. The general spirit of the bill however, especially voting rights for freedmen, underlay the Reconstruction program of the so-called "radical" Republicans, who came to power in Congress at the end of the war. All in all, it would be my argument that the Wade-Davis Bill, because it placed African-American suffrage on the national political agenda, was a positive.
https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=37
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Is the Wade Davis Bill negative or positive? Why?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Why is the fact that the Americans are helping the Russians important?
In the late author Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, the assistance rendered to the Russians by the United States is impor...
-
Friar Lawrence plays a significant role in Romeo and Juliet's fate and is responsible not only for secretly marrying the two lovers but ...
-
Suppose that the average daily food consumption $F$ of a herbivorous mammal with body weight $x$, where both $F$ and $x$ are measured in pou...
-
Pablo Neruda's "Ode to My Socks" is full of figurative language, including similes and metaphors. Similes are figurative compa...
-
In the late author Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, the assistance rendered to the Russians by the United States is impor...
-
Evaluate $\displaystyle \int x^2 \cos mx dx$ by using Integration by parts. If we let $u = x^2$ and $dv = \cos mx dx$, then $d...
-
Resourceful: Phileas Fogg doesn't let unexpected obstacles deter him. For example, when the railroad tracks all of a sudden end in India...
-
Iago states in act 1, scene 1 that he is jealous Othello made Cassio his lieutenant. Iago believes he has had more battle experience and is ...
No comments:
Post a Comment