Consequences

Abstract

The first of two chapters in Part III, Chapter 7 investigates the period between 1865 and 1871. Reintegrating former Confederates equally into the postwar republic proved to be a great challenge. As they reconstructed their shattered society, former slaveholders also rebuilt a rigid racial and social hierarchy that resembled the antebellum South and other hemispheric post-emancipation societies. Suffocating restrictions on Black freedom enforced by devastating racial violence convinced myriad loyal citizens and Republicans that the Union remained unstable and retained an unscrupulous Old World aristocratic ruling class. To dismantle the lingering presence of slaveholding and racial privilege, Republicans and freedpeople engaged in a revolutionary alteration of American life through the 14th and 15th Amendments joined by the unprecedented transformations wrought by Black citizenship, voting rights, and office holding. By 1870-71, the Union appeared finally to have aligned with the founding ideals of liberty and equality for all.