Newspaper research

Max Miller 

Newspaper Research 

 Looking over the 19th century archive of newspapers there were many things that stood out to me. At first I knew that democrats would be against reconstruction, but I had thought that they disliked it simply because it was against their beliefs about how the south should be treated. As I continued my research I came across the Public Ledger a newspaper from Tennessee, this newspaper was claiming that the reconstruction in the south was unconstitutional, it alleged that the turmoil that reconstruction caused was a result of radical republicans in congress acting in an unconstitutional way. The New York Herald also has an article on reconstruction, however this article is celebrating the actions that resulted from reconstruction. This article is saying how the south is in desperate need of infrastructure after the war and it is the Norths duty to help them, it even goes as far as saying that it is the Norths "burden" to help the south. The article continues to go on acknowledging the shortcoming and failures of reconstruction, but unlike the Public Ledger which says that this is due to unconstitutional acts of radical republicans, the New York Herald claims that this is because of the lack of competency and presence of corruption among southern democrats in charge of reconstruction projects in the south. 

Unlike a textbook an archive can give many points of perspective from a range of areas and dates, while a textbook can give a broad overview of facts and the opinions and feelings going on in a certain period of time. 

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