Reconstruction: America's First Effort at Racial Democracy

This book is an update of the 1971 edition and includes the latest scholarship on Reconstruction with emphasis on the racial problems of the period, the failure of the radicals to gain control, and the legacy of the constitutional amendments of the time. Stressing the shortcomings of presidential Reconstruction, it deals with congressional plans to overcome Andrew Johnson s resistance to the thorough integration of the freedmen into society, the period of congressional Reconstruction, the impeachment of the president, and the restoration of conservative rule. Four additional documents have been included to complement the text.