Learning from the Past

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (George Santayana, 1905). This quote was given to us as a journal prompt and we had to interpret what Santayana meant. What I interpreted through this quote was that we should remember our past mistakes that we have made and make sure we do not do it again so that we can have a bright and better future. An example of this would be the act of slavery that occurred as far back as Jamestown, Virginia where the first settlers came. The tension between whether slavery should be allowed or should be outlawed grew and grew until the only option left was to go to war. This led to the bloodiest war of United States history. Thus, slavery was abolished and was never seen in America again because people did not want to repeat the tragic event. At first, I thought that everybody would learn from their mistakes from the past, but I was proven wrong. When reading a packet about war, many of the rules have been repeated from the Civil War, World War II, and even modern wars. One of the rules of war is to ever target civilians unless a military target is within a city, then it is considered justifiable. Throughout history, many innocent people have died because of military personnel killing them for no apparent reason. No one has learned from the past mistakes, such as the Atomic Bombings of Japan or Sherman's March to the Sea. My point is that you will learn from the past and correct them in the future, just not all mistakes will be able fixed.     

Treatment of Freed Blacks

After the civil war, the Union and the Confederacy join together once again to form United States. But that is not the only positive thing that comes out of the Union's victory. Late president Abraham Lincoln's vision for free slaves was coming true. It started when Lincoln's  Emancipation Proclamation  freed slaves in the south, but the free blacks in the north took it as if they were officially freed. Soon Andrew Johnson, succeeding Abraham Lincoln is presidency, started to make adjustments in the south to make the south a more appropriate place for the freed slaves. But Johnson decided to appoint people that would not enforce the laws, making it seem that the south was a hospitable place, but it actually was mirroring slavery. This shows how people were still opposing the blacks, as if they did not want to accept the fact that they had to live together. In Mississippi, the Black Codes were created to restrict and limit the freedom of the free blacks, but many people viewed it as laws only for blacks. Many of it was similar to slavery, and the whites determined whether or not they were guilty. The reason whites determined it was because the court was only composed of white people, many of whom were in the south and probably owned a slave. This was a period in which the white Americans had to adjust to the coming of black Americans, and it would  many to accept the fact that America is not only going to be for white people, but for blacks as well.

The Civil War

The year 1861 marked the start of something that would change the United States forever, and it would end after a gruesome 4 years in 1865. This was the era when the United States would have turmoil within itself and cause many conflicts due to political reasons and mainly the issue of slavery. This would lead into the split of the US. becoming the Union and the Confederacy. The Union were the northern part where they were against slavery because it was against the principles of humanity and wanted to merge with the Confederacy to become the United States once again. The Confederacy actually supported slavery as it helped their economy in agriculture and refused to abolish slavery. The trigger of the Civil War was when a group of soldiers that decided to attack Fort Sumter in South Carolina. This is believed that that it is where the first shots were taken place and marked the beginning of the war. Fast forward to 1863 to the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania where the South led by General Robert E. Lee tried to take over Gettysburg, only to be stopped by Ulysses S. Grant. The battle went on for 3 days when there was 75,000 Union soldiers vs. 95,000 Confederate soldiers. This was also where the soldiers that died in the battle got a national cemetery attended by Lincoln himself who also delivered one of his famous speeches. The war ended on April 9, 1865 when General Lee surrendered after the capture of Richmond, Virginia. The last known casualty of the war was on April 14 when President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by a southerner named James Wilkes Booth. The Union won the war and this marked a great turning point in American history with slavery abolished and a new era in the United States.