White Supremacy, Terrorism, and the Failure of Reconstruction in the United States

Abstract Reconstruction failed in the United States because white Southerners who were opposed to it effectively used violence to undermine Black political power and force uncommitted white Southerners to their side. Although structural factors made it harder to suppress this violence, a series of policy failures proved most important. The Radical Republican-led U.S. government did not deploy enough troops or use them aggressively. Nor did it pursue alternative paths that might have made success more likely, such as arming the Black community. The violence caused Reconstruction to fail, and the victorious white supremacists embedded structural racism into the post-Reconstruction political and social system in the South. Reconstruction's failure illustrates the dangers of half measures. The United States sought to reshape the American South at low cost, in terms of both troop levels and time. In addition, the failure indicates the importance of ensuring that democratization includes the rule of law, not just elections. Most important, Reconstruction demonstrates that a common policy recommendation—compromise with the losers after a civil war—is often fraught, with the price of peace being generations of injustice.