The civil war was doubly tragic because it was completely unnecessary. Slavery had been ended in other nations with the stroke of a pen, and yet in the mighty United States the country was willing to go to war over the issue of whether slavery should remain. The southerners felt that it was their constitutional right to own slaves and did not see a time when they should be required to give up that right. …showed first 75 words of 662 total…

…showed last 75 words of 662 total…they still treated them as they did before, often outside of the legal limits. Even after the 14th amendment which legally made people of color American citizens, there were strong racial and prejudicial feelings which ran rampant in the south, for example the KKK, and Jim Crow Laws, and literacy tests for the right to vote. African Americans endured these hardships for years to come, indeed until the civil rights movement in the 20th century.