(Why) Did Reconstruction Fail? Legislating and Constitutionalizing Civil Rights. (2nd October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Stoner, James R.
• Is Part Of: Perspectives on political science. Volume 48:Number 4(2019)
• Page Start: 224
• Page End: 233
• Publication Date: 2019-10-02
• Subjects: Political science -- Book reviews -- Periodicals; Political science literature -- Periodicals; Political science -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; Political science; Political science literature; Political science -- Study and teaching; Book reviews; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 320
• DOI: 10.1080/10457097.2019.1630206
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1045-7097

Abstract

Abstract: The Thirty-ninth Congress, which was elected in November 1864 and began its first session in December 1865, undertook three tasks: to restore the Union after the Civil War, to amend the Constitution to ensure citizenship to the freedmen, and to legislate federal guarantees for their civil rights. Considering the political constraints of their situation—a hostile President and intransigence in many of the states of the former Confederacy—this essay aims to catalogue and assess the achievements of that Congress. While the Fourteenth Amendment in the long run served its intended purpose and the Civil Rights and Reconstruction Acts secured for a while the integration of the freedmen into the polity, Reconstruction failed to win widespread consent and proved impossible, at least politically, to continuously enforce.